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 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 A^A^J^ 
 
 .*i^
 
 ESSAYS ON 
 ENGLISH STUDIES 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D. 
 
 Edited, with Preface, Introduction, and Notes 
 
 BY 
 
 A. J. GEORGE, LiTT.D. (Amherst) 
 
 Department of English, Newton High School 
 
 GINN & COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
 
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 Copyright, 1906 
 Rv GINN & COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 66. q 
 
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 GINN & COMPANY- PRO- 
 PRIETORS . BOSTON • U.S.A.
 
 !M 
 
 
 TO 
 
 ROBERT HUDSON GEORGE
 
 Yet it is just 
 That here in memory of all books which lay 
 Their sure foundations in the heart of man 
 
 That I should here assert their rights, attest 
 Their honors, and should, once for all, pronounce 
 Their benediction ; speak of them as Powers 
 Forever to be hallowed ; only less. 
 For what we are and what we may become, 
 Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, 
 Or His pure Word by miracle revealed. 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 If by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, 
 national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the 
 future are brought into communication with each other, — if 
 such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the 
 human family, — it will not answer to make light of Literature 
 or to neglect its study ; rather we may be sure that, in propor- 
 tion as we master it, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves 
 become in our own measure ministers of like benefits to others. 
 
 John Henry Cardinal Newman
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In 1 85 1 there was published in Boston an edition of 
 Shakespeare's plays in eleven volumes, edited by Henry N. 
 Hudson. This edition — the second by an American, Ver- 
 planck's being the first — at once attracted the attention 
 of students of literature in Europe and America because of 
 the independence, originality, and suggestiveness revealed 
 in the analysis of the characters, and the insight, sympathy, 
 and sanity of the sesthetic criticism. As a result the editor 
 soon became recognized as one whose opinions challenged 
 attention as did those of Gervinus of Heidelberg and 
 Dowden of Dublin. Professor Hudson's object, everywhere 
 manifest, even in his earlier work, was to quicken in the 
 minds and hearts of readers a love for Shakespeare, as a 
 man and artist, by bringing them into vital relations with 
 his manifold revelations of human life. 
 
 Few of those who have found pleasure in teaching the 
 English classics are aware of what a debt they owe to 
 Professor Hudson, who did pioneer work in making the 
 study of English literature popular in private classes, sec- 
 ondary schools, and colleges. He was able to do this by 
 virtue of his unbounded enthusiasm in his work, his belief 
 that literature properly taught would awaken a living inter- 
 est in all that belongs to humanity, and his wealth of expe- 
 rience in life. His ambition to do this for English literature 
 was not free from disturbing fears that the methods which 
 were so much in vogue in teaching the Greek and Latin 
 
 vii
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 The address on Daniel Webster is included in this vol- 
 ume as being worthy of study beside those later tributes 
 of Honorable S. W. McCall and Honorable George F. Hoar, 
 given at the Webster Centennial at Dartmouth College. 
 
 My thanks are due to Dr. Horace Howard Furness for 
 permission to quote from his correspondence with Dr. 
 Hudson, and to Professor Edward Dowden, of Trinity 
 College, Dublin, for his interesting present-day estimate of 
 Dr. Hudson's work, which appears in the Notes. 
 
 The presence of a cross (+) in the text indicates that there 
 
 is a note on the passage. 
 
 A. J. GEORGE 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts 
 August, 1906
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction xiii 
 
 Preface to School Hamlet. (1879) 3 
 
 English in Schools. (1879) 19 
 
 Shakespeare as a Text-Book. (1870) S3 
 
 How TO Use Shakespeare in School. (1872) . . 63 
 Preface to the Harvard Edition of Shakespeare. 
 
 (1880) 87 
 
 Daniel Webster. A Discourse Delivered on the Hun- 
 dredth Anniversary of the Death of Daniel Webster, 
 
 January 18, 1882 119 
 
 Appendix 163 
 
 Notes i77 
 
 Books Quoted in Notes 205
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Henry Norman Hudson was born in Cornwall, Vermont, 
 January 28, 181 4. His early years were spent on the farm, 
 where he was brought up to know the necessity and the 
 value of application. The only advantages which he had 
 for an education were such as were common in a New 
 England town with its system of district schools. But these 
 advantages should not be underrated, for though the soil 
 was not rich in arts and letters, yet by the discipline of 
 simplicity in habit, truth in speech, and knowledge rightly 
 honored by being associated with power to do some- 
 thing worthy, the youth was being unconsciously nurtured 
 into possibilities of future usefulness. Much of his power 
 to appreciate and interpret Wordsworth was gained in 
 these rural associations, breathing the keen and wholesome 
 air of poverty. 
 
 When eighteen years of age young Hudson left the farm 
 and became apprenticed to a coach maker. During the three 
 years spent in learning his trade he was working extra hours 
 to earn additional wages with which to buy books. How mature 
 his mind had become under the simple and natural training 
 of the time — and especially of the district school where he 
 came upon bits of the great poets and prose writers in the 
 old reading book — is seen from the fact that the first books 
 which he bought were Shakespeare, Milton, Plutarch's Lives., 
 and Butler's Analogy. It was fortunate for him, as he 
 often remarked to me, that at this time he lived in the
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 family of his master in the trade, a man full of sympa- 
 thy, of shrewd observation, and sound sense. The master 
 soon saw that his apprentice was spending his time in read- 
 ing to some purpose, for he talked intelligently and grace- 
 fully upon the subjects in life and letters which interested 
 him ; he therefore suggested to him the possibility of pre- 
 paring for college. The suggestion somewhat surprised the 
 lad, but it pleased him no less, and he at once set about 
 the task of getting ready for the examinations. This he had 
 to do for himself, working late and early at his tasks, for 
 he could get no aid save occasional advice from the local 
 clergyman; and yet in 1836 he entered Middlebury Col- 
 lege, where his older brother was then a student, deter- 
 mined that he would work his way to the end. 
 
 It was during this period that the main elements of his 
 character as revealed later in life received their proper 
 bent. He had Httle time for the usual college festivities, as 
 he was older than the average student and had learned the 
 value of time. He was somewhat shy and reserved ; he 
 lived much by himself, with nature and with books. The 
 libraries attracted him more than the playground. He was 
 studious in much the same way that Emerson was, — a way 
 that did not show immediate returns, and so failed of reward 
 based upon the usual college tests ; consequently he was 
 left unnoticed and in obscurity by the college faculty and 
 most of the students. His tastes were literary and forensic. 
 He was skilled in the art of reading and talking, and when- 
 ever he found students of kindred mind he was free and 
 friendly in conversation, and courageous in presenting his 
 convictions. When speaking of or writing on his favorite 
 authors he was animated and zealous, full of poetic fervor 
 and originality. His essays, especially those on Shakespeare,
 
 INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 were no mere reproductions of facts or the thoughts of 
 others, but were characterized by clear insight, keen 
 analysis, sound judgment, and fervid feeling, enlivened by 
 a quiet and quaint humor. They were free from the spirit 
 of judicial criticism, for he insisted that loving sympathy 
 was the secret of insight. It was this sympathy, this power 
 of making the author's ideas and feelings his own, that won 
 for him the fit audience in that rural college. Reverend 
 H. L. Sheldon, a college mate of his, writes : "At one time 
 when Hudson seemed even more than usually earnest and 
 happy in his comments, I remarked to him : ' Hudson, you 
 will some day write a book on Shakespeare ; I will give 
 you a title, — The Beauties of the World's Greatest Poet.' 
 He replied, * Oh, no ; I read and study this author only 
 because of the genuine pleasure it affords me and the kind 
 of rest it gives me from the fatigue and routine of my col- 
 lege application.' " Here was the substance of his great 
 work as an sesthetic critic, and the fundamental principle 
 in all his teaching of the English classics. From this early 
 recognition of the purpose and the power of great litera- 
 ture he became a bitter enemy of pedantry on the one hand, 
 and of drudgery on the other, which have been so often 
 associated with literary studies, and have done so much to 
 prevent their proper recognition in academic education. 
 
 On graduating from college in 1840 he went to Ken- 
 tucky, where he began teaching. The next two years he 
 taught in Huntsville, Alabama. He continued his Shake- 
 speare studies meanwhile, and gathered material for a series 
 of lectures which he gave to large and enthusiastic audi- 
 ences in the principal southern cities. These lectures 
 revealed such a wealth of ideas, originality of interpreta- 
 tion, ripeness of thought, vigor and mastery of language that
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 their fame traveled northward, and in 1844 he came to 
 Boston and began that work which made him a marked 
 Hterary figure there for nearly half a century. Through his 
 lectures on Shakespeare he became a center of peculiar 
 interest in Boston. He was received with enthusiasm by 
 men as wide apart as Richard H. Dana and Theodore 
 Parker. Mr. Emerson, who was then lecturing upon liter- 
 ary and philosophical subjects up and down the land, was 
 charmed with the personality of the new critic. Mr. George 
 Ticknor was enthusiastic in his admiration for the spirit 
 of the young and chivalrous expounder of the great poet. 
 Hudson soon became as popular as Emerson himself in 
 lecture courses in all the great cities. Mr. Horace Howard 
 Furness writes me, " I vividly remember the enthusiasm which 
 attended his early course of lectures in Philadelphia and the 
 unexampled crowds which attended them." In 1848 he 
 published his lectures with a preface and dedication to Mr. 
 Richard H. Dana. These studies of types of human nature 
 as illustrated in Shakespeare's various characters had a glow 
 and warmth, a freshness of imaginative conception, and a 
 clearness of critical insight superior to that attained by any 
 American writer, and placed their author in the front rank 
 of interpreters. So popular were they that a second edition 
 was called for in less than a year. Dr. Bartol, in reviewing 
 them for the North American Revie^v, said : " Never was a 
 heartier, more absorbing admiration shown than Mr. Hud- 
 son's for his subject. After long-continued meditation and 
 much rewriting these lectures are now presented to us 
 like ' beaten oil,' pure and rich." 
 
 It was but natural that such studies of Shakespeare 
 should lead to a desire to prepare an edition of his 
 works for the purpose of initiating the general reader into
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 a study of the dramatist with a new and more human- 
 istic spirit. In 1851 he brought out an edition of Shake- 
 speare's plays in eleven volumes. This is sometimes called 
 the first American edition because of the enthusiasm it 
 created among readers. Although Mr. G, C. Verplanck had 
 brought out an edition in 1847, it soon became rare because 
 of the destruction of the plates by fire, and Mr. Hudson's 
 edition had the control of the market until Mr. Richard 
 Grant White became his rival. This work owed its repu- 
 tation and success mainly to the character of the critical 
 introductions to the plays in which were found the same 
 unique and admirable interpretations of the characters 
 which had been the feature of his lectures. It was at once 
 evident that Hudson was a pupil of Coleridge, whose 
 criticism was a criticism of love. Coleridge combined the 
 impulse of admiration with the ability to explain why he 
 admired ; he criticised poetry as poetry, not as science. 
 
 In 1852 Hudson married Miss Emily S. Bright, a gifted 
 and cultured lady, whose love was in her home and the 
 things which make home lovely. She became his wisest and 
 most sympathetic critic. In 1859 he was admitted to the 
 diaconate of the Episcopal Church. He was for several 
 years editor of the Churchman and originated the Church 
 Monthly. In 1862, while in his parochial charge in Litch- 
 field, Connecticut, he became chaplain of the New York 
 Volunteer Engineers and war correspondent of the New 
 York E7'ening Post. Being stationed in the department 
 commanded by General B. F. Butler, he wrote a private 
 letter to Mr. Godwin in regard to the general's defeat near 
 Bermuda Hundred. This was used as a part of an editorial 
 in the Evening Post. Soon after this Chaplain Hudson got 
 leave of absence to visit his son who was lying at the point
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of death. After the death of the son Mrs. Hudson was so 
 broken down with grief that the chaplain sent his resignation 
 to his colonel. It was accepted and forwarded to General 
 Butler, who saw his chance to get even with Hudson, and 
 he ordered him to appear at headquarters on the charge of 
 being absent without leave. He was then put into the 
 prison, or " bull pen," as it was called, where he suffered all 
 kinds of indignities and hardships during a period of several- 
 months, until his friends at Washington became informed 
 of the condition of things, when he was released by wish of 
 President Lincoln, and immediately General Grant gave him 
 leave of absence. Later Mr. Hudson took occasion to revievv 
 the case, and in a pamphlet of sixty pages arraigned the 
 motive and method of General Butler in the most scathing and 
 brilliant repartee since Burke's " Letter to a Noble Lord." 
 At the time General Butler was seeking the governorship 
 of Massachusetts Mr. Hudson reprinted the pamphlet as a 
 political document. On this occasion Dr. Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes wrote to him : " Your pamphlet is timely ; it seems 
 to me that the impending election is to mark the choice of 
 Massachusetts between civilization and semibarbarism. I 
 am very glad you have retold your story at a time when it 
 will serve as a strong count in his indictment," 
 
 In 1865 Mr, Hudson moved to Cambridge, where he 
 spent the remainder of his life. He occasionally officiated 
 in churches, but his time was given almost entirely to teach- 
 ing Shakespeare and other English authors and to lectur- 
 ing. When Grant White's last edition of Shakespeare came 
 out Mr. Hudson confessed that it had beaten his, but at the 
 time he said, " Wait awhile, and I will beat White as much 
 as he has now beaten me," His teaching in the school and 
 college led him to urge that Shakespeare be made of more use
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 in English courses, and he began to prepare the plays for 
 such use. The feature of these plays was those remarkable 
 introductions dealing with the characters in their relation to 
 human life and to Shakespeare's mind and art. 
 
 In 1872 he published \\\^magnu7n opus, Shakespeare's Life, 
 Art, and Characters, in two volumes, which is the greatest 
 work in the sphere of aesthetic criticism yet produced in 
 this country, and is the equal of the best by English and 
 German scholars. The concluding act of his literary life 
 was the Harvard Shakespeare, in twenty volumes, published 
 in 1880. This edition, new in the treatment of text, in the 
 introductory matter and notes, at once took its place among 
 the best and most reliable of those intended for the general 
 reader. 
 
 After the completion of the Harvard edition he con- 
 tinued teaching regularly at St. Paul's School, Concord, New 
 Hampshire, at St. Mark's, Southboro, and in the Boston 
 University School of Oratory, where he was a great favor- 
 ite, owing to his kindling intellectual power, quaint humor, 
 and genial manner. One of the masters at St. Paul's writes 
 of him : " The ideal of a well-balanced man was so consist- 
 ently applied by Dr. Hudson, whether to an author's work 
 or to a boy's education, that he saw indeed how excellent 
 nature's provisions are and how good man's will may make 
 his destiny. These aims and standards come back again and 
 again to us with real force as we recall his noble, manly, 
 and eloquent words. He was poet, critic, philosopher, and 
 
 preacher all in one, 
 
 non sorditus auctor 
 Naturae verique ; 
 
 and his wisdom was enforced by the loving example of his 
 own genuine goodness."
 
 XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 Next to Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Burke, and Webster 
 were the authors he most deUghted to expound. Yiis Studies 
 in Wordsworth was a work in every way worthy of him 
 and the poet whom he loved. His admiration for Webster 
 was unbounded, and the quaUty of all he had written and 
 spoken on him was so true and noble that his distin- 
 guished classmate, the Honorable E. J. Phelps, president 
 of the Webster Historical Society, asked him to prepare a 
 life of the great statesman. In February, 1882, Mr. Phelps 
 wrote : " Do not forget that I have appointed you to write 
 that grand life, and shall help you to all constitutional and 
 legal material I know of." 
 
 He had thought long and deeply about Webster, his life 
 and times, and had gathered the material which he was to 
 incorporate into the biography ; he was waiting only until 
 the whole subject should be luminous to his thought when 
 the disease appeared which caused his death. He had not 
 even put pen to paper on this work. His death was sudden 
 and unexpected, as he had been in his usual health and 
 vigor until his last public appearance in a lecture on Cym- 
 beline at Wellesley College. He was much fatigued by the 
 effort ; soon glandular swelling appeared in the neck, 
 which gave his physicians some fear that an operation 
 would be necessary. During the week following I saw him 
 daily, and the only apparent change was declining strength ; 
 that whereas he had been willing to talk (as I was more 
 than willing to listen) now he would say : " You must do 
 the talking. I must listen. Tell me of your work." He was 
 as much interested as ever in any question concerning edu- 
 cation, — especially the teaching of English, — so that while 
 I had some anxiety as to his condition, I did not think that 
 he was seriously ill. When I left him on the evening before
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 the operation there was nothing in his manner to indicate 
 that he was apprehensive of the result. The following letter 
 written to his publisher only a few days before his death 
 reveals the nature of the man, and shows how careful he 
 was not to alarm his friends : " I am no better nor, so far 
 as I can judge, am I any worse than when you called. The 
 principal change is a constant failure of strength. To-morrow 
 (Saturday) at twelve o'clock they will perform a very serious 
 operation on me. What the result may be is, of course, all 
 in the dark. If my hour has come, so be it. Give my cordial 
 regards to all the dear girls and boys in the house, and ask 
 them to give me their good wishes and prayers in this hour 
 of trial. God help me ! and God help us all ! " The shock 
 of the operation was too great for his weakened system, and 
 he died on January i6, 1886. 
 
