We today are so conditioned to think A Midsummer Night’s Dream one of the most charming plays there is that we may find it hard to believe that for a long time it was the least popular of Shakespeare’s comedies. The main objection centred on the disparity between the three groups of characters. Music might make amends for such silliness but only if one of the groups was cut out. In 1716, Richard Leveridge had published the words of his Comick Masque of Pyramus and Thisbe. In it, he kept most of ...