for reflection. Speech is too hurried a medium to allow his full meaning to soak into the mind, and in the hearing and seeing only, much of its merit disappears through the sieve, and is lost either in the splendour of the upholstery, the beauty of the dresses, or in general and inevitable distraction of the whole.

But Shakespeare's popularity suffers from another cause. He has been ear-marked so many people imagine as a classic, and appropriated by the intellectuals, and therefore, so they think, beyond their reach. And once give the people to understand that a book is for the high-brows, and favoured by them alone, and they will - especially in these days of excitement, hurry, and unrest-flee from it as it were a pestilence, and avoid it altogether.

The words, "scholar" and "critic," have an almost terrifying effect on many people, and encourage them to keep their distance. But let them not be afraid, for after all what constitutes a scholar? The word "scholar," so the dictionaries and other authorities inform us, is derived from a Greek word sxoλn, meaning "leisure," and the word "scholar " means a person whose circumstances are so favourable that they enable him to have sufficient leisure to cultivate his character and understanding, usually through the medium of a variety of tongues.

The scholar

Now there are two kinds of scholars. of the letter and the scholar of the spirit. The scholar of the letter pure and simple is a mere pedant, devoted exclusively to the manipulation, arrangement, and classification of words. For any use that he is to himself or anybody else, he might as well occupy his time in playing Patience, or manipulating Chinese puzzles. At the old universities he used to, and probably does still, flourish and abound. To him the end and aim

of all learning, nay, even of existence itself, was to write down in one language or another some brilliant metrical exercise, perfect in its accuracy of accent and composition, and if one were unequal to this particular piece of juggling, one was, in the eye of that pedant, outside the pale altogether, and hardly worthy of a back-seat in the ranks of educated men.

But there is another and a very different class of scholar, the scholar of the spirit—that is, the scholar who loves books for their own sake and for the instruction and beauty to be derived from them, and who likes to acquire and appropriate to himself, what is best in the writings of others. He likes their thoughts to soak into his thoughts, and to recognise their feelings in his own. This kind of scholar really lives and grows. By constant reading either in one language or in many he can gauge the value of a book almost at a glance, and can rip out, as it were, its contents, and extract its life blood, in a space of time that would appear almost incredible to another. The knowledge of many languages is not essential to him, for he soon discovers that though there are many tongues among men, there is but one for the immortals.

So let no man be frightened by the word "scholar." Indeed, so little of a scholar was Shakespeare himself that he did not even know how to spell his own name; but in this he was not peculiar, for many eminent authorities spell it differently, and the correct and appropriate letters that make up the immortal word have yet to be decided on.

Collier spells it "Shakespeare," Professor Dowden "Shakspere," and the Globe edition "Shakspeare." So much for scholarship!

And how about the great army of annotators, revisers,

amenders of texts, and so forth? They, of course, have their uses. They preserve, keep clean, and explain to the best of their ability, the original intent and meaning of an author, and preserve his work from interpolation and defilement; but even they, though useful, are by no means essential to a right understanding of the original.

Perhaps all have heard the story of the gentleman who once presented an old lady with a copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress," edited and annotated by himself. On a subsequent interview he asked her what she thought of his effort. "Well," she answered, “I always thought I understood my 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and I hope to understand your notes in time."

There are doubtless many words in Shakespeare that are obsolete and obscure. Some may have been dying words when he used them; some may have been coined, ad hoc, by Shakespeare himself, and have perished, and dropped out of the language when there was no further use for them; others, again, may be mere words of locality and technique, and therefore no longer survive. But any reader of ordinary understanding really needs but little assistance in this way; the surrounding context nearly always throws sufficient light on almost any word to make its meaning fairly intelligible.

Then how should Shakespeare be read?

Dr Johnson, with his usual sound, common sense, points out the way, and if we would get the best out of Shakespeare, it is perhaps the true, and in the end shortest, method to pursue.

"Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every

play from the first scene to the last, with the utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald, and of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption ; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read the commentators.

“Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book which he has too diligently studied.

“Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design, and in its true proportions; a close approach shows the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer."

It is true Shakespeare's language is at time coarse and needlessly obscene, but even here, true to his own nature and the English character, it is always direct and never seductive, and may be attributed either to the language of his age, to his own love of fidelity, or to his lowly origin, or possibly to a mixture of all three : but as a rule so beautiful, simple, and direct is it, that the wayfaring man, and even the fool, need hardly err therein.

His day, as has been said, especially among his own countrymen, as a popular writer is yet to dawn. Taken as a whole, the English here, as elsewhere, true to their

character, largely neglect and disregard the works of the greatest writer of them all.

The resident of London, it has been said, knows less of his great city than even the occasional visitor. In the same way a native born Englishman possibly knows less of Shakespeare than his cousins in America, Germany, and the Colonies.

And yet Shakespeare to the Englishman of the day should be the very poet they desire. His works are for all men, and for all time, because they treat of the universal and elementary passions of human nature, and decipher and depict with unerring instinct and power, the lives, feelings, needs, and aspirations of the ordinary individual man. The age, it has been said, is a materialistic one; well, Shakespeare is materialistic too, that is to say, he concentrates on living matter and hard realities, and he sees and represents things as they really are, and as they really do occur. say this, is in no way to disparage Shakespeare, or to cast an indirect slur on the inner nature of his mind.

Το

The word "materialistic" is used here not in contradistinction to the "spirit," but merely as showing a preference for the concrete, in actual and visible embodiment.

Shakespeare is no inspirer, and no prophet, and he has no one message in particular to deliver to mankind.

Lovers of theology, psychology, and abstract speculation must find their satisfaction elsewhere; Shakespeare confines himself to this present world, and never knocks his head against the walls of the universe. At times he seems almost on the point of raising the veil, and letting us in some measure into the secret of his own ideas on the mysteries of the universe, and of life; but