 Mr. Hudson was a man of marked peculiarities, physical 
 and mental. He has often been compared to Carlyle in the 
 contour of his head and face. The following comparison 
 was written by Reverend Julius Ward in 1880: "He has 
 the same perceptive assaulting brow, the same eager restless 
 eyes, the same personality in speech, the same impetuous 
 utterance, the same intensity of feeling upon great ques- 
 tions, the same glowing passion when aroused, the same spir- 
 itual insight as has Carlyle. He was Carlyle on the lecture 
 platform as truly as Carlyle in conversation. His recent 
 lectures in Hawthorne Hall were rare displays of totally 
 unique powers of public speaking, of a way of saying unfor- 
 gettable things in an unforgettable style, of throwing great 
 force into single sentences, of speaking the truth so that no 
 one can gainsay it. Whenever he has spoken, by word or 
 pen, he has unconsciously spoken or written with the same 
 impetuosity, the same audacity, the same insight which
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 mark the utterances of the venerable Chelsea sage." He 
 was a man of might when paying a tribute to noble men 
 and worthy causes, of large and liberal spirit ; his mental 
 and moral fiber was stanch and true, and hence he was a 
 delightful friend and implacable enemy. He was brilliant 
 in conversation, quick in repartee, pungent in satire, of 
 delicate irony, of shy and gentle humor, merry within the 
 limits of becoming mirth. He was at his best in the privacy 
 of his library when a few friends were present : then the 
 soft blue eyes would kindle with appreciation, or flash with 
 indignation, the features would light up, the lips quiver, 
 and his utterance would assume forms lucid, graceful, witty, 
 pathetic, and imaginative by turns. He became ' the old 
 man eloquent,' stimulating in wit, wholesome in knowledge, 
 full of the genial sap of humanity. No one who enjoyed 
 these familiar expositions, of mellow eloquence, of large and 
 noble discourse full of the sweets of poetry and the wisdom 
 of philosophy, will ever forget them or the charming per- 
 sonality from whom they emanated. 
 
 Of the many tributes of friends, that of Honorable E. J. 
 Phelps, written from the legation of the United States, 
 London, January 30, 1886, is perhaps the most fitting: 
 •' Student, Scholar, Gentleman, Christian, happy in his family, 
 his friendships, his distinguished reputation, his well-earned 
 success : not many reach the limit of three-score and ten 
 with so much to be thankful for, so little to deplore."
 
 ESSAYS ON 
 
 ENGLISH STUDIES 
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 
 
 HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 
 
 PREFACE TO THE HARVARD EDITION OF 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 
 
 Since the first volume of my School Shakespeare made its 
 appearance, which was about nine years ago, very consider- 
 able advances have been made in the way of furniture and 
 preparation needful or desirable for such a work. This is 
 especially the case with the play here presented in a new 5 
 dress. And my own long and constant occupation in teach- 
 ing classes in Shakespeare has, I would fain hope, now 
 brought me a somewhat larger and riper fitness for doing 
 what is requisite in this particular field. Moreover, the 
 stereotype plates of this play, as also of some others, have 10 
 been so much and so often used for the pamphlet sections 
 of the volume, that they have become not a little worn and 
 defaced. These are the principal reasons for setting forth 
 the present edition. 
 
 I still adhere to my old plan of footnotes, + instead of 15 
 massing the annotation all together at the end of the play. 
 This is because ample experience has assured me, beyond 
 all peradventure, that whatever of explanation young stu- 
 dents need of Shakespeare's text — and they certainly need 
 a good deal — is much better every way when placed directly 20 
 under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it ; and because 
 at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over an 
 obscure word or phrase without understanding it, rather 
 than stay to look up the explanation in another part of the 
 volume. In this instance, however, I have meant to exclude 25 
 from the footnotes all matter but what appeared fairly needful 
 
 3
 
 4 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 or useful for a proper understanding of the Poet's language 
 and meaning. As will readily be seen from some of the 
 footnotes, I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, of Zanes- 
 ville, Ohio, for most valuable aid towards this part of my 
 5 task. The matter so used has been communicated to me 
 in a private correspondence with that gentleman, running 
 through several years, and extending over the whole field of 
 Shakespeare, and throwing more light on dark and difficult 
 passages than I have received from any other living com- 
 
 lo mentator on the Poet. 
 
 Another advantage of the method of footnotes is, that 
 it operates as a wholesome restraint against overdoing the 
 work of annotation. And surely, if we may judge from 
 what has been done, it is so much easier to multiply super- 
 
 15 fluous notes than to keep within the bounds of what is fairly 
 needful in this kind, that some such restraint seems eminently 
 desirable. Shakespeare, it scarce need be said, has suffered 
 a great deal from this sort of exegetical incontinence. And 
 perhaps the tendency is stronger now than ever before to 
 
 20 smother his workmanship beneath a mass of needless and 
 even obstructive annotation."*" An inordinate fecundity of 
 explanation is quite too much the order of the day. There 
 have been divers instances, of late, where we find the gloss, 
 I cannot say outweighing, but certainly far outbulking, the 
 
 25 text. Surely it is better to leave students a little unhelped 
 than thus to encumber them with superfluous help. These 
 burdens of unnecessary comment are really a " weariness of 
 the flesh " ; and even hungry minds may well be repelled from 
 a feast so overlaid with quenchers of the appetite. Nor have 
 
 30 the Poet's editors yet got their minds untied from the old 
 vice of leaving many of his darkest things unexplained, and 
 of explaining a multitude of things that were better left to
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 5 
 
 take care of themselves. For pupils ought not to be put to 
 studying Shakespeare at all, imtil they have grown to such a 
 measure of intelligence, that they may be safely presumed 
 to know several things without being told. 
 
 Such being the case, or at least my view of the case, I am 5 
 not without apprehension, that some excess may be justly 
 charged upon what is here done. Self-restrained and spar- 
 ing as I have meant to be, still there is a considerable addi- 
 tion to the number of notes given in my former edition. 
 But, in the matter of annotation, it is not easy to strike just 10 
 the right medium between too much and too little. Here, 
 again, I have been mainly guided by the results of my own 
 experience in teaching ; aiming to give such and so many 
 notes as I have found needful or conducive to a fair under- 
 standing of the Poet's thought. 15 
 
 In the present stage of Shakespearean study, I suppose it 
 would hardly do, even in a book designed for school use, to 
 leave the matter of textual comment and textual correction 
 altogether untouched. Accordingly there will be found, at 
 the end of the play, a body of Critical Notes,"*" wherein I 20 
 have drawn together whatever seemed necessary or desirable 
 to be said in the way of textual criticism, and of comment on 
 such particulars of textual correction as are here admitted. 
 In doing this, I have almost unavoidably been led to note a 
 few instances of different readings. 25 
 
 These few cases excepted, I have purposely, and with full 
 deliberation, abstained from everything in the line of vari- 
 orum comment and citation. For, indeed, such matter, 
 however right and good in its place, can hardly be of any use 
 or interest save to those who are making or intending to 30 
 make a specialty of Shakespearean lore. But, of the pupils 
 and even the teachers in our schools and colleges, probably
 
 6 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 not one in five hundred has, or ought to have, any thought 
 of becoming a speciahst in Shakespeare, or a hnguistic anti- 
 quary in any department of study. To such students, a 
 minute discussion or presentation of various readings must 
 5 needs be a stark impertinence; and its effect, if it have 
 any, can hardly be other than to confuse and perplex their 
 thoughts. In this, as in other walks of human service, the 
 processes of elaborate study are of very limited use, and may 
 well be confined to a few ; while the last results of such 
 
 lo study are or may be highly useful to all. I hold, indeed, 
 that Shakespeare ought to be made much more of than he is 
 in our higher education : '^ not, however, with the view of fit- 
 ting people to be editors and critics ; but that they may 
 have their minds and hearts rightly attuned to the delecta- 
 
 1 5 tions of his poetry and eloquence and wisdom ; and that 
 they may carry from the study some fair preparation of 
 liberal thought and culture and taste into the common pur- 
 suits and interests of life. The world is getting prodigiously 
 overstocked with authors ; ■•" so many are aspiring to gain a 
 
 2o living by their wits, that the thing is becoming a dreadful 
 nuisance : and it really seems full time that we should begin 
 to take more thought how a condition of " plain living " 
 may be sanctified with the grace of "high thinking"; and 
 how even the humbler and more drudging forms of labor 
 
 25 may be sweetened by the pure and ennobling felicities of 
 unambitious intelligence. 
 
 A question has lately been raised, and is still pending, as 
 to the comparative value of verbal and of what is called aes- 
 thetic criticism ; and some have spoken disparagingly, not 
 
 30 to say contemptuously, of the latter, as a mere irrelevancy, 
 which they would fain be rid of altogether. Verbal criti- 
 cism certainly has its place, and in its place is not to be
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 7 
 
 dispensed with ; and it has at least this advantage over the 
 other, that it is strictly necessary in the study of such authors 
 as Shakespeare, who abounds in words and phrases which, 
 to common readers, are quite unintelligible without such 
 help. This, however, may easily be overdone, and in fact 5 
 sometimes has been hugely overdone, insomuch as to be- 
 come little better than a sheer encumbrance ; nevertheless, on 
 the whole, it has been of incalculable service. But the other, 
 I must think, has done good service too, and has fairly justi- 
 fied its claims to a high estimate in Shakespearean lore : 10 
 albeit I have to confess that some discredit has of late come 
 upon it, from the fact that, in divers cases, it has taken to 
 very odd and eccentric courses, and has displayed an ill- 
 starred propensity to speculate and subtilize the Poet's work- 
 manship clean out of its natural propriety. Transcendental 15 
 metaphysics, whether applied to science, to philosophy, to 
 art, or to whatsoever else, of course loves to " reason high, 
 and finds no end, in wandering mazes lost." Whatever it 
 takes in hand, it can easily discover any meaning it wants, 
 and as easily argue away any meaning not in accordance 20 
 with its idealistic predilections ; so using its alchemy as to 
 " extract sunbeams from cucumbers," or to resolve gold into 
 vapor, just as it happens to list. But these abuses may very 
 well be struck ofi without casting away the thing itself. And 
 the aesthetic criticism of Coleridge, Schlegel, Charles Lamb, 25 
 Hazlitt, and Mrs. Jameson, has probably done more to diffuse 
 and promote the study of Shakespeare, than all the verbal 
 criticism in the world put together. + 
 
 The Introduction here given, as also some of the footnotes, 
 is mainly occupied with matter in this line; the aim be- 30 
 ing, to aid such students as may care to be aided, towards 
 what may be termed the interior study of Shakespeare's
 
 8 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 characters. Ordinarily, in books designed for such use as 
 the present, I deem it better to reproduce extracts from 
 approved masters in critical discourse than to obtrude any 
 judgments of my own. But my views of Hamlet are so 
 5 different from those commonly put forth, that in this case I 
 judged it best to set them aside, and to occupy the limited 
 space at my disposal with a presentation of my own thoughts. 
 In this part of the work, I have derived much furtherance 
 from Professor Karl Werder's able essay on Hamlet, portions 
 
 lo of which, very choicely translated, are given in Mr. H. H. 
 Furness's great and admirable work, the variorum edition of 
 the play. My own views were indeed substantially the same 
 long before I had any knowledge of the German Professor, 
 and even before his essay was written ; but I would not if I 
 
 15 could, and certainly could not if I would, disguise that I am 
 indebted to him for much aid, and more encouragement, 
 towards a full statement and expression of them. 
 
 The occasion moves me to protest, with all possible ear- 
 nestness, against the course now too commonly pursued in 
 
 20 our studying and teaching of English literature. We seem 
 indeed to have got stuck fast in the strange notion, that chil- 
 dren are never learning anything unless they are conscious 
 of it : + and so we are sparing no pains to force in them a 
 premature and most unhealthy consciousness of learning. 
 
 25 Nothing is left to the free and spontaneous vitaUties of 
 Nature. Things have come to such a pass with us, that a 
 pupil must hve. 
 
 Knowing that he grows wiser every day, 
 Or else not live at all, and seeing too 
 30 Each little drop of wisdom as it falls 
 
 Into the dimpling cistern of his heart.
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 9 
 
 Hence our education is kept at a restless fever heat of 
 ambition and emulation; and this naturally involves an 
 incessant urging of high-pressure methods. We have no 
 faith in any sowing, save where the seeds " forthwith spring 
 up, because they have no deepness of earth." So eager and 5 
 impatient are we for immediate results, that the conditions 
 and processes of inward growth are, as far as possible, 
 worked off and got rid of. But the results attained by this 
 straining and forcing are necessarily false and delusive ; and 
 presently wither away, because they have no root. 10 
 
 Thus in our hot haste to make the young precociously 
 intellectual, we are just burning real health and vigor of 
 intelligence out of them ;"•" or, at all events, the best that 
 can be gained by such a course is but what Wordsworth 
 justly deprecates as "knowledge purchased with the loss 15 
 of power." For, in truth, when people, of whatever age, see 
 themselves growing from day to day, they are not really 
 growing at all, but merely bloating ; — a puffing up, not a 
 building up. And we shall assuredly find, in due time, nay, 
 we are already finding, that those who get ripe before they 20 
 are out of their teens begin to rot before passing their twen- 
 ties. For such a forced and premature action of the mind 
 can only proceed by overtaxing and exhausting other parts 
 of the system ; and must needs be followed by a collapse of 
 the mind itself equally premature. In other words, where 25 
 the brain is built up at the expense of the stomach, the brain 
 itself must soon break down. And, as " the child is father 
 of the man," so of course the smart boys of our educational 
 hotbeds can only blossom out into grown-up intellectual 
 manikins. 30 
 
 Now, in opposition to all this, be it said, again and 
 again, that the work of education is necessarily secret and
 
 lO HUDSON'S ESSAYS * 
 
 unconscious just in proportion as it is deep and generative. 
 For the mind is naturally conscious only of what touches its 
 surface, rustles in its fringes, or roars in its outskirts ; while 
 that which works at its vital springs, and feeds its native 
 5 vigor, is as silent as the growing of the grass, as unconscious 
 as the assimilation of the food and the vitalizing of the 
 blood. When its springs of life are touched to their finest 
 issues, then it is that we are least sensible of the process. 
 So it is rightly said, " the gods approve the depth and not 
 
 lo the tumult of the soul." Only the dyspeptic are conscious 
 of their gastric operations : the eupeptic never think of 
 their stomachs, are not even aware that they have any. 
 
 One would suppose that a little reflection on the workings 
 of the infant mind might teach us all this."*" For children, 
 
 1 5 during their first five years, before they can tell anything about 
 it, or make any show of it in set recitations, and while they 
 are utterly unconscious of it, do a vast amount of studying 
 and learning ; probably storing up more of real intelli- 
 gence than from any subsequent ten years of formal school- 
 
 20 ing. And such schooling is no doubt best and wisest when 
 it continues and copies, as far as may be, those instinctive 
 methods of Nature. But the pity of it is, that our educa- 
 tion, as if " sick of self-love," appears to spurn the old wis- 
 dom of Nature, preferring to take its rules and measures 
 
 25 from a proud and arrogant intellectualism. 
 
 In the mental and moral world, as in the physical, the 
 best planting is always slow of fruitage : generally speaking, 
 the longer the fruit is in coming, the sounder and sweeter 
 when it comes ; an interval of several years, perhaps of ten, 
 
 30 or even twenty, being little time enough for its full and per- 
 fect advent. For growth is a thing that cannot be extempo- 
 rized ; and, if you go about to extemporize it, you will be
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET II 
 
 sure to cheat or be cheated with a worthless surface imita- 
 tion : that is to say, in place of a growth, which is slow 
 and silent, but full of juice and taste withal, will be substi- 
 tuted a swift, loud, vapid manufacture. 
 
 What a teacher, therefore, most especially needs (and 5 
 parents need it too) is the faith that knows how to work 
 and wait ; — to work diligently, carefully, earnestly ; to wait 
 calmly, patiently, hopefully ; + — that faith which, having its 
 eye on the far-off future, does not thirst for present rewards. 
 
 Nor with impatience from the season ask 10 
 
 More than its timely produce. 
 
 For Nature, the honest old Mother, is far better, stronger, 
 richer, than our busy and meddlesome intellectualists, who 
 are straining so hard to get ahead of her, have the heart to 
 conceive. Human wisdom may indeed aid and further her 15 
 processes ; but it is stark folly to think of superseding them. 
 And the forcing system now so much in vogue is essentially 
 a leveling system ; though, to be sure, it can only level 
 downwards : perhaps, indeed, the circumstance of its look- 
 ing to a compelled equality is what makes it so popular; — 20 
 a thing sure to issue in a manifold spuriousness ! For its 
 estimate of things is, for the most part, literally preposterous. 
 Minds of a light and superficial cast it overstimulates into a 
 morbid quickness and volubility, wherein a certain liveliness 
 and fluency of memory, going by rote, parrot-like, enables 25 
 them to win flashy and vainglorious triumphs by a sort of 
 cheap and ineffectual phosphorescence ; thus making them, 
 as Professor Huxley says, "conceited all the forenoon of 
 their life, and stupid all its afternoon " : while, upon 
 minds of a more robust and solid make, which are growing 30 
 too much inwardly to do any shining outwardly, it has a
 
 12 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 disheartening and depressing effect. Thus the system oper- 
 ates to quench the deeper natures, while kindling false fires 
 in the shallower. 
 
