indifferent, and it is so obsessed with the glamour or the tragedy of sex, that it assumes that nothing else is of interest to the average man or woman." If this impeachment is true-and the censure is probably rather under than over the mark — what better could the multitude do than go back to Shakespeare, and wash and refresh themselves in his invigorating waters! If a man will not believe another, let him make the experiment for himself, for there are medicinal properties in Shakespeare, for the body as well as for the mind. So many people, when they are miserable, hard hit, and down in their luck as the saying is, betake themselves, if they betake themselves to books at all, to what they call consoling literature, that is, a literature for the time being like-minded with themselves, which sympathises with their sufferings, and nurses their sorrow. But this surely is a mistake, it only inflames and keeps open the wound. They read, let us say, poems like The Hound of Heaven, by Thomson, or The Everlasting Mercy, by Masefield, which may, or may not be, the outpourings of genius, but which are intense and morbid to a degree, are very depressing, and create in one the feeling of approaching dissolution: whereas Shakespeare is nearly always optimistic, virile, and buoyant; the very abundance and excess of his vitality imparts itself, unconsciously though it may be, to the reader himself. What the great Dr Johnson would have made of much of the latter - day literature one trembles to think. He wielded a heavy and relentless bludgeon, and spared no writer, great or small. He invariably discovered the weak points in a man's literary armour, and exposed them with merciless severity. Dr Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" has received high praise from many exalted quarters, but notwithstanding its many excellencies one can never quite rid oneself of the feeling that Dr Johnson was hardly the right person to handle with sufficient delicacy and care, the more subtle effusions of the human soul. He was no tender wet-nurse, and a sucking poet on presenting his efforts must have trembled at what reception they would meet with at his hands. “Trash, sir, dig potatoes," would have been as likely a verdict as any other. But Johnson had for the most part to deal with virile writers, many of them his intellectual equals, and not a few of them his superiors in genius; men who wrote because their whole being was in their work, and because they had, or thought they had, a message to deliver to mankind. Whereas most of the literature of the day, outside, of course, journalism, technical works, biographies, travels, and so forth, is obviously faked and artificial, written merely to tickle the ears and excite the passions of the groundlings, and with the avowed purpose of scraping up what little money there is to be scraped up, by such a doubtful and very precarious commodity. But notwithstanding Shakespeare's wonderful gifts and the still more wonderful use he has made of them, it is doubtful if he is appreciated by his countrymen as he should be. The day of his popularity has yet to dawn, as dawn it surely will, using the word popularity in its widest and most democratic sense. There are probably a hundred people who read "Dickens" to one who reads "Shakespeare," though Shakespeare's writings have a far greater and more varied range than those of Dickens, and as pure literature are on an incomparably higher plane. The sale of his works is no criterion whatever of his popularity, as "Shakespeare" is regarded by most people as a sort of lay Bible, and an imperative possession for every man with any pretence to education. But how few people read him, still less study him, and make him their own! If they possess a copy of his works it lies on the table, or on the shelf, a piece of inert, dusty, and disregarded matter, to be referred to possibly on occasion to verify some quotation, or to fortify a paterfamilias and prevent him from displaying too crass an ignorance on an occasional excursion to the play. One gentleman went even so far as to hazard the observation that he never read Shakespeare, as there were so many common sayings in him. Surely no greater compliment was ever paid to any writer. The majority of writers and speakers hardly realise how great is the debt they owe him. They frequently quote him quite unconsciously, or if consciously never acknowledge the reference. Let us take, as instances, four celebrated quotations by four very celebrated men. Were they aware when they made them, or were they not, to whom they were indebted for their smart sayings? Of course it is just possible though hardly likely, that the same ideas clothed in precisely the same words, might have presented themselves to the mind of each, independently of Shakespeare altogether. The late Mr Gladstone's well-known phrase of bundling the Turks, "bag and baggage," out of Europe, will be within the recollection of every one. Shakespeare twice at least uses this very phrase. Once in Winter's Tale : "The enemy with bag and baggage," and again in As You Like It: "Though not with bag and baggage." : Lord Beaconsfield is reported to have said that in flattering royalty it was necessary to lay it on with a trowel. Celia, in As You Like It, makes use of a similar expression in her answer to Touchstone : 'Well said, that was laid on with a trowel." Then again there is Mr Chamberlain's celebrated "Long Spoon" speech. Mr Chamberlain in that speech is related to have said, "Who sups with the devil must have a long spoon." This is taken from the Comedy of Errors: "Dormio. Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil." The origin of this quotation greatly puzzled many people at the time, and was the subject of much discussion in the Press. The fourth is one by the late Professor Huxley. Huxley used to say that he would rather worship a wilderness of monkeys, than collective humanity, so Shylock in the Merchant of Venice: "I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys." And here before reaching the main body of the book and entering upon the details which must naturally accompany it, it may not be out of place to lay before the reader some of Shakespeare's leading characteristics and merits, and a few also of the disabilities and limitations under which he suffers as a popular writer, and then to offer, merely by way of suggestion, the best method to pursue in reading Shakespeare, for the purpose of appreciating and understanding his works as a whole. First and foremost then, by the admission of all, Shakespeare is primarily and essentially the poet of Nature. Shakespeare in his treatment and description of Nature does not fondle her with the gentle and caressing affection of a Wordsworth, who apparently experienced much the same satisfaction in contemplating Nature that a cat might feel when purring composedly before a kitchen fire. Nor does he display in his dealings with her that transcendental and ethereal delight which became Shelley so well. His love for her, though equally true, is more brilliant, virile, and direct. He does not interpret her so much from within, but regards her after his manner, almost invariably from without. In Shakespeare one rather misses that intimate and subtle connection between Nature and the soul of man for which Wordsworth is so conspicuous. In the former the communion is not so close, nor the amalgamation so complete. Shakespeare with all his great powers could possibly never have written the following lines, so complete is the union, and so perfect the harmony between the author and what he sets himself to portray : "The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place. Where rivulets dance their wayward round "A slumber did my spirit seal I had no human fears She seem'd a thing that could not feel No motion has she now, no force; Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course With rocks, and stones, and trees." The disciples of Wordsworth and Shelley would probably deny that Shakespeare was a true poet at all. But Shakespeare is notwithstanding, a poet, and a very great poet indeed, though it must be admitted that after the manner of Wordsworth and Shelley he |