 Hence, no doubt, the feeling, which can hardly be new to 
 5 any thoughtful teacher or parent, that " strongest minds are 
 often those of whom the noisy school hears least." + For, 
 under the system in question, modest vigor is naturally 
 eclipsed by pert and forward imbecility, — the proper charac- 
 teristic of minds that have not strength enough to keep still. 
 
 lo But minds thus heated into untimely efflorescence can hardly 
 ripen into anything but sterility and barrenness : before the 
 season of fruitage, the sap is all dried out of them. To 
 quote Professor Huxley again: "The vigor and freshness, 
 which should have been stored up for the hard struggle for 
 
 15 existence in practical life, have been washed out of them 
 by precocious mental debauchery, — by book-gluttony and 
 lesson-bibbing : their faculties are worn out by the strain 
 upon their callow brains, and they are demoralized by worth- 
 less, childish triumphs before the real work of life begins." 
 
 20 Of those who are so incessantly driving on this bad system, 
 we may well ask, with Wordsworth, — 
 
 When will their presumption learn, 
 That in th' unreasoning progress of the world 
 A wiser spirit is at work for us, 
 25 A better eye than theirs, most prodigal 
 
 Of blessings, and most studious of our good. 
 Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours ? 
 
 Now, Shakespeare, above all other authors, should be 
 
 allowed to teach as Nature teaches, else he ought not to 
 
 30 be used as a text-book at all. And here, I suspect, the 
 
 great danger is, that teachers, having too little faith in the 
 
 spontaneous powers of Nature, will undertake to do too
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 13 
 
 much, will keep thrusting themselves, their specialties and 
 artificial preparations, between the pupil and the author. 
 With average pupils, if of sufficient age, Shakespeare will 
 make his way, slowly and silently indeed, but effectively, pro- 
 vided his proper efficacy be not strangled and defeated by 5 
 an excess of learned verbalism. For his great superiority 
 lies very much in this, that he writes close to facts as they 
 are : no cloud of words, nothing, stands between his vision 
 and the object. Hence with him, preeminently, language 
 is used as a transparent, invisible vehicle of thought and 10 
 matter ; so that the mind, if rightly put in communication 
 with him, thinks not of his expression at all, but loses sight 
 of it, in the force and vividness of what is expressed. Beau- 
 tiful his speech is indeed ; but its beauty lies in this very 
 thing, that it is the crystal shrine, itself unseen, of the speak- 15 
 ing soul within. The less, therefore, the attention of students 
 is diverted from his matter to his language by external calls, 
 the quicker and stronger will be their interest in him ; — an 
 interest free, natural, and unconscious indeed, but all the 
 better for that : so that the teacher will best further it by 20 
 letting it alone ; will most effectively help it by leaving it 
 unhelped. For the learning of words is a noisy process ; "^ 
 whereas the virtue of things steals into the mind with noise- 
 less step, and is ever working in us most when we per- 
 ceive it least. And so, when Shakespeare is fairly studied 25 
 in the manner here proposed, the pupil will naturally be 
 drawn to forget himself ; all thought of the show he is 
 to make will be cheated into healthful sleep ; unless, ay, 
 unless — 
 
 Some internieddler still is on the watch 30 
 
 To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray. 
 Within the pinfold of his own conceit.
 
 14 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Not, however, but that something of special heed should 
 be given to the Poet's language, and his use of words ; for 
 many of these are either unfamiliar or used in unfamiliar 
 senses : but this part of the study should be kept strictly 
 5 subordinate to the understanding of his thought and mean- 
 ing, and should be pushed no further than is fairly needful 
 to that end. But I have ample cause for saying, that in many 
 cases, if not in most, altogether too much time and strength 
 are spent in mere word-mongering and lingual dissection ; a 
 
 10 vice as old indeed as Cicero's time, who pointedly ridicules 
 it in describing one as " a chanter of formulas, a bird-catcher 
 of syllables." In fact, as we are now chiefly intent on edu- 
 cating people into talkers, not workers, so the drift of our 
 whole education is, to make language an ultimate object of 
 
 15 study, instead of using it as a medium for converse with 
 things : for we all know, or ought to know, that the readiest 
 and longest talkers are commonly those who have little or 
 nothing to say. On every side, teachers are to be found 
 attending very disproportionately, not to say exclusively, to 
 
 20 questions of grammar, etymology, rhetoric, and the mere 
 technicalities of speech ; thus sticking forever in the husk 
 of language, instead of getting through into the kernel of 
 matter and thought. 
 
 Now, as before implied, Shakespeare, least of all, ought to 
 
 25 be taught or studied after this fashion. A constant dissecting 
 of his words and syllables just chokes off all passage of his 
 blood into the pupil's mind."*" Our supreme master in the 
 knowledge of human nature, it is little less than downright 
 sacrilege to be thus using him as the raw material of philo- 
 
 30 logical exercitations. In the degree that it is important 
 people should acquire a taste for him and learn to love him, 
 just in that degree is it a sin to use him so ; for such use
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 15 
 
 can hardly fail to breed a distaste for him and an aversion 
 to him. Doubtless there is a time for parsing, as there is 
 for other things ; but people cannot parse themselves or 
 be parsed into a relish for Shakespeare's workmanship, or 
 into a fruitful converse with his treasures of wisdom and 5 
 power. 
 
 And with the young, especially, the study of vernacular 
 authors should be prosecuted in entire subservience to the 
 knowledge of things : if turned into a word-mongering pro- 
 cess, it touches no free and natural springs of interest, and 10 
 so becomes tedious and dull, — just the thing to defeat all 
 that pleasure which is the pulse of mental life. For the 
 proper business, as also the healthy instinct of young minds 
 is, to accumulate and lay in stores of matter : the analytic 
 and discriminative processes naturally belong to a later 15 
 period ; and to anticipate the proper time of them is a very 
 bad mistake. But the knowledge of things proceeds too 
 slowly and too silently for the ends of schoolroom show. 
 Boys in school and college shine chiefly by the knowledge 
 of words, for this is the mere work of memory ; but, in prac- 20 
 tical life, men are useful and successful in proportion to their 
 knowledge of things : which knowledge proceeds, to be sure, 
 by the measures of grozvtJi, and therefore is far less avail- 
 able for competitive examinations and exhibitory purposes. 
 And so, forsooth, our children must be continually drilled in 25 
 a sort of microscopic verbalism, as if we had nothing so 
 much at heart as to make them learned in words, ignorant 
 of things. Hence, too, instead of learning how to do some 
 one thing, or some few things, they must learn how to 
 smatter of all things : instead, for example, of being taught 30 
 to sing, they must be taught to prate scientifically about 
 music.
 
 l6 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Thus our educational methods are all converging to the 
 one sole purpose of generating a depurated and conceited 
 intellectuahsm ; which is just about the shallowest, barrenest, 
 windiest thing in the whole compass of man's intellectual 
 5 globe. But, what is strangest of all, so becharmed are we 
 with our supposed progress in this matter, as not to see, what 
 is nevertheless as plain as the Sun at midday, that we are 
 taking just the right course to stunt and thwart the intellect 
 itself. For the several parts of the mind must grow in pro- 
 
 lo portion, keeping touch and time together in the unity of a 
 common sap and circulation, else growth itself is but decay 
 in disguise. And when the intellectual man, through pride 
 of self-sufificingness, sequesters itself from its natural com- 
 merce and reciprocation with the moral, emotional, and 
 
 15 imaginative man, the intellect must needs go into a dry rot. 
 
 I was convinced long ago, and further experience has but 
 strengthened that conviction, that in the study of English 
 authors the method of recitations is radically at fault, and 
 ought seldom if ever to be used.+ For that method naturally 
 
 20 invites, and indeed almost compels, the pupil to spend all 
 his force on those points only which are, or may be made, 
 available for immediate recitational effect. But, if the author 
 be really worth studying, all, or nearly all, that is best in 
 him escapes through the fingers of this process, and is left 
 
 25 behind ; the pupil having no occasion for attending to it, nor 
 any strength of attention to spare for it. He does nothing 
 but skip lightly over the surface of what is before him, picking 
 up such small items as the tongue and memory can handle ; 
 but remaining quite innocent of all its deeper efficacies, 
 
 30 which would indeed be rather an encumbrance than a help 
 in reference to what he has in view. For the best thing that
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 17 
 
 the best authors can do is to quicken and inspire the stu- 
 dent's mind : but quickening and inspiration are nowise 
 things to be recited ; their natural effect is to prevent glib- 
 ness of memory and tongue : and, while the pupil is intent 
 only on what he can recite, the author's quickening and 5 
 inspiring power has no chance to work ; and he just runs or 
 slides over it without being touched by it, or catching any 
 virtue from it. It is just the difference of mere acquirement 
 and culture : for what the mind gains in the way of acquire- 
 ment merely, is lost almost as quickly as it is got ; but what- 10 
 ever of culture is gained abides as an inseparable part of the 
 mind itself. Thus the same rule holds here as in so many 
 other things, that, when pupils are studying merely or 
 mainly for effect, all the best effect of the study is inevi- 
 tably missed. iS 
 
 For these reasons, I have never had and never will have 
 anything but simple exercises ; + the pupils reading the 
 author under the teacher's direction, correction, and ex- 
 planation ; the teacher not even requiring, though usually 
 advising, them to read over the matter in advance. Thus 20 
 it is a joint communing of teacher and pupils with the 
 author for the time being ; just that, and nothing more. 
 Nor, assuredly, can such communion, in so far as it is 
 genial and free, be without substantial and lasting good ; 
 far better indeed than any possible cramming of mouth 25 
 and memory for recitation. The one thing needful here 
 is, that the pupils rightly understand and feel what they 
 read : this secured, all the rest will take care of itself ; 
 because, when this is gained, the work is, not indeed done, 
 but fairly and effectively begun ; and what is once so 30 
 begun will be ever after in course of doing, never done. 
 For people cannot dwell, intelligently and with open minds,
 
 l8 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 in the presence of " sweetness and light," or within the 
 sound of wisdom and eloquence, without being enriched, 
 — enriched secretly, it may be, but permanently ; " for the 
 enrichment is in the shape of germs, which have in them 
 5 the virtue of perennial growth. And when I find the pupils 
 taking pleasure in what they are about, entering into it 
 with the zest and spirit of honest delight, then I know full 
 well that they are drinking in the author's soul power, and 
 that what they are drinking in is going to the right spot. 
 
 10 For, to find joy and sweetness in the taste of what is pure 
 and good, is the strongest pledge that things are going well. 
 And such a communing of youthful minds with genius and 
 mellow wisdom has something of mystery and almost of 
 magic in it. Rather say, it is a holy sacrament of the mind. 
 
 15 As beautiful, too, as it is beneficent : in this naughty-lovely, 
 or this lovely-naughty, world of ours, I hardly know of a 
 lovelier sight. There is, be assured there is, regeneration 
 in it.
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 
 
 Why should EngHsh Literature be taught in our schools? 
 and, What is the best way of teaching it ? These are the 
 questions which I propose to discuss. 
 
 As preliminary to such discussion, it will, I think, be 
 rightly in place to consider, briefly, what our people are 5 
 aiming to prepare their children for, and what sort of an 
 education it is the proper business of the school to give ; 
 that is to say, what form of mind and character, and what 
 disposition of the faculties, it is meant to impress. 
 
 Now I take it that a vast majority of the pupils in our 10 
 schools are not to pass their life as students or as authors. 
 Their main business in this world is to gain an honest living 
 for themselves and for those dependent on them. And no 
 plan of education is just that leaves this prime considera- 
 tion behind, in quest of any alleged higher aims : for there 15 
 really are no higher aims ; and all pretense of such is a 
 delusion and a snare. Some men, it is true, do more than 
 gain an honest living ; but this is the best thing that any 
 man does; as, on the other hand, shining intellectually is 
 the poorest thing that any man does, or can possibly learn 20 
 to do. Then too most of the pupils in our schools, ninety- 
 nine hundredths of them at the least, are to get their living 
 by handwork, not by head work ; + and what they need is, 
 to have their heads so armed and furnished as to guard 
 their handwork against error and loss, and to guide it to 25 
 the most productive means and methods. And, for gaining 
 
 19
 
 20 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 an honest living by handwork, the largest and best part 
 of their education is not to be had in school ; it must be 
 got somewhere else, or not at all. The right place, the 
 only right place, for learning the trade of a farmer or a 
 5 mechanic is on the farm or in the shop. For instance, 
 Mr. Edward Burnett's " Deerfoot Farm," in Southborough, 
 Massachusetts, is, I undertake to say, a better school for 
 learning agriculture than any " agricultural college " is likely 
 to be. There is no practicable, nay, no possible way of 
 
 lo acquiring the use of tools but by actually handling them, 
 and working with them. And this rule holds equally true 
 in all the walks of life, — holds as true of the lawyer, the 
 physician, the merchant, as of the shoemaker, the brick- 
 layer, the machinist, the blacksmith. 
 
 15 On this point, our people generally, at least a very large 
 portion of them, have their notions all wrong side up : 
 their ideas and expectations in the matter are literally pre- 
 posterous. How the thing came to be so, it were bootless 
 to inquire ; but so it clearly is. Parents, with us, are mani- 
 
 20 festly supposing that it is the business of the school to 
 give their children all the education needful for gaining an 
 honest living; that their boys and girls ought to come from 
 the school-teachers' hands fully armed and equipped for 
 engaging, intelligently and successfully, in all sorts of work, 
 
 25 whether of head or of hand. And they are evermore com- 
 plaining and finding fault because this is not done ; that 
 their children, after all, have only learned how to use books, 
 if indeed they have learned that, and know no more how to 
 use tools, are no better fitted to make or procure food and 
 
 30 clothes, than if they had spent so much time in stark idle- 
 ness or in sleep. But the fault is in themselves, not in the 
 school ; their expectations on this head being altogether
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 21 
 
 unreasonable, and such as the school cannot possibly 
 answer. That, say what you please, is the plain English 
 of the matter ; and it may as well be spoken. 
 
 I repeat that, with very few exceptions, and those mostly 
 applicable to girls, the most and the best that the school 5 
 can do, or can reasonably be expected to do, is to educate 
 the mind and the heart ; as for the education of their chil- 
 dren's hands, parents must, yes, must look for this else- 
 where : probably their best way is to take it into their own 
 immediate care, and hold themselves religiously bound to 10 
 attend to it. Possibly, withal, some parents, as also some 
 who drive the trade of idealizing about education, may 
 need to be taught, or warned, that unless the school have 
 something ready made to its hand, unless the pupil bring 
 to it something inside his skull, it cannot educate his mind : 15 
 brains it cannot furnish ; though it is often blamed for 
 not doing this too. And, good as vocal intelligence may 
 be, yet, for all practical ends, and even the dignities, of 
 life, manual intelligence is vastly better; + this it is that 
 makes both the artist and the artisan; and without this 20 
 the former, however it may prattle and glitter, can neither 
 plow the field nor reap the corn, neither tan the leather 
 nor make the shoe, neither shape the brick nor build the 
 wall, neither grind the flour nor bake the bread. 
 
 But I suspect our American parents have become some- 25 
 what absurdly, and not very innocently, ambitious of having 
 their boys and girls all educated to be gentlemen and 
 ladies ; + which is, I take it, the same in effect as having 
 them educated to be good for nothing ; too proud or too 
 lazy to live by handwork, while they are nowise qualified 30 
 to live by headwork, nor could get any to do, if they were. 
 And so they insist on having their children taught how to
 
 22 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 do something, perhaps several things, without ever soiling 
 their fingers by actually doing anything. If they would, in 
 
 . all meekness and simplicity of heart, endeavor to educate 
 their children to be good for something, they would be 
 5 infinitely more likely to overtake the aim of their sinful 
 and stupid ambition. The man who has been well and 
 rightly educated to earn, and does earn, a fair living by 
 true and solid service, he is a gentleman in the only sense 
 in which it is not both a sin and a shame to be called by 
 
 lo that title. Any form of honest service, however plain and 
 humble, has manliness in it, and is therefore a higher style 
 of gentility, and a sounder basis of self-respect, than any, 
 even the proudest, form of mere social ornamentation. 
 The dull boy, who cannot prate science, but can drive a 
 
 15 cart as a cart ought to be driven, or the dull girl, who cannot 
 finger a piano, but can rightly broil a beefsteak, is, in the 
 eye of all true taste, a far more sightly and attractive object 
 than the most learned and accomplished good-for-nothing 
 in the world. I have seen men calling themselves doctors, 
 
 20 who, week after week, month after month, year after year, 
 were going about making sham calls on bogus patients, 
 that so they might either get themselves a practice or 
 make men believe they had got one ; and have thought 
 that the poorest drudge, who honestly ate his bread, or 
 
 25 what little he could get, in the sweat of his face, was a 
 prince in comparison with them. An aristocratic idler or 
 trifler or spendthrift or clothes frame, however strong he 
 may smell of the school and the college, of books and of 
 lingual culture, is no better than a vulgar illiterate loafer ; 
 
 30 nor can his smart clothes and his perfumes and his lily 
 hands and his fashionable airs shield him from the just 
 contempt of thoughtful men and sensible women.
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 23 
 
 Now, so long as people proceed upon the notion that their 
 children's main business in this world is to shine, and not 
 to work, and that the school has it in special charge to fit 
 them out at all points for a self-supporting and reputable 
 career in life ; just so long they will continue to expect and 5 
 demand of the school that which the school cannot give ; 
 to grumble and find fault because it fails to do what they 
 wish ; and to insist on having its methods changed till their 
 preposterous demands are satisfied. On the other hand, 
 the school could do its proper work much better, if people 10 
 would but come down, or rather come up, to a just concep- 
 tion of what that work is. But it must needs fail, in a greater 
 or less degree, to do that part of education which falls within 
 its legitimate province, while struggling and beating about 
 in a vain endeavor to combine this with that part which 15 
 fairly lies outside of its province. For, in straining to hit 
 the impossible, we are pretty sure to miss the possible. And 
 all experienced teachers know right well that those parents 
 who faithfully do their own part in the education of their 
 children are most apt to be satisfied with what the school 20 
 is doing. 
 
 It is, then, desirable that children should learn to think, 
 but it is indispensable that they should learn to work ; and 
 I believe it is possible for a large, perhaps the larger, portion 
 of them to be so educated as to find pleasure in both. But 25 
 the great question is, how to render the desirable thing 
 and the indispensable thing mutually helpful and supple- 
 mentary. For, surely, the two parts of education, the edu- 
 cation of the mind and the education of the hand, though 
 quite distinct in idea, and separate in act, are not, or need 30 
 not be, at all antagonistic.^ On the contrary, the school 
 can, and should, so do its part as to cooperate with and
 
 24 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 further that part which lies beyond its province. And it is 
 both the office and the aim of a wise benevolence in teachers 
 so to deal with the boys under their care as to make them, 
 if possible, intelligent, thoughtful, sober-minded men, with 
 5 hearts set and tuned to such services and such pleasures as 
 reason and religion approve ; also, to make them prudent, 
 upright, patriotic citizens, with heads so stocked and tem- 
 pered as not to be " cajoled and driven about in herds " by 
 greedy, ambitious, unprincipled demagogues, and the polit- 
 ic ical gamesters of the day. And here it is to be noted, withal, 
 that any man who gains an honest living for himself, whether 
 lettered or unlettered, is a good citizen in the right sense of 
 the term ; and that human slugs and do-nothings, however 
 book-learned they may be, are not good citizens. 
 15 As for the women, let it suffice that their rights and inter- 
 ests in this matter are coordinate with those of the men ; 
 just that, and no more. Their main business, also, is to get 
 an honest living. And the education that unprepares them 
 or leaves them unprepared for this is the height of folly and 
 20 of wrong. And I hope the most of them are not going to 
 turn students or authors by profession, nor to aim at eating 
 their bread in the sweat of the brain. For things have 
 already come to that pass with us, that any fool can write a 
 book : the great difficulty is in finding people who know 
 25 enough and have strength enough not to attempt it. 
 
 And here let me say that the greatest institution in the 
 world is the family ;+ worth all the others put together, and 
 the foundation of them all. So, again, the greatest art known 
 among men is housekeeping, which is the life of the family. 
 30 For what are we poor mortals good for, in head, heart, hand, 
 or anything else, without healthy, eupeptic stomachs? and 
 how are we to have such stomachs without good cooking?
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 25 
 
 So that I reckon housekeeping to be just the last thing that 
 any lady can afford to be ignorant of. The finest accom- 
 plishment too that woman was ever beautified with. This 
 part of woman's education, also, is to be gained at home ; 
 it cannot be gained anywhere else. As for those young 5 
 ladies who are above going into the kitchen, and learning 
 this great art by actually working at it, my advice is, that 
 they forthwith migrate to a world where the home and the 
 family have no place, and where babies are not to be born 
 and nursed. 10 
 
 Our girls in school, then, should, first of all, be fashioned 
 for intelligent, thoughtful, sober-minded women ; ^ with 
 souls attempered and attuned to the honest and ennobling 
 delectations of the fireside ; their heads furnished and dis- 
 posed to be prudent, skillful, dutiful wives and mothers and 15 
 housekeepers ; home-loving and home-staying ; formed for 
 steady loves, serene attachments, quiet virtues, and the 
 whole flock of household pieties ; all suited to the office of 
 
 A creature not too bright or good 
 
 For human nature's daily food. 20 
 
 The love of home, and the art of making home lovely, must 
 be mainly acquired in the works and enjoyments of home ; 
 and the best thing that the school can do is to cooperate 
 with the home to that end. 
 
 But the most important item in this account, and that 25 
 which is the main subject of what I have to say, is yet to 
 come. 
 
 We have reached a stage of civilization and general cul- 
 ture in which both the virtue and the happiness of people 
 depend very much on their intellectual forming and furnish- 30 
 ing. And as this holds true alike of both sexes, so both will
 
 26 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 be included alike in the scope of what I have in mind to 
 speak further. Books, of one sort or another, are now, on 
 every hand, a common resort for entertainment and pleas- 
 ure, and are likely to become more and more so. Wealth 
 5 has greatly accumulated ; machinery has come to do a large 
 part of our work ; and all sorts of people have more or less 
 of leisure on their hands. This leisure ought not to be spent 
 in idleness, neither will it be."*" In the vacancy of their 
 hands people's thoughts will needs be busy either for the 
 
 lo better or for the worse : if their minds are not dressed for 
 the abode of the Deity, they will be workshops of the Devil. 
 And reading does in fact bear a large part in filling up such 
 vacant time. 
 
 Now, the world is getting full of devils, very potent ones 
 
 15 too, in the shape of foolish and bad books. And I am apt 
 to think the foolish devils in that shape even worse than 
 the wicked : for they only begin the work of evil somewhat 
 further off, so as to come at it the more surely ; and a slow 
 creeping infection is more dangerous than a frank assault. 
 
 20 Nothing so bad here as that which eludes or seduces the 
 moral sentinels of the heart. I am not exactly a believer in 
 the old doctrine of total depravity ; but I fear it must be 
 confessed that the greater number of people take much 
 more readily to that which is false and bad than to that 
 
 25 which is good and true. Certainly what intoxicates and 
 lowers stands a better chance with them than what sobers 
 and elevates. Virtue and wisdom are an uphill road, where 
 they do not advance without some effort ; folly and vice a 
 downhill path, where it requires some effort not to advance. 
 
 30 And this is quite as true in intellectual matters as in moral."*" 
 Here, to most people, delight in what is false and bad comes 
 spontaneously ; delight in what is true and good is the slow
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 2/ 
 
 result of discipline and care, and grows by postponement of 
 impulse to law. 
 
 I suspect it has been taken for granted much too gener- 
 ally, that if people know how to read they will be apt enough 
 to make good use of that knowledge without further con- 5 
 cern."*" A very great mistake ! This faculty is quite as liable 
 to abuse as any other : probably there is none other more 
 sadly abused at this very time ; none that needs to be more 
 carefully fenced about with the safeguards of judgment and 
 taste. Through this faculty crowds of our young people are 10 
 let into the society of such things as can only degrade and 
 corrupt, and, to a great extent, are positively drawn away 
 from the fellowship of such as would elevate and correct. 
 Most, probably not less than seven eighths, of the books now 
 read are simply a discipline of debasement; ministering 15 
 fierce stimulants and provocatives to the lower propensities, 
 and habituating the thoughts to the mud and slime of literary 
 cesspools and slop-cooks. 
 
 I have indeed no faith in the policy or the efficacy of 
 attempting to squelch these springs of evil by forcible 20 
 sequestration, or to keep people from eating this poor devil- 
 soup by muzzling them. If they will take to it, probably the 
 best way is to let them have it ; perhaps it is best to act 
 somewhat on the plan of glutting them with it, in the hope 
 that so they may outgrow it : but something might well be 25 
 essayed so to fit and prepare them as that they may not 
 take to it, and may even turn away from it with disgust when 
 it comes to them. Surely, at all events, the education that 
 delivers people over to such feeding is a very doubtful good. 
 
 In view of all which, it is clearly of the highest conse- 30 
 quence, that from their early youth people should have their 
 minds so bent and disposed as to find pleasure in such
 
 28 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 books as are adapted to purify and raise. I say pleasure^ 
 because we cannot rely, neither ought we, on arguments of 
 right in this matter."*" Reading even good books without 
 pleasure, and merely from a sense of duty, is of little benefit, 
 
 5 and may even do hurt, by breeding insensibly an aversion 
 to what is good, and by investing it with irksome associations. 
 A genial delight in that which is good is what sets the colors 
 of it in the mind : without this, the mind grows at odds with 
 it. People cannot be droned or bored into virtue ; and if 
 
 10 evil were made as tedious to them as good often is, I suspect 
 their hearts would soon be weaned from ugliness, and won 
 to a marriage with beauty. And the pith of my argument 
 is, that it is what people take pleasure in that really shapes 
 and determines their characters. So experience has taught 
 
 15 me that the characters of students in college are influenced 
 far. more by their reading than by their studies. From the 
 books they take to you may judge at once whither their 
 spirits are tending, and what they are inwardly made of, 
 because here they generally go by free choice and pleasure. 
 
 20 In brief, they study what they must ; they read what they 
 love ; and their souls are and will be in the keeping of their 
 loves. Even the breath of excellence is apt to be lost, if it 
 be not waited on by delight ; while, to love worthy objects, 
 and in a worthy manner, is the top and crown of earthly 
 
 25 good, ay, and of heavenly good also. Considering how clear 
 and evident all this is, that so little is done, even in our highest 
 seats of learning, to form the tastes and guide the reading 
 of students, may well be matter of grief and astonishment. 
 I have long wondered at it, and often sickened over it. 
 
 30 Now, to fence against the growing pestilence of foolish 
 and bad books, I know of but one way; and that is by 
 endeavoring systematically so to familiarize the young with
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 29 
 
 the best and purest mental preparations, and so to prepossess 
 them with the culture of that which is wholesome and good, 
 that they may have an honest, hearty relish for it. The thing 
 is, to plant the mind full of such loves, and so to set and 
 form the intellectual tastes and habits, that the vicious and 5 
 false will be spontaneously refused, and the healthy and true 
 be freely preferred ; + this too, not from any novelty in it, 
 but for the experienced sweetness and beauty of it, and for 
 the quiet joy that goes in company with it. 
 
 Let the efficacy of a very few good books be seasonably 10 
 steeped into the mind, and then, in the matter of their 
 reading, people will be apt to go right of their own accord ; 
 and assuredly they will never be got to go right except of 
 their own accord. You may thus hope to predispose and 
 attune the faculties of choice to what is noble and sweet, 15 
 before the springs of choice are vitiated by evil or ignorant 
 conversations. If people have their tastes set betimes to 
 such authors as Spenser and Shakespeare, Addison, Scott, 
 Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb, is it likely that they will 
 stomach such foul stuff as the literary slums and grogshops 20 
 of the day are teeming with?+ I hope it is not so, and I 
 will not readily believe it can be so. Nor can I see any 
 impracticability, any insuperable difficulty here. Instances 
 of native dullness or perversity there will indeed be, such as 
 no soul music can penetrate : but that, as a general thing, 25 
 young minds, yet undeflowered by the sensational flash and 
 fury of vulgar bookmakers, will be found proof against the 
 might and sweetness of that which is intellectually beautiful 
 and good, provided they be held in communication with it 
 long enough for its virtue to penetrate them, is what I will 30 
 not, must not, believe, without a fairer trial than has yet 
 been made.
 
 30 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 In reference to the foregoing points, a well-chosen and 
 well-used course of study in the best English classics seems 
 the most eligible and most effective preparation. Whether 
 to the ends of practical use or of rational pleasure, this can- 
 
 5 not but be the right line of early mental culture. The direct 
 aids and inspirations of religion excepted, what better nurs- 
 ery can there be of just thoughts and healthy tastes?"*" 
 what more apt to train and feed the mind for the common 
 duties, interests, affections, and enjoyments of life? For 
 
 lo the very process here stands in framing and disposing the 
 mind for intercourse with the sayings of the wise, with the 
 gathered treasures of light and joy, and with the meanings 
 and beauties of Nature as seen by the eye, and interpreted 
 by the pen, of genius and wisdom. 
 
 15 We are getting sadly estranged from right ideas as to the 
 nature and scope of literary workmanship. For literature, 
 in its proper character, is nowise a something standing out- 
 side of and apart from the practical service of life ; a 
 sort of moonshine world, where the working understanding 
 
 20 sleeps for the idle fancy to dream. This is no doubt true 
 in regard to most of the books now read ; which are indeed 
 no books, but mere devils and dunces in books' clothing ; 
 but it is not at all true of books that are books indeed. 
 These draw right into the substance and pith of actual 
 
 ::5 things ; the matter of them is " labor'd and distill'd through 
 all the needful uses of our lives " ; the soul of their pur- 
 pose is to arm and strengthen the head, and to inspire and 
 direct the hand, for productive work. That an author brings 
 us face to face with real men and things, and helps us to 
 
 30 see them as they are ; that he furnishes us with enable- 
 ments for conversing rationally, and for wrestling effect- 
 ively, with the problems of living, operative truth; that he
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 
 
 31 
 
 ministers guidance and support for thinking nobly and work- 
 ing bravely in the services, through the perils, under the dififi- 
 culties and adversities of our state, — this is the test and 
 measure of his worth ; this is the sole basis of his claim to 
 rank as a classic. + This, to be sure, is not always done 5 
 directly, neither ought it to be ; for the helps that touch 
 our uses more or less indirectly often serve us best, because 
 they call for and naturally prompt our own mental and 
 moral cooperation in turning them to practical account. 
 
 It is such literature that the poet has in view when he 10 
 
 tells us, — 
 
 books, we know, 
 
 Are a substantial world, both pure and good : 
 
 Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 
 Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 15 
 
 And books are yours, 
 Within whose silent chambers treasure lies 
 Preserved from age to age ; more precious far 
 Than that accumulated store of gold 
 
 And orient gems which, for a day of need, 20 
 
 The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs : 
 These hoards you can unlock at will. 
 
 Nor is it the least benefit of such authors that they recon- 
 cile and combine utility with jjleasure, making each minis- 
 trative to the other ; + so that the grace of pleasant thoughts 25 
 becomes the sweeter for their usefulness, and the virtue of 
 working thoughts the more telling for their pleasantness ; 
 the two thus pulling and rejoicing together. For so the 
 right order of mental action is where delight pays tribute to 
 use, and use to delight ; and there is no worse corruption 30 
 of literature in the long run than where these are divorced, 
 and made to pull in different lines. Such pleasure is itself 
 uplifting, because it goes hand in hand with duty. And as
 
 32 
 
 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 life, with its inevitable wants and cares and toils, is apt to 
 be hard enough at the best with most of us, there is need 
 of all the assuagements and alleviations that can come from 
 this harmonizing process. Pressed as we are with heavy 
 5 laws, happy indeed is he 
 
 Who from the wellspring of his own clear breast 
 Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest. 
 
 Next to a good conscience and the aids of Christian faith, 
 there is no stronger support under the burdens of our lot 
 
 lo than the companionship of such refreshing and soul-lifting 
 thoughts as spring up by the wayside of duty, from our 
 being at home with the approved interpreters of Nature 
 and Truth. This is indeed to carry with us in our working 
 hours a power 
 
 15 That beautifies the fairest shore, 
 
 And mitigates the harshest cUme. 
 
 Now I do not like to hear it said that our school education 
 can do nothing towards this result. I believe, nay, I am 
 sure, it can do much ; though I have to admit that it has 
 
 20 done and is doing far less than it might. I fear it may even 
 be said that our course is rather operating as a hindrance 
 than as a help in this respect. What sort of reading are our 
 schools planting an appetite for ? Are they really doing any- 
 thing to instruct and form the mental taste, so that the pupils 
 
 25 on leaving them may be safely left to choose their reading 
 for themselves? It is clear in evidence that they are far from 
 educating the young to take pleasure in what is intellectually 
 noble and sweet. The statistics of our public libraries show 
 that some cause is working mightily to prepare them only 
 
 30 for delight in what is both morally and intellectually mean 
 and foul.+ It would not indeed be fair to charge our public
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 33 
 
 schools with positively giving this preparation ; but it is their 
 business to forestall and prevent such a result. If, along 
 with the faculty of reading, they cannot also impart some 
 safeguards of taste and habit against such a result, will the 
 system prove a success? 5 
 
 As things now go, English literature is postponed to almost 
 everything else in our public schools : much as ever it can 
 gain admission at all ; and the most that can be got for it is 
 merely such fag-ends of time as may possibly be spared from 
 other studies. We think it a fine thing to have our children 10 
 studying Demosthenes and Cicero ; but do not mind having 
 them left almost totally ignorant of Burke and Webster. Yet, 
 in the matter of practical learning, ay, and of liberal learning 
 too, for deep and comprehensive eloquence, for instruction 
 in statesmanship, and in the principles of civil order and 15 
 social well-being, Burke alone is worth more than all the 
 oratory of Greece and Rome put together ;"•" albeit I am 
 far from meaning to disrepute the latter. And a few of 
 Webster's speeches, besides their treasure of noble English, 
 — "a manly style fitted to manly ears," — have in them 20 
 more that would come home to the business and bosoms of 
 our best American intelligence, more that is suited to the 
 ends of a well-instructed patriotism, than all that we have 
 inherited from the lips of ancient orators. + 
 
 So, again, we spare no cost to have our children delving 25 
 in the suburbs and outskirts of Homer and Virgil ; for not 
 one in fifty of them ever gets beyond these ; yet we take 
 no pains to have them living in the heart of Shakespeare 
 and Wordsworth : while there is in Shakespeare a richer 
 fund of " sweetness and light," more and better food for 30 
 the intellectual soul, a larger provision of such thoughts as 
 should dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be
 
 34 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 twisted about his heart forever, than in the collective poetry 
 of the whole ancient heathen world. 
 
 It may indeed be said that these treasures are in a lan- 
 guage already known, and so are accessible to people with- 
 5 out any special preparation ; and that the school is meant 
 to furnish the keys to such wealth as would else be locked 
 up from them. But our public schools leave the pupils with- 
 out any taste for those native treasures, or any aptitude to 
 enjoy them : the course there pursued does almost nothing 
 
 lo to fit and dispose the pupils for communing with the wis- 
 dom and beauty enshrined in our mother tongue ; while 
 hardly any so master the Greek and Latin as to hold com- 
 munion with the intellectual virtue which they enshrine. 
 Few, very few, after all, can be trained to love Homer ; 
 
 15 while there are, I must think, comparatively few who can- 
 not be trained to love Shakespeare ; "*" and the main thing 
 is to plant that love. The point, then, is just here : Our 
 schools are neither giving the pupils the key to the wisdom 
 of Homer, nor disposing them to use the key to the wisdom 
 
 20 of Shakespeare. And so the result is that, instead of bath- 
 ing in the deep, clear streams of thought, ancient or modern, 
 they have no taste but for waddling or wallowing in the 
 shallow, turbid puddles of the time ; — 
 
 Best pleased with what is aptliest framed 
 25 To enervate and defile. 
 
 It is a notorious fact that among our highly educated 
 people, the graduates of our colleges, really good English 
 scholars are extremely rare. I suspect it is not too much 
 to say that among our instructors there are at least twenty 
 30 competent to teach Greek and Latin, where there is one 
 competent to teach English literature. + Very few indeed 
 of them are really at home in the great masters of our
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 35 
 
 native tongue, so as to make them matter of fruitful exer- 
 cise in the class room. They know not how to come at 
 them, or to shape their course in teaching them. Their 
 minds are so engrossed with the verbal part of learning, 
 that, unless they have a husk of words to stick in, as in 5 
 studying a foreign tongue, they can hardly find where to 
 stick at all. 
 
 This habit, I suppose, comes mainly as a tradition from a 
 former age ; a habit which, though begun upon good causes, 
 has been kept up long after those causes were done away. 10 
 The prevailing ideas herein got fixed at a time when there 
 was no well-formed English literature in being ; when the 
 language itself was raw and rude ; and when the world's 
 whole stock of intellectual wealth was enshrined in other 
 tongues. The custom thus settled from necessity is contin- 15 
 ued to this day, when the English tongue, besides its own 
 vast fund of original treasure, has had the blood of all the 
 best human thought transfused into its veins, and when its 
 walks have grown rich and delectable with the spoils of every 
 earlier fruitage of genius and learning. 20 
 
 Three centuries ago Chaucer was the only really good Eng- 
 lish author ; he was then two hundred years old ; and the 
 language had changed so much since his time that reading 
 him was almost like studying a foreign tongue. So much 
 was this the case, that Bacon thought the English was going 25 
 to bankrupt all books intrusted to its keeping : he therefore 
 took care to have most of his own works translated into^ 
 Latin ; and now our greatest regret touching him is, that we 
 have not all those works in his own noble English. Before 
 his time, the language changed more in fifty years than it has 30 
 done in all the three hundred years since. This is no doubt 
 because the mighty workmen of that age, himself among
 
 36 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 them, did so much to " bolt off change," by the vast treasures 
 of thought and wisdom which they found or made the lan- 
 guage capable of expressing. The work then so gloriously 
 begun has been going on ever since, though not always with 
 5 the same grand results; until now the English is commonly 
 held to be one of the richest and noblest tongues ever 
 spoken, and the English literature is, in compass and variety 
 of intellectual wealth, unsurpassed by any in the world. 
 How strange it is, then, that, with such immense riches at 
 
 lo hand in our vernacular, we should so much postpone them 
 to the springs that were resorted to before those riches grew 
 into being ! "*" Because Homer and Sophocles had to be 
 studied before Shakespeare wrote, why should Shakespeare 
 still be ignored in our liberal education, when his mighty 
 
 15 works have dwarfed Homer and Sophocles into infants? 
 There might indeed be some reason in this, if he had been 
 in any sort the offspring of those Greek masters : but he was 
 blessedly ignorant of them ; which may partly account for his 
 having so much surpassed them. He did not conceive him- 
 
 20 self bound to think and write as they did ; and this seems 
 to have been one cause why he thought and wrote better 
 than they did. I really can see no reason for insisting on 
 learning from them rather than from him, except that 
 learning from him is vastly easier. 
 
 25 Nevertheless I am far from thinking that the Greek and 
 Latin ought to be disused or made little of in our course of 
 liberal learning."*" On the contrary, I would, of the two, have 
 them studied in college even more thoroughly than they 
 commonly are ; and this, not only because of their unequaled 
 
 30 use in mental training and discipline, and as a preparation 
 for solid merit and success in the learned professions, but 
 also because a knowledge of them is so largely fundamental
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 37 
 
 to a practical mastery of our own tongue. And here I am 
 moved to note what seems to me a change for the worse 
 within the last forty years. Forty years ago, besides that the 
 Greek and Latin were made more of in college, at least 
 relatively, than they are now, the students had both more 5 
 time for English studies, and also more of judicious prompt- 
 ing and guidance in their reading. But, of late, there has 
 been so much crowding in of modern languages and recent 
 branches of science, that students have a good deal less time 
 than formerly for cultivating English literature by themselves. lo 
 In short, our colleges, it seems to me, did much more, forty 
 years ago, towards setting and forming right literary and 
 intellectual tastes than they are doing now. I believe they 
 are now turning out fewer English scholars, and that these 
 are not so well grounded and cultured in the riches of our 15 
 native tongue. The fashion indeed has been growing upon 
 us of educating the mouth much more than the mind ; which 
 seems to be one cause why we are having so many more 
 talkers and writers than thinkers."^ An unappeasable itch of 
 popularity is eating out the old love of solid learning, and 20 
 the old relish for the haunts of the Muses. 
 
 It may have been observed, that in this argument I dis- 
 tinguish somewhat broadly between a liberal and a practical 
 education. Our colleges ought to give, and, I suppose, aim 
 at giving the former ; while the latter is all that our public 25 
 schools can justly be expected to give. And a large majority 
 of the pupils, as I said before, are to gain their living 
 by handwork, not by headwork. But then we want them 
 made capable of solid profit and of honest delight in the 
 conversation of books ; for this, as things now are, is essen- 30 
 tial both to their moral health and also to their highest 
 success in work ; to say nothing of their duties and interests 
 
 1 2 5 »i 4 f I
 
 38 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 as citizens of a republican State. And, to this end, what can 
 be more practical, in the just sense of the term, than planting 
 and nursing in them right intellectual tastes, so that their 
 reading shall take to such books as are really wholesome and 
 5 improving? 
 
 On the general subject, however, I have to remark further, 
 that our education, as it seems to me, is greatly overworking 
 the study of language, especially in the modern languages. 
 From the way our young people are hurried into French 
 
 lo and German, one would suppose there were no English 
 authors worth knowing, nor any thought in the English tongue 
 worth learning. So we cram them with words, and educate 
 them into ignorance of things, and then exult in their being 
 able to " speak no sense in several languages." Surely a 
 
 15 portion of the time might be as innocently spent in learning 
 something worth speaking in plain mother English. When 
 we add that, with all this wear and tear of brain, the pupils, 
 ten to one, stick in the crust of words, and never get through 
 into the marrow of thought, so as to be at home in it, our 
 
 20 course can hardly be deemed the perfection of wisdom. 
 
 Our custom herein seems to involve some flagrant defect 
 or error in our philosophy of education. The true process 
 of education is to set and keep the mind in living inter- 
 course with things : the works and ways of God in Nature 
 
 25 are our true educators. And the right office of language is 
 to serve as the medium of such intercourse. And so the 
 secret of a good style in writing is, that words be used purely 
 in their representative character, and not at all for their own 
 sake."*" This is well illustrated in Shakespeare, who in his 
 
 30 earlier plays used language partly for its own sake ; but in 
 his later plays all traces of such use disappear : here he uses 
 it purely in its representative character. This it is, in great
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 39 
 
 part, that makes his style so much at once the dehght and 
 the despair of those who now undertake to write the English 
 tongue. And in other writers excellence of style is measured 
 by approximation to this standard. This it is that so highly 
 distinguishes Webster's style, — the best yet written on this 5 
 continent. His language is so transparent, that in reading 
 him one seldom thinks of it, and can hardly see it. In fact, 
 the proper character of his style is perfect, consummate 
 manliness ; in which quality I make bold to affirm that he 
 has no superior in the whole range of English authorship. 10 
 And in his Autobiography the great man touches the secret 
 as to how this came about. "While in college," says he, 
 " I delivered two or three occasional addresses, which were 
 published. I trust they are forgotten : they were in very bad 
 taste. I had not then learned that all true power in writing 15 
 is in the idea, not in the style ; an error into which the Ars 
 rheiorica, as it is usually taught, may easily lead stronger 
 heads than mine." 
 
 Hence it follows that language should be used and studied 
 mainly in its representative character ; that is, as a medium 20 
 for conversing with things ; and that studying it merely or 
 even mainly for its own sake is a plain inversion of the 
 right order. For words are of no use but as they bring us 
 acquainted with the facts, objects, and relations of Nature 
 in the world about us. The actual things and ideas which 25 
 they stand for, or are the signs of, are what we ought to 
 know and have commerce with. In our vernacular, words 
 are, for the most part, naturally and unconsciously used in 
 this way ; except where a perverse system has got us into a 
 habit of using them for their own sake ; which is indeed the 30 
 common bane of American authorship, making our style so 
 intensely self-conscious, that an instructed taste soon tires
 
 40 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 of it. But, in studying a foreign tongue, the language itself 
 is and has to be the object of thought. Probably not one in 
 fifty of our college graduates learns to use the Greek and 
 Latin freely as a medium of converse with things. Their 
 5 whole mental force is spent on the words themselves ; or, if 
 they go beyond these to the things signified, it is to help 
 their understanding of the words. 
 
 I freely admit that language, even our own, ought to be, 
 to some extent, an object of study ; but only to the end 
 
 lo of perfecting our use and mastery of it as a medium. So 
 that the true end of mental action is missed, where language 
 is advanced into an ultimate object of study ; which is prac- 
 tically making the end subordinate to the means. Here, 
 however, I am anxious not to be misunderstood, and lest I 
 
 15 may seem to strain the point too far; for I know full well 
 that in such a cause nothing is to be gained by breaches of 
 fairness and candor. It is a question of relative measure 
 and proportion. And I mean that our education treats lan- 
 guage quite too much as an object of thought, and quite too 
 
 20 little as a medium. Our students, it seems to me, are alto- 
 gether too much brought up in " the alms-basket of words " ; 
 and of too many of them it may not unfairly be said, " They 
 have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the 
 scraps." 
 
 25 I have said that our custom in this matter stands partly as 
 a tradition from a long-past age when there was no English 
 literature in being. But this does not wholly explain it. The 
 thing proceeds in great part from a perverse vanity of going 
 abroad and sporting foreign gear, unmindful of the good 
 
 30 that lies nearer home. Hence boys and girls, especially the 
 latter, are hurried into studying foreign languages before 
 they have learned to spell correctly or to read intelligibly in
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 4I 
 
 their own. I say girls especially, because, since the women 
 set out to equal, perhaps to eclipse, the men in brain power, 
 a mighty ambition has invaded them to be flourishing their 
 lingual intellectuality in our faces. Besides, the fashion now 
 is to educate young women for any place rather than for 5 
 home. Most of them hope some time to spend six months 
 traveling in Europe ; and they think far more of preparing 
 for that holiday than for all the working-day honors and 
 services of life. And I fear it must be said withal, that we 
 are the most apish people on the planet. I wish we may 10 
 not prove " the servum peciis of a Gallic breed." Be that as 
 it may, parents among us apparently hold it a much grander 
 thing to have their children chopping Racine and Voltaire 
 than conversing with the treasures of wisdom and beauty in 
 our own tongue ; as if smattering French words were better 15 
 than understanding English and American things. 
 
 Thus our school education is growing to be very much a 
 positive dispreparation for the proper cares, duties, inter- 
 ests, and delectations of life. The further a thing draws 
 from any useful service or common occasion, the more pride 20 
 there is in studying it. Whatever will serve best to prank 
 up the mind for flaunting out its hfe away from home, that 
 seems to be our first concern. To this end, we prefer some- 
 thing out of the common way; something that can be turned 
 to no account, save to beguile a frivolous and fashionable 25 
 leisure, or to mark people off from ordinary humanity, and 
 wrap them up in the poor conceit of an aristocratic style. In 
 short, we look upon the honest study of our honest mother 
 English as a vulgar thing ; + and it pleases us to forget that 
 this squeamish turning up of the nose at what is near and 30 
 common is just the vulgarest thing in the world. Surely 
 we cannot too soon wake up to the plain truth, that real
 
 42 
 
 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 honor and elevation, as well as solid profit, are to grow by 
 conversing with the things that live and work about us, and 
 by giving our studious hours to those masters of English 
 thought from whom we may learn to read, soberly, modestly, 
 5 and with clear intelligence, a few pages in the book of life. 
 The chief argument in support of the prevailing custom 
 is, that the study of languages, especially the Greek and 
 Latin, is highly serviceable as a mental gymnastic. No doubt 
 it is so. But the study, as it is managed with us, may be 
 
 10 not unfairly charged with inverting the true relative im- 
 portance of mental gymnastic and mental diet. Formerly 
 the Greek and Latin were held to be enough ; but now, by 
 adding three or four modern languages, we are making the 
 linguistic element altogether too prominent. We thus give 
 
 15 the mind little time for feeding, little matter to feed upon ; 
 and so keep it exercising when it ought to be feeding : for 
 so the study of words has much exercise and little food. 
 Now, such an excess of activity is not favorable to healthy 
 growth. Substituting stimulants for nourishment is as bad 
 
 20 for the mind as for the body. Supply the mind with whole- 
 some natural food ; do all you can to tempt and awaken 
 the appetite ; and then trust somewhat to Nature. True, 
 some minds, do your best, will not eat ; but, if they do not 
 eat, then they ought not to act. For dullness, let me tell 
 
 25 you, is not so bad as disease ; and, from straining so hard 
 to stimulate and force the mind into action without eating, 
 nothing but disease can result. Depend upon it, there is 
 something wrong with us here : food and exercise are not 
 rightly proportioned in our method. In keeping the young 
 
 30 mind so much on a stretch of activity, as if the mere exer- 
 cise of its powers were to be sought for its own sake, we are 
 at war with Nature. And a feverish, restless, mischievous
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 43 
 
 activity of mind is the natural consequence of such a course ; 
 unless, which is sometimes the case, the mental forces get 
 dried into stiffness from mere heat of gymnastic stress. 
 
 We are now having quite too much of this diseased men- 
 tal activity. Perhaps our greatest danger lies in a want of 5 
 mental repose. The chronic nervous intensity thus gener- 
 ated is eating the life out of us, and crushing the nobler 
 energies of duty and virtue, ay, and of sound intelligence 
 too."^ For, while we are thus overworking the mind, the 
 muscular and nutritive systems of course suffer ; so that, 10 
 first we know, the mind itself gives out ; and people go 
 foolish or crazy from having been educated all into nerves. 
 Composure is the right pulse of mental health, as it is also 
 of moral; and "a heart that watches and receives" will 
 gather more of wisdom than a head perpetually on the jump. 15 
 We need "the harvest of a quiet eye," that feeds on the 
 proportions of Truth as she beams from the works of Nature 
 and from the pages of Nature's high priests. But now we 
 must be in a giddy whirl of brain excitement, else we are 
 miserable, and think our mental faculties are in peril of 20 
 stagnation. Of intellectual athletes we have more than 
 enough; men, and women too, who think to renovate the 
 world, and to immortalize themselves, by being in a con- 
 tinual rapture and tumult of brain exercise ; minds hope- 
 lessly disorbed from the calmness of reason, and held in a 25 
 fever of activity from sheer lack of strength to sit still. It 
 was such minds that Bacon had in view when he described 
 man in a certain state as being " a busy, mischievous, 
 wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin." To be 
 intellectual, to write books, to do wonders in mental pyro- 30 
 techny, is not the chief end of man, nor can we make it so. 
 This is indeed what we seem to be aiming at, but we shall
 
 44 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 fail ; Nature will prove too strong for us here : and, if we 
 persist, she will just smash us up, and replace us with a 
 people not so tormentedly smart. It is to the meek, not 
 the brilliant, that the possession of the earth is promised. 
 
 5 My conclusion from the whole is, that, next to the ele- 
 mentary branches, and some parts of science, such as geog- 
 raphy, astronomy, and what is called natural philosophy, 
 standard authors in English literature ought to have a place 
 in our school education. Nor am I sure but that, instead 
 
 lo of thus postponing the latter to science, it were still better 
 to put them on an equal footing with it. For they draw 
 quite as much into the practical currents of our American 
 life as any studies properly scientific do ; and, which is of 
 yet higher regard, they have it in them to be much more 
 
 15 effective in shaping the character. For they are the right 
 school of harmonious culture as distinguished from mere 
 formal knowledge ; that is, they are a discipline of human- 
 ity : and to have the soul rightly alive to the difference 
 between the noble and the base is better than under- 
 
 20 standing the laws of chemical affinity. 
 
 As to the best way of teaching English literature, I may 
 speak the more briefly on this, inasmuch as a good deal to 
 the point has been, I hope not obscurely, implied in the 
 remarks already made. 
 
 25 In the first place, I am clear that only a few of the very 
 best and fittest authors should be used ; and that these 
 should be used long enough, and in large enough portions, 
 for the pupils to get really at home with them, and for the 
 grace and efffcacy of them to become thoroughly steeped 
 
 30 into the mind. Bacon tells us that " some books are to be 
 tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 45 
 
 and digested." Of course it is only the latter that I deem 
 worthy to be used in school. And I lay special stress on 
 the pupil's coming at an author in such a way, and staying 
 with him so long, as to study him with honest love and 
 delight. This is what sets and fixes the taste. And this is a 5 
 thing that cannot be extemporized : the process necessarily 
 takes considerable time. For wise men's thoughts are a 
 presence to live in, to feed upon, and to grow into the like- 
 ness of. And the benefit of a right good book all depends 
 upon this, that its virtue just soak into the mind, and there 10 
 become a hving, generative force. 
 
 Do you say that this shuts off from pupils the spur and 
 charm of novelty ? Yes, that it does, else I would not urge 
 it. What I want first of all is to shut off the flashy, fugitive 
 charm of novelty, so as to secure the solid, enduring charm 15 
 of truth and beauty ; for these are what it does the soul 
 good to be charmed with, and to tie up in the society 
 of, — the charm of a "concord that elevates and stills"; 
 while the charm of novelty is but as " the crackling of 
 thorns under a pot," — not the right music for soul-sweet- 20 
 ening. " A thing of beauty is a joy forever." And they 
 know nothing of the genesis of the human affections, who 
 have not learned that these thrive best in the society of old 
 familiar faces. To be running and rambling over a great 
 many books, tasting a little here, a little there, and tying up 25 
 with none, is good for nothing in school ; nay, worse than 
 nothing. Such a process of " unceasing change " is also 
 a discipline of "perpetual emptiness." It is as if a man 
 should turn free-lover, and take to himself a new wife every 
 week ; in which case I suppose he would soon become in- 30 
 different to them all, and conclude one woman to be just 
 about as good as another. The household affections do not
 
 46 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 grow in that way. And the right method in the culture of 
 the mind is to take a few choice books, and weave about 
 them 
 
 the fix'd delights of house and home, 
 5 Friendships that will not break, and love that cannot roam. 
 
 Again : In teaching EngUsh Hterature, I think it is not 
 best to proceed much, if at all, by recitations, but by what 
 may be called exercises ; the pupils reading the author 
 under the direction, correction, and explanation of the 
 
 lo teacher. The thing is to have the pupils, with the teacher's 
 help and guidance, commune with the author while in class, 
 and quietly drink in the sense and spirit of his workman- 
 ship. Such communing together of teacher and pupils with 
 the mind of a good book cannot but be highly fruitful to 
 
 15 them both : an interplay of fine sympathies and inspira- 
 tions will soon spring up between them, and pleasant sur- 
 prises of truth and good will be stealing over them. The 
 process indeed can hardly fail to become a real sacrament 
 of the heart between them ; for they will here find how 
 
 20 "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 
 
 Nor would I attempt to work into these exercises any- 
 thing of grammar or rhetoric or philology, any further than 
 this may be clearly needful or conducive to a full and 
 fair understanding of the matter read."*" To use a standard 
 
 25 author mainly as a theme or text for carrying on studies in 
 philology, is in my account just putting the cart before the 
 horse. Here the end is or should be to make the pupils 
 understand and relish what the author delivers ; and what- 
 ever of philological exercise comes in should be held strictly 
 
 30 subordinate to this. 
 
 With my classes in Shakespeare and Wordsworth, as also 
 in Burke and Webster, I am never at all satisfied, unless I
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 47 
 
 see the pupils freely taking pleasure in the workmanship. 
 For such delight in a good book is to me a sure token and 
 proof that its virtue is striking in and going to the spot.+ 
 Rather say, it is a pledge, nay, it is the very pulsation, of 
 sympathy and vital magnetism between the mind within 5 
 and the object without. And without this blessed infection 
 beaming in the face and sparkling in the eyes, even the 
 honest striving of duty on the pupil's part rather dis- 
 courages me. So, unless I can get the pupils to be happy 
 in such communion, I am unhappy myself ; and this, I sup- 10 
 pose, because it is naturally unpleasant to see people stand- 
 ing in the presence and repeating the words of that which 
 is good, and tasting no sweetness therein. For " what is 
 noble should be sweet " ; and ought, if possible, to be bound 
 up with none but pleasant associations; that so delight and 15 
 love may hold the mind in perpetual communion with the 
 springs of health and joy. And if I can plant in young 
 minds a genuine relish for the authors I have named, then 
 I feel tolerably confident that the devils now swarming 
 about us in the shape of bad books will stand little chance 20 
 with them ; for I know right well that those authors have 
 kept legions of such devils off from me. 
 
 From all which it follows, next, that, in teaching English 
 literature, I would have nothing to do with any works in 
 formal rhetoric, or with any general outlines, or any rapid 25 
 and wide surveys, or any of the school reading books now 
 in use, which are made up of mere chips from a multitude 
 of authors, and so can have little effect but to generate a 
 rambling and desultory habit of mind."*" To illustrate my 
 meaning, it may not be amiss to observe, that some years ago 30 
 I knew of a programme being set forth ofificially, which em- 
 braced little bits from a whole rabble of American authors,
 
 48 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 most of them still living; but not a single sentence from 
 Daniel Webster, who, it seems to me, is perhaps the only 
 American author that ought to have been included in the list. 
 This programme was drawn up for a course in English litera- 
 
 5 ture to be used in the public schools. Instead of such a mis- 
 cellaneous collection of splinters, my thought was then, and 
 is now. Give us a good large block of Webster ; enough for 
 at least two exercises a week through half a year. This 
 would afford a fair chance of making the pupils really at 
 
 10 home with one tall and genuine roll of intellectual manhood ; 
 which done, they would then have something to guide and 
 prompt them into the society of other kindred rolls : whereas, 
 with the plan proposed, there is no chance of getting them 
 at home with any intellectual manhood at all ; nay, rather, it 
 
 15 is just the way to keep them without any intellectual home, — 
 a nomadic tribe of literary puddle-sippers. 
 
 As for the matter of rhetoric, all that can be of much use 
 in this is, I think, best learned in the concrete, and by famil- 
 iarizing the mind with standard models of excellence."*" For 
 
 20 the right use of speech goes by habit, not by rule. And if 
 people should happen to use their vernacular clearly and 
 handsomely without knowing why, where is the harm of it? 
 Is not that enough? What more do you want? If you 
 would learn to speak and write the English tongue correctly, 
 
 25 tastefully, persuasively, leave the rhetorics behind, and give 
 your days and nights to the masters of English style. This 
 will tend to keep you from all affectation of " fine writing," 
 than which literature has nothing more empty and vapid. 
 Besides, it is only afte7- the mind has grown largely and 
 
 30 closely conversant with standard authors, that studying rhe- 
 torical rules and forms can be of much practical use, how- 
 ever it may do for showing off in recitation. And I am in
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 49 
 
 doubt whether it were not better omitted even then : for such 
 study, in so far as it is trusted in for forming a good style, 
 can hardly work anything but damage in that respect ; and 
 this because it naturally sets one to imitating other men's 
 verbal felicities ; which is simply a pestilent vice of style. 5 
 Therewithal the study is but too apt to possess the student, 
 perhaps unconsciously, with the notion that men are to 
 " laugh by precept only, and shed tears by rule " ; a sort of 
 laughter and tears from which I shall beg to be excused. 
 On this point, my first, second, and third counsel is, — 10 
 
 the live current quaff, 
 And let the groveler sip his stagnant pool, 
 In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool 
 Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. 
 
 Against the course I have been marking out, the objection 15 
 is sometimes urged that it would cut pupils off from contem- 
 porary authors. It would do so indeed, and I like it the 
 better for that. I have already implied that no literary 
 workmanship, short of the best there is to be had, ought to 
 be drawn upon for use in school. For the natural alliance 20 
 of taste and morals is much closer than most people suppose. 
 In fact, taste is, in my account, a kind of intellectual con- 
 science : downright, perfect honesty is the first principle of 
 it; solidity is its prime law ; and all sorts of pretense, affec- 
 tation, and sham are its aversion : so that it amounts to about 25 
 the same thing as the perfect manliness which I find in Web- 
 ster's style. — Now, for the due approval of excellence in 
 literary art, a longer time than the individual life is commonly 
 required. Of the popular writers now living, probably not 
 one in five hundred will be heard of thirty years hence. I 30 
 have myself outlived two generations of just such immortal 
 writers, — whole regiments of them. Of course there are
 
 50 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 fashions in literature, as in other things. These are apt to be 
 bad enough at the best, — bad enough anywhere ; but the 
 school is just the last place, except the church, where they 
 ought to be encouraged. Be assured that, in the long run, 
 
 5 it will not pay to have our children in school making 
 acquaintance with the fashionable writers of the day. For, 
 long before the pupils now in school reach maturity, another 
 set of writers will be in popular vogue ; their tenure to be 
 equally transient in turn. 
 
 lo Unquestionably the right way in this matter is, to start the 
 young with such authors as have been tested and approved 
 by a large collective judgment. ■*" For it is not what pleases at 
 first, but what pleases permanently, that the human mind 
 cares to keep alive. What has thus withstood the wear of 
 
 15 time carries solid proof of having strength and virtue in it. 
 For example, poetry that has no holiness in it may be, for it 
 often has been, vastly popular in its day ; but it has and can 
 have no lasting hold on the heart of man. True, there may 
 be good books written in our day ; I think there are : but 
 
 20 there needs a longer trial than one generation to certify us 
 of the fact, so as to warrant us in adopting an author for 
 standard use. And that a new book seems to us good, may 
 be in virtue of some superficial prepossession which a larger 
 trial will utterly explode. We need better assurance than 
 
 25 that. 
 
 It is indeed sometimes urged that, if the young be thus 
 trained up with old authors, they will be in danger of falling 
 behind the age.+ But it is not so. The surest way of coming 
 at such a result is by preengaging them with the literary 
 
 30 freaks and fashions and popularities of the day. To hold 
 them aloof from such flitting popularities, to steep their minds 
 in the efficacy of such books as have always been, and are
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 51 
 
 likely to be, above the fashion of the day, — this is the true 
 course for setting them /;/ advance of the time ; and, unless 
 they be set in advance of it, they will certainly fail to keep 
 abreast with it. For the wisdom that has had the long and 
 strong approval of the past, is most likely to be the wisdom 5 
 of the future ; and the way to keep pace with the age is 
 by dwelling with its wisdom, not with its folly. In fact, 
 a taste for the shifting literary fashions and popularities of 
 the hour springs from shallowness and leads to shallow- 
 ness. And to knit your pupils up close with old standards, lo 
 is the best thing you can do for them, both mentally and 
 morally. 
 
 And I confess I like to see the young growing enthusiastic 
 over the treasured wisdom and eloquence of their fore- 
 fathers. This is a natural and wholesome inspiration, and 15 
 such as the soul can hardly drink in or catch without being 
 lifted and expanded by it. Worth much for the knowledge 
 it furthers, it is worth far more for the manhood it quickens. 
 And I think none the worse of it, that it may do somewhat 
 towards chastising down the miserable conceit now so rife 20 
 amongst us, that light never really dawned on the world till 
 about that glorious time when our eyes were first opened, 
 and we began to shed our wisdom abroad. To be sure, the 
 atmosphere of the past now stands impeached as being a 
 very dull and sleepy atmosphere : nevertheless I rather like 25 
 it, and think I have often found much health and comfort in 
 breathing it. Some old writer tells us that " no man having 
 drunk old wine straightway desireth the new ; for he saith 
 the old is better." I am much of the same opinion. In 
 short, old wine, old books, old friends, old songs, " the 30 
 precious music of the heart," are the wine, the books, the 
 friends, the songs for me !
 
 52 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Besides, we have quite enough of the present outside of 
 the school ; and one of our greatest needs at this very time 
 is more of inspiration from the past. Living too much in the 
 present is not good either for the mind or for the heart : 
 5 its tendency is to steep the soul in the transient popularities 
 of the hour, and to vulgarize the whole man. Not that the 
 present age is worse than former ages ; it may even be better 
 as a whole : but what is bad or worthless in an age gener- 
 ally dies with the age : so that only the great and good of 
 
 10 the past touches us ; while of the present we are most touched 
 by that which is little and mean. The shriekings and jab- 
 berings of an age's folly almost always drown, for the time 
 being, the eloquence of its wisdom : but the eloquence lives 
 and speaks after the jabberings have gone silent, God's air 
 
 15 refusing to propagate them. So let our youth now and then 
 breathe and listen an hour or two in the old intellectual 
 fatherland, where all the foul noises have long since died 
 away, leaving the pure music to sound up full and clear."*"
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK^ 
 
 Shakespeare's dramas, confessedly the greatest classic and 
 literary treasure of the world, — the Bible only excepted, — 
 are rapidly growing into use as a text-book in schools and 
 institutions of learning. A close and regular course of study 
 in them has at length come to be widely recognized as 5 
 among our very best means both for acquiring a right 
 knowledge and use of the English tongue, and also, which 
 is of still more importance, for conversing with the truth 
 of things. 
 
 Some of the plays, however, owing to the nature of the 10 
 subjects and to the Poet's mode of treating them, are quite 
 impracticable for such use, and cannot be made suitable 
 without so much of amputation as would, in effect, let all 
 the lifeblood out of them. Others of them, again, and such 
 withal as are the very best for study in class, have more or 1 5 
 less of matter in them which, while nowise essential to the 
 proper health and integrity of the work, is greatly in the 
 way, and sometimes so embarrassing as to hinder seriously 
 both the pleasure and the profit of the study. All of them, 
 moreover, for obvious reasons, need a certain measure and 20 
 style of annotation, specially adapted, as far as may be, to 
 rendering the Poet's language, imagery, and allusions intel- 
 ligible and interesting to young minds, who cannot be 
 
 1 Reprinted, with certain changes and omissions, from the Editor's 
 Preface to the first volume of his School Shakespeare, as originally 
 published in 1870. 
 
 53
 
 54 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 supposed to be much at home in the pecuUarities of Eng- 
 Ush thought and expression three hundred years ago. 
 
 Hence a need has come to be strongly and extensively 
 felt, of a selection of Shakespeare's plays, prepared and set 
 
 5 forth with a special eye to the use in question. I have 
 received many assurances of this from others, and have 
 found abundant evidence of it in my own case. A pretty 
 long and large and varied experience in teaching Shake- 
 speare in class has brought home to me, beyond peradven- 
 
 lo ture, the pressing occasion of some such work as is here 
 offered to the public. And the want, be it observed, is not 
 of mere chips and fragments of the Poet, but of whole 
 plays, with the development of character and the course of 
 action preserved unmutilated and entire, and with only such 
 
 15 erasures as are really demanded by the just proprieties of 
 intercourse between teacher and pupils, and of pupils with 
 one another. 
 
 The plays, in all cases, are given entire, save the bare 
 omission of such lines and expressions as I have always 
 
 20 deemed it necessary to omit in class.+ The omissions, I 
 believe, do not in any case reach so far as to impair in 
 the least either the delineation of character or the dramatic 
 action. On the other hand, I have not meant to retain 
 any matter not fairly pronounceable in any class, how- 
 
 25 ever composed. My own opinion clearly is, that if Shake- 
 speare cannot be used as a text-book without overstepping 
 the just bounds of modest and decorous speech, then such 
 use were better not attempted. For purity and rectitude 
 of manners are worth more than any intellectual benefit 
 
 30 to be derived from the poetry and wisdom even of a 
 Shakespeare. In Julius CcEsai\ for instance, as also in 
 King Richard II, I have not found occasion to cut out or
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 55 
 
 change anything whatsoever ; there being, as I think, not 
 a single word in those plays unfit to cross the chariest lips. 
 And in several others the omissions are very slight indeed, 
 sometimes not extending to more than half a dozen lines in 
 a whole play. 5 
 
 Having said thus much, it seems but due to add, that 
 I hold Shakespeare's workmanship to be everywhere free 
 from the least blame of moral infection or taint : I know 
 of no passage that can be hurtful to any fair mind, if taken 
 in its proper connection with the whole. But of course 10 
 everybody knows that there may be many things right and 
 proper in themselves, which however ought not to be spoken, 
 and which it is very desirable not to have before the eye, in 
 the sacred intercourse of teacher and pupils. 
 
 No pains have been spared, either in preparing the copy 15 
 or in correcting the proofs, to set forth a pure and accurate 
 text of the Poet. In many cases of various readings, there 
 are, and probably always will be, considerable differences of 
 opinion as to which is the best. In this matter, I can 
 but claim to have used my best judgment, such as it is 20 
 after more than forty years' study of the Poet. 
 
 In the matter of annotation, it is not easy to hit just 
 the right medium between too much and too little. Here, 
 again, I have been mainly guided by the results of my own 
 experience in teaching ; aiming to give so many and such 25 
 notes as I have found needful or conducive to a full and clear 
 understanding of the Poet's thought. Besides the need of 
 economizing space, I have wished to avoid distracting or 
 diverting the student's attention overmuch from the special 
 object-matter of the Poet's scenes. 30 
 
 And here I feel moved to protest against Shakespeare's 
 being used, as some apparently would use him, too much as
 
 56 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 a mere occasion for carrying on general exercises in grammar 
 I and philology. These, to be sure, are essential parts of a 
 right English schooling ; but they can be learned just as well 
 from other books, — books which it is no sin not to love, 
 5 and no loss to forget after leaving school. And in studying 
 Shakespeare the pupil's mind should be put as closely and 
 directly as possible in intelligent sympathy with the Poet's 
 own mental deliverances ; everything else being made strictly 
 subordinate to this. In other words, the purpose should 
 
 lo ever be kept foremost to teach or to learn Shakespeare, and 
 not to use him as a means of teaching or learning something 
 else. With him, preeminently, language is the medium, not 
 the object of thought, insomuch that he seems to have used 
 it almost unconsciously. It is true, his language, especially 
 
 15 with beginners, must needs be itself made more or less an 
 object of study ; but this should be done so far only as is 
 necessary in order to its proper efficacy as a medium of 
 communion with his men and women, and with the transpi- 
 rations of character and the workings of human nature as 
 
 20 presented in them. 
 
 Shakespeare, be it remembered, is not one of those books 
 which are of no further use after being studied in school, or 
 which are as scaffoldage, to be thrown aside as soon as the 
 roof is on ; and it is better he should not be used as a text- 
 
 25 book at all, than that such use should be so conducted as to 
 breed a dislike of him : and some care may well be taken 
 against pushing the grammatical and linguistic part of the 
 study so far as to obstruct the proper virtue of his pages, and 
 lest the effect be rather to quench than kindle the faculties 
 
 30 and susceptibilities for that which is most living and opera- 
 tive in him, or for what may be called the Shakespeare of 
 Shakespeare.
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 57 
 
 It is what young people learn to take pleasure in, what 
 they build up happy thoughts and associations about, and 
 what steals smoothly and silently into the heart, and there 
 becomes a vital treasure of delight, that mainly determines 
 their characters. In comparison with this, mere intellectual 5 
 acquirements and furnishings, and even ethical arguments 
 and convictions, are of insignificant value. " The forms of 
 young imagination" have more force than anything else to 
 keep the heart pure. To preoccupy the mind with right 
 tastes and noble loves, and with a stock of grand and pure 10 
 conceptions, and thus to foreclose, as far as may be, the invi- 
 tations of what is false and flashy and sensational, the intel- 
 lectual fashions and frivolities and diseases of the day, is 
 the first principle of all wise and wholesome training both 
 in school and at home. For this process and to this end, 15 
 except the Bible, we have nothing better than the dramas 
 of Shakespeare. And the best fruit of studying him is to 
 come by letting the efficacies of his genius insinuate them- 
 selves quietly into " the eye and prospect of the soul," and 
 by binding his creations home upon the thoughts and affec- 20 
 tions as a fund of inexhaustible sweetness and refreshment. 
 And there is probably more danger that teachers will hinder 
 this process by overworking some subsidiary matter, than 
 that the process will fail to take care of itself, provided the 
 pupils be set and held in free and natural communication 25 
 with the Poet ; all exercises in grammar and philology being 
 used simply to aid, and not to disturb, the clear apprehen- 
 sion of what he delivers. 
 
 Such are the thoughts which have been uppermost in 
 my mind, and have mainly shaped my course, in prepar- 30 
 ing the notes. How far the execution accords with my 
 design and makes it good, is not for me to judge. In my
 
 58 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 teaching, especially with younger classes, I of course often 
 go much more into the details of verbal and syntactical 
 exegesis than is shown in the annotation. But it is presumed 
 that every one who may undertake to teach Shakespeare will 
 5 be sufficiently booked in the logic of grammar, the laws of 
 language, and the construction and analysis of sentences, to 
 carry on the work out of his own head, and as he finds it 
 needful or profitable to do so. Textual explanation is an- 
 other matter indeed, and may need to be prosecuted some- 
 
 lo what further; for the Poet's style is intensely idiomatic, 
 generally charged with metaphoric audacity, often over- 
 crammed with meaning, and sometimes very obscure : yet 
 even here it is thought that much had better be left to the 
 occasions and resources of individual teachers. For, after 
 
 15 all, nothing but a pretty thorough steeping of the teacher's 
 
 mind in the Shakespearean idiom can bring him fairly through 
 
 this part of his work. If he be not himself at home with 
 
 Shakespeare, he can hardly expect to make others so. 
 
 As to the method or methods of teaching in Shakespeare, 
 
 20 here again much should and indeed must be left to indi- 
 vidual judgment and adaptation. This is a thing not capa- 
 ble of being stereotyped, and passed on from hand to hand. 
 The method that works very well in one man's hands may 
 not work at all in another's. Thus much, however, may 
 
 25 be not unfitly spoken, that I do not believe at all in 
 turning the schoolroom into a playhouse or anything of 
 that sort. My work and method in class aim at a mixed 
 and varied exercise in reading, language, character, versifi- 
 cation, and art. Especially I make much of reading, both 
 
 30 for the utility and the accomplishment of it : + this, in 
 fact, is the groundwork of all my instructions ; and in order- 
 ing this I drive, or endeavor to drive, right at the simple
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 59 
 
 truth of the matter, and at a sincere and natural expression 
 of it. In other words, all my efforts in this behalf are meant 
 to converge at the point of bringing the pupils first to under- 
 stand the Poet's lines fairly, and then so to pronounce them 
 that an intelligent listener may understand them ; taking for 5 
 granted that, if this point be secured, the proper moral, 
 intellectual, and aesthetic effect of them will follow of its 
 own accord ; and the more silent and unobserved its coming 
 is, the better. 
 
 I therefore neither practice nor encourage any straining 10 
 or forcing of the process : any using of the whip or the 
 spur he regards as out of place : however lively and intense 
 the exertion of the student's faculties may be, I aim to 
 have it spontaneous, genial, and free ; the result of inward 
 kindling, not of external pressure. Thus the process, through- 15 
 out, on the part of the pupils, is meant to be a quiet, gentle, 
 yet earnest communing with the Poet's forms and with the 
 spirit of them, so that their grace and efficacy may pass 
 secretly and insensibly into the mind ; because the less the 
 pupils are at the time conscious of getting from him, the 20 
 more they will really get. And I am right well persuaded, 
 withal, that exercises in Shakespeare may be and ought to 
 be so conducted, that the students shall be fresher and 
 stronger at the close of them than at the beginning. 
 
 To induce just and clear perceptions of the Poet's charac- 25 
 ters ; to bring pupils to discriminate and taste their distinc- 
 tive lines of mental, moral, and practical physiognomy ; to 
 make them enter into their idioms of thought and manner, 
 their springs, modes, and vitalities of action, — this is a 
 higher and riper and slower process. There must needs be 30 
 a certain measure of preparation for it, and this, of course, 
 cannot be extemporized. Yet, this part of the exercise left
 
 60 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 out, the study can be little but a dry training in the letter of 
 the Poet's workmanship, without the life and substance of it. 
 Besides, it is this personal acquaintance and convivation 
 with the Poet's men and women that makes, more than any- 
 5 thing else, the perennial verdure and charm of his scenes. 
 No one who once gets to be thus inward and at home with 
 his delineations can ever weary of them or outgrow the 
 interest of them ; for, so taken, "age cannot wither them, 
 nor custom stale their infinite variety." 
 
 lo Which naturally raises the question, At what age should 
 the study of Shakespeare be undertaken ? And the answer is, 
 Not till the student is, at least in some fair degree, capable 
 of this part of the exercise. But young people are, or may 
 be made, apprehensive and receptive of characteristic traits 
 
 1 5 as delivered in forms of art, earlier than most of us are apt 
 to suppose. Feattii'ely expression in picture, fable, and 
 poetry, is not so very hard a thing for the youthful faculties 
 to catch and take in the virtue of. And it may be safely 
 presumed that, if average minds be duly placed and held 
 
 20 within the reach of Shakespeare's light and warmth, their 
 latent aptitudes for the exercise in question will germinate 
 and grow as early as, say, the middle period of ordinary 
 academic life. They can at least be started in the process 
 by that time, if not before. At all events, using my own 
 
 25 experience, as well as the reason of the thing, for my 
 test and guide, I can hardly think it a good use either of 
 the time or of the book, for pupils to enter upon the study 
 of Shakespeare, until they are prepared to go along with him 
 in those points of his cunning workmanship. There is quite 
 
 30 too much of crowding and cramming in our education 
 already ; the effects of which may be seen in a pretty large 
 stock of intellectual and moral shoddy ; and any extending
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 6l 
 
 of this process into the walks of Shakespeare cannot be too 
 earnestly deprecated, or too carefully avoided. 
 
 As to exercises in the Poet's versification and art, I 
 never attempt to prosecute these at all, except in his 
 older classes ;"*" the former because it is too dry, the 5 
 latter because it is too high. Moreover, the peculiar rich- 
 ness and variety of the Poet's verbal modulation, the sub- 
 tile and winding, yet severe and never-cloying music of his 
 verse, which seems to voice the essential harmonies of 
 intellectual and emotional beauty, are among those quali- 10 
 ties of his workmanship which are the last to be consciously 
 appreciated even by the most pronounced Shakespeareans. 
 At least, I have found it so in my own experience ; and 
 some of our ripest students of the Poet, those who have 
 made a lifelong study of him, have told me that it was 15 
 the same in theirs. So, too, the principles and philosophy 
 of art, as involved in Shakespeare's creations, are mat- 
 ter for the ripest and best-trained minds ; too deep and 
 intricate perhaps for any but such as make a special study 
 in pursuits of that nature. These points cannot be treated 20 
 here, and have received such treatment as I could give 
 them, in my work entitled Shakespeare' s Life, Art, and 
 Characters. 
 
 In conclusion, I beg to say, that for some years past I 
 have felt a strong and growing desire to do what I could 25 
 towards working Shakespeare into general and system- 
 atic use as a text-book in the education of youth. It was 
 in pursuance of that long-cherished wish, that I undertook 
 the present work. If the work should prove in any degree 
 useful in furthering that cause, I will deem my labors well 30 
 taken and amply rewarded. For, in truth, it seems to me 
 that we stay quite too much in the study of words, and quite
 
 62 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 too little in that of things ; and that the reform now most 
 needed in our educational modes is the giving much more 
 time to the masters of our native language, which is to us 
 naturally a medium of intellectual vision, and much less to 
 the study of foreign languages, which, from the nature of the 
 case, must needs be to us, for the most part, the object of 
 such vision.
 
 HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE 
 IN SCHOOL 
 
 As I have long been in frequent receipt of letters asking 
 for advice or suggestions as to the best way of using Shake- 
 speare in class, I have concluded to write out and print 
 some of my thoughts on that subject. On one or two pre- 
 vious occasions, I have indeed moved the theme, but only, 5 
 for the most part, incidentally, and in subordinate connection 
 with other topics, never with anything like a round and full 
 exposition of it. 
 
 And in the first place I am to remark, that in such a mat- 
 ter no one can make up or describe, in detail, a method of 10 
 teaching for another : in many points every teacher must 
 strike out his or her own method ; for a method that works 
 very well in one person's hands may nevertheless fail entirely 
 in another's."*" Some general reasons or principles of method, 
 together with a few practical hints of detail, is about all that 15 
 I can undertake to give ; this too rather with a view to set- 
 ting teachers' own minds at work in devising ways, than to 
 marking out any formal course of procedure. 
 
 In the second place, here, as elsewhere, the method of 
 teaching is to be shaped and suited to the particular pur- 20 
 pose in hand ; on the general principle, of course, that the 
 end is to point out and prescribe the means. So, if the 
 purpose be to make the pupils in our public schools Shake- 
 speareans in any proper sense of the term, I can mark out no 
 practicable method for the case, because I hold the purpose 25 
 
 63
 
 64 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 itself to be utterly impracticable ; one that cannot possibly 
 be carried out, and ought not to be, if it could. I find 
 divers people talking and writing as if our boys and girls 
 were to make a knowledge of Shakespeare the chief busi- 
 5 ness of their life, and were to gain their living thereby. 
 These have a sort of cant phrase current among them, 
 about "knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense"; and 
 they are instructing us that, in order to this, we must study 
 the English language historically, and acquire a technical 
 
 lo mastery of Elizabethan idioms. 
 
 Now, to know Shakespeare in an eminent sense, if it means 
 anything, must mean, I take it, to become Shakespeareans, 
 or become eminent in the knowledge of Shakespeare ; that 
 is to say, we must have such a knowledge of Shakespeare 
 
 15 as can be gained only by making a special and continuous, 
 or at least very frequent, study of him through many long 
 years. So the people in question seem intent upon some 
 plan or programme of teaching whereby the pupils in our 
 schools shall come out full-grown Shakespeareans ; this too 
 
 20 when half a dozen, or perhaps a dozen, of the Poet's plays 
 is all they can possibly find time for studying through. And 
 to this end, they would have them study the Poet's language 
 historically, and so draw out largely into his social, moral, 
 and mental surroundings, and ransack the literature of his 
 
 25 time ; therewithal they would have their Shakespeare Gram- 
 mars and Shakespeare Lexicons, and all the apparatus for 
 training the pupils in a sort of learned verbalism, and in 
 analyzing and parsing the Poet's sentences. 
 
 Now I know of but three persons in the whole United 
 
 30 States who have any just claim to be called Shakespeareans, 
 or who can be truly said to know Shakespeare in an eminent 
 sense. Those are, of course, Mr. Grant White, Mr. Howard
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 65 
 
 Furness, and Mr. Joseph Crosby. Beyond this goodly trio, 
 I cannot name a single person in the land who is able to go 
 alone, or even to stand alone, in any question of textual 
 criticism or textual correction. For that is what it is to 
 be a Shakespearean. And these three have become Shake- 5 
 speareans, not by the help of any labor-saving machinery, 
 such as special grammars and lexicons, but by spending many 
 years of close study and hard brain work in and around their 
 author. Before reaching that point, they have not only had 
 to study all through the Poet himself, and this a great many 10 
 times, but also to make many excursions and sojournings in 
 the popular, and even the erudite authorship of his period. 
 And the work has been almost, if not altogether, a pure 
 labor of love with them. They have pursued it with impas- 
 sioned earnestness, as if they could find no rest for their 15 
 souls without it. 
 
 Well, and what do you suppose the result of all this has 
 done or is doing for them in the way of making a living? 
 Do you suppose they can begin to purchase their bread and 
 butter, or even so much as the bread without the butter, with 20 
 the proceeds of their great learning and accomplishments in 
 that kind? No, not a bit of it ! For the necessaries of life, 
 every man of them has to depend mostly, if not entirely, on 
 other means. If they had nothing to feed upon but what 
 their Shakespeare knowledge brings them, they would have 25 
 mighty little use for their teeth. If you do not believe this, 
 ask the men themselves : and if they tell you it is not so, 
 then I will frankly own myself a naughty boy, and will do 
 penance publicly for my naughtiness. For my own poor 
 part, I know right well that I have no claim to be called a 30 
 Shakespearean, albeit I may, perchance, have had some fool- 
 ish aspirations that way. Nevertheless I will venture to say
 
 66 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 that Shakespeare work does more towards procuring a liveli- 
 hood for me than for either of the gentlemen named. This 
 is doubtless because I am far inferior to them in Shake- 
 spearean acquirement and culture. Yet, if I had nothing but 
 5 the returns of my labor in that kind to live upon, I should 
 have to live a good deal more cheaply than I do. And there 
 would probably be no difficulty in finding persons that were 
 not born till some time after my study of Shakespeare began, 
 who, notwithstanding, can now outbid me altogether in any 
 
 lo auction of bread-buying popularity. This, no doubt, is be- 
 cause their natural gifts and fitness for the business are so su- 
 perior to mine, that they might readily be extemporized into 
 what no length of time and study could possibly educate me. 
 In all this the three gentlemen aforesaid are, I presume, 
 
 15 far from thinking they have anything to complain of, or from 
 having any disposition to complain ; and I am certainly as 
 far from this as they are. It is all in course, and all just 
 right, except that I have a good deal better than I deserve. 
 And both they and I know very well that nothing but a love 
 
 20 of the thing can carry any one through such a work ; that 
 in the nature of things such pursuits have to be their own 
 reward ; and that here, as elsewhere, " love 's not love when 
 it is mingled with regards that stand aloof from th' entire 
 point."-*- 
 
 25 Such, then, is the course and process by which, and by 
 which alone, men can come to know Shakespeare in any 
 sense deserving to be called eminent. It is a process of 
 close, continuous, lifelong study. And, in order to know 
 the Poet in this eminent sense, one must know a good deal 
 
 30 more of him than of anything else ; that is to say, the pur- 
 suit must be something of a specialty with him ; unless his 
 mind be by nature far more encyclopedic than most men's
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 67 
 
 are. Then too, in the case of those who have reached this 
 point, the process had its beginning in a deep and strong 
 love of the subject : Shakespeare has been a passion with 
 them, perhaps I should say the master passion of their life : 
 this was both the initiative impulse that set them a-going, 5 
 and also the sustaining force that kept them going, in the 
 work. Now such a love can hardly be wooed into life or 
 made to sprout by a technical, parsing, gerund-grinding 
 course of study."^ The proper genesis and growth of love 
 are not apt to proceed in that way. A long and loving 10 
 study may indeed produce, or go to seed in, a grammar or 
 a lexicon ; but surely the grammar or the lexicon is not the 
 thing to prompt or inaugurate the long and loving study. 
 Or, if the study begin in that way, it will not be a study of 
 the workmanship as poetry, but only, or chiefly, as the raw 15 
 material of lingual science ; that is to say, as a subject for 
 verbal dissection and surgery. 
 
 If, then, any teacher would have his pupils go forth from 
 school knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense, he must 
 shape and order his methods accordingly. What those 20 
 methods may be, or should be, I cannot say ; but I should 
 think they must be quite in the high-pressure line, and I 
 more than suspect they will prove abortive, after all. And 
 here I cannot forbear to remark that some few of us are so 
 stuck in old-fogyism, or so fossilized, as to hold that the 25 
 main business of people in this world is to gain an honest 
 living ; and that they ought to be educated with a con- 
 stant eye to that purpose. These, to be sure, look very like 
 self-evident propositions; axioms, or mere truisms, which, 
 nevertheless, our education seems determined to ignore 30 
 entirely, and a due application of which would totally revo- 
 lutionize our whole educational system.
 
 68 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Now knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense does not 
 appear to be exactly the thing for gaining an honest Hving. 
 All people but a few, a very few indeed, have, ought to 
 have, must have, other things to do. I suspect that one 
 
 5 Shakespearean in about five millions is enough. And a vast 
 majority are to get their hving by handwork, not by head- 
 work ; and even with those who live by headwork Shake- 
 speare can very seldom be a leading interest. He can nowise 
 be the substance or body of their mental food, but only, at 
 
 lo the most, as a grateful seasoning thereof. Thinking of his 
 poetry may be a pleasant and helpful companion for them in 
 their business, but cannot be the business itself. His divine 
 voice may be a sweetening tone, yet can be but a single tone, 
 and an undertone at that, in the chorus of a well-ordered 
 
 15 life and a daily round of honorable toil. Of the students 
 in our colleges not one in a thousand, of the pupils in our 
 high schools not one in a hundred thousand, can think, or 
 ought to think, of becoming Shakespeareans. But most of 
 them, it may be hoped, can become men and women of right 
 
 20 intellectual tastes and loves, and so be capable of a pure and 
 elevating pleasure in the converse of books. Surely, then, 
 in the little time that can be found for studying Shakespeare, 
 the teaching should be shaped to the end, not of making 
 the pupils Shakespeareans, but only of doing somewhat — 
 
 25 it cannot be much — towards making them wiser, better, 
 happier men and women. 
 
 So, in reference to school study, what is the use of this 
 cant about knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense ? Why 
 talk of doing what no sane person can ever, for a moment, 
 
 30 possibly think of attempting? The thing might well be 
 passed by as one of the silliest cants that ever were canted, 
 but that, as now often urged, it is of a very misleading and
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 69 
 
 mischievous tendency ; like that other common folly of tell- 
 ing all our boys that they may become President of the 
 United States. This is the plain and simple truth of the 
 matter, and as such I am for speaking it without any sort of 
 mincing or disguise. In my vocabulary, indeed, on most 5 
 occasions I choose that a spade be simply "a spade," and 
 not "an instrument for removing earth." 
 
 This brings me to the main point, to what may be called 
 the heart of my message. Since anything worthy to be 
 termed an eminent knowledge of Shakespeare cannot possi- 10 
 bly be gained or given in school, and could not be, even if 
 ten times as many hours were spent in the study as can be, 
 or ought to be, so spent, the question comes next, What, then, 
 can be done? And my answer, in the fewest words, is this : 
 The most and the best that we can hope to do, is to plant 1 5 
 in the pupils, and to nurse up as far as may be, a genuine 
 taste and love for Shakespeare's poetry. The planting and 
 nursing of this taste is purely a matter of culture, and not of 
 acquirement : it is not properly giving the pupils knowledge ; 
 it is but opening the road, and starting them on the way to 20 
 knowledge. And such a taste, once well set in the mind, 
 will be, or at least stand a good chance of being, an abid- 
 ing principle, a prolific germ of wholesome and improving 
 study : moreover it will naturally proceed till, in time, it 
 comes to act as a strong elective instinct, causing the mind 25 
 to gravitate towards what is good, and to recoil from what is 
 bad : it may end in bringing, say, one in two millions to 
 " know Shakespeare in an eminent sense " ; but it can hardly 
 fail to be a precious and fruitful gain to many, perhaps to 
 most, possibly to all. 30 
 
 This I believe to be a thoroughly practicable aim. And 
 as the aim itself is practicable, so there are practicable ways
 
 70 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 for attaining it or working towards it. What these ways are 
 or may be, I can best set forth by tracing, as literally and 
 distinctly as I know how, my own course of procedure in 
 teaching. 
 5 In the first place, I never have had, never will have, any 
 recitations whatever ; but only what I call, simply, exercises, 
 the pupils reading the author under my direction, correction, 
 and explanation ; the teacher and the taught thus commun- 
 ing together in the author's pages for the time being.+ Nor 
 
 lo do I ever require, though I commonly advise, that the 
 matter to be read in class be read over by the pupils in pri- 
 vate before coming to the exercise. Such preparation is 
 indeed well, but not necessary. I am very well satisfied by 
 having the pupils live, breathe, think, feel with the author 
 
 15 while his words are on their lips and in their ears. As I 
 wish to have them simply growing, or getting the food of 
 growth, I do not care to have them making any conscious 
 acquirement at all ; my aim thus always being to produce 
 the utmost possible amount of silent effect. And I much 
 
 20 prefer to have the classes rather small, never including more 
 than twenty pupils ; even a somewhat smaller number is still 
 better. Then, in Shakespeare, I always have the pupils read 
 dramatically right round and round the class, myself calling 
 the parts. When a speech is read, if the occasion seems to 
 
 25 call for it, I make comments, ask questions, or have the 
 pupils ask them, so as to be sure that they understand fairly 
 what they are reading. That done, I call the next speech ; 
 and so the reading and the talking proceed till the class time 
 is up. 
 
 30 In the second place, as to the nature and scope of these 
 exercises, or the parts, elements, particulars they consist of. — 
 In Shakespeare, the exercise is a mixed one of reading,
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 71 
 
 language, and character. And I make a good deal of hav- 
 ing the Poet's lines read properly ; this too both for the util- 
 ity of it and as a choice and refined accomplishment, and 
 also because such a reading of them greatly enhances the 
 pleasure of the exercise both to the readers themselves and 5 
 to the hearers. + Here, of course, such points come in as the 
 right pronunciation of words, the right place and degree of 
 emphasis, the right pauses and divisions of sense, the right 
 tones and inflections of voice. But the particulars that make 
 up good reading are too well known to need dwelling upon. 10 
 Suffice it to say, that in this part of the exercise my whole 
 care is to have the pupils understand what they are read- 
 ing, and to pronounce it so that an intelligent listener may 
 understand it : that done, I rest content. But I tolerate 
 nothing theatrical or declamatory or oratorical or put on for 15 
 effect in the style of reading, and insist on a clean, clear, 
 simple, quiet voicing of the sense and meaning ; no strut, 
 no swell, but all plain and pure ; that being my notion of 
 tasteful reading. 
 
 Touching this point, I will but add that Shakspeare is 20 
 both the easiest and also the hardest of all authors to read 
 properly, — the easiest because he is the most natural, and 
 the hardest for the same reason ; and for both these reasons 
 together he is the best of all authors for training people in 
 the art of reading : for an art it is, and a very high one too, 25 
 insomuch that pure and perfect reading is one of the rarest 
 things in the world, as it is also one of the delightfullest. 
 The best description of what it is that now occurs to me is 
 in Guy Mannerhig, chapter 29th, where Julia Mannering 
 writes to her friend how, of an evening, her father is wont 30 
 to sweeten their home and its fireside by the choice matter 
 and the tasteful manner of his reading. And so my happy
 
 72 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 life — for it is a happy one — has little of better happiness 
 
 in it than hearing my own beloved pupils read Shakespeare. 
 
 As to the language part of the exercise, this is chiefly 
 
 concerned with the meaning and force of the Poet's words, 
 
 5 but also enters more or less into sundry points of grammar, 
 word growth, prosody, and rhetoric, making the whole as 
 little technical as possible. And I use, or aim to use, all 
 this for the one sole purpose of getting the pupils to under- 
 stand what is immediately before them ; not looking at all 
 
 10 to any lingual or philological purposes lying beyond the 
 matter directly in hand. And here I take the utmost care 
 not to push the part of verbal comment and explanation so 
 long or so far as to become dull and tedious to the pupils. 
 For as I wish them to study Shakespeare, simply that they 
 
 15 may learn to understand and to love his poetry itself, so I 
 must and will have them take pleasure in the process ; and 
 people are not apt to fall or to grow in love with things that 
 bore them. I would much rather they should not fully 
 understand his thought, or not take in the full sense of his 
 
 20 lines, than that they should feel anything of weariness or 
 disgust in the study ; for the defect of present comprehen- 
 sion can easily be repaired in the future, but not so the 
 disgust. If they really love the poetry, and find it pleasant 
 to their souls, I '11 risk the rest. 
 
 25 In truth, average pupils do not need nearly so much of 
 catechising and explaining as many teachers are apt to sup- 
 pose. I have known divers cases where this process was 
 carried to a very inordinate and hurtful excess, the matter 
 being all chopped into a fine mince-meat of items ; questions 
 
 30 and topics being multiplied to the last degree of minute- 
 ness and tenuity. Often well-nigh a hundred questions are 
 pressed where there ought not to be more than one or two ;
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 73 
 
 the aim being, apparently, to force an exhaustive gram- 
 matical study of the matter. And exhaustive of the pupil's 
 interest and patience it may well prove to be. This is not 
 studying Shakespeare, but merely using him as an occasion 
 for studying something else. Surely, surely, such a course 5 
 "is not, nor it cannot come to, good " : it is just the way 
 to make pupils loathe the study as an intolerable bore, and 
 wish the Poet had never been born. The thing to be aimed 
 at before all others is, to draw and hold the pupil's mind in 
 immediate contact with the poetry ; and such a multitude 10 
 of mincing questions and comments is just a thick wedge 
 of tiresome obstruction and separation driven in between 
 the two. In my own teaching, my greatest fear commonly 
 is, lest I may strangle and squelch the proper virtue and 
 efficacy of the Poet's lines with my own incontinent cate- 15 
 chetical and exegetical babble. 
 
 Next, for the character part of the exercise. And here 
 I have to say, at the start, that I cannot think it a good use 
 of time to put pupils to the study of Shakespeare at all, 
 until they have got strength and ripeness of mind enough 20 
 to enter, at least in some fair measure, into the transpira- 
 tions of character in his persons. For this is indeed the 
 Shakespeare of Shakespeare. And the process is as far as 
 you can think from being a mere formal or mechanical or 
 routine handling of words and phrases and figures of speech : 25 
 it is nothing less than to hear and to see the hearts and 
 souls of the persons in what they say and do ; to feel, as 
 it were, the very pulse throbs of their inner life. Herein 
 it is that Shakespeare's unapproached and unapproachable 
 mastery of human nature lies. Nor can I bear to have his 30 
 poetry studied merely as a curious thing standing outside 
 of and apart from the common life of man, but as drawing
 
 74 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 directly into the living current of human interests, feelings, 
 duties, needs, occasions. So I like to be often running the 
 Poet's thoughts, and carrying the pupils with them, right 
 out and home to the business and bosom of humanity about 
 5 them ; into the follies, vices, and virtues, the meannesses 
 and nobilities, the loves, joys, sorrows, and shames, the 
 lapses and grandeurs, the disciplines, disasters, devotions, 
 and divinities, of men and women as they really are in the 
 world. For so the right use of his poetry is, to subserve 
 
 lo the ends of life, not of talk. And if this part be rightly 
 done, pupils will soon learn that " our gentle Shakespeare " 
 is not a prodigious enchanter playing with sublime or gro- 
 tesque imaginations for their amusement, but a friend and 
 brother, all alive with the same heart that is in them ; and 
 
 15 who, while he is but little less than an angel, is also at the 
 same time but little more than themselves; so that, begin- 
 ning where his feet are, they can gradually rise, and keep 
 rising, till they come to be at home where his great, deep, 
 mighty intellect is. 
 
 20 Such, substantially, and in some detail, is the course I 
 have uniformly pursued in my Shakespeare classes. I have 
 ne\er cared to have my pupils make any show in analyzing 
 and parsing the Poet's language, but I have cared much, 
 very much, to have them understand and enjoy his poetry. 
 
 25 Accordingly I have never touched the former at all, except 
 so far as was clearly needful in order to secure the latter. 
 And as the poetry was made for the purpose of being 
 enjoyed, so, when I have seen the pupils enjoying it, this 
 has been to me sufficient proof that they rightly under- 
 
 30 stood it. True, I have never had, nor have I ever wanted, 
 any available but cheap percentages of proficiency to set 
 off my work : perhaps my pupils have seldom had any idea
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 75 
 
 of what they were getting from the study. Very well ; then 
 
 it has at least not fostered conceit in them : so I wished 
 
 to have it, so was glad to have it : the results I aimed at 
 
 were far ofif in the future ; nor have I had any fear of those 
 
 results failing to emerge in due time. In fact, I cleave 5 
 
 rather fondly to the hope of being remembered by my 
 
 pupils with some affection after I shall be no more ; and 
 
 I know right well that the best fruits of the best mental 
 
 planting have and must have a pretty long interval between 
 
 the seedtime and the harvest.+ 10 
 
 Once, indeed, and it was my very first attempt, having 
 
 a class of highly intelligent young ladies, I undertook to 
 
 put them through a pretty severe drill in prosody : after 
 
 enduring it awhile they remonstrated with me, giving me 
 
 to understand that they wanted the light and pleasure 15 
 
 properly belonging to the study, and not the tediousness 
 
 that pedantry or mere technical learning could force into 
 
 it. They were right ; and herein I probably learned more 
 
 from them than they did from me. And so teaching of 
 
 Shakespeare has been just the happiest occupation of my 20 
 
 life : the wholesomest and most tonic too ; disposing me 
 
 more than any other to severe and earnest thought : no 
 
 drudgery in it, no dullness about it ; but " as full of spirit 
 
 as the month of May," and joyous as Wordsworth's lark 
 
 hiding himself in the light of morning, and 25 
 
 With a soul as strong as a mountain river 
 Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver. 
 
 But now certain wise ones are telling us that this is all 
 wrong ; that teaching Shakespeare in this way is making, 
 or tending to make, the study "an entertainment," and 30 
 so not the "noble study" that it ought to be ; meaning, I 
 suppose, by noble study, such a study as would bring the
 
 76 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 pupils to know Shakespeare in the eminent sense remarked 
 upon before. What is this but to proceed in the work just 
 as if the pupils were to become Shakespeareans ; that is, 
 specialists in that particular line? 
 
 5 Thus they would import into this study the same false 
 and vicious mode that has come to be used with the classics 
 in our colleges. This mode is, to keep pegging away con- 
 tinually at points of grammar and etymology, so as to leave 
 no time or thought for the sense and meaning of what is 
 
 lo read. Thus the classical author is used merely or mainly 
 for the purpose of teaching the grammar, not the grammar 
 for the purpose of understanding the author. For the prac- 
 tical upshot of such a course is, to have the student learn 
 what modern linguists and grammarians have compiled, not 
 
 1 5 what the old Greeks and Romans thought. This hind-first or 
 hindmost-foremost process has grown to be a dreadful nui- 
 sance in our practice, making the study of Greek and Latin 
 inexpressibly lifeless and wearisome ; and utterly fruitless 
 withal as regards real growth of mind and culture of taste. 
 
 2o Some years ago, I had a talk on this subject with our 
 late venerable patriarch of American letters, whose only 
 grandson had then recently graduated from college. He 
 told me he had gathered from the young man to what a 
 wasteful and vicious extreme the thing was carried ; and he 
 
 25 spoke in terms of severe censure and reprobation of the 
 custom. And so I have heard how a very learned professor 
 one day spent the time of a whole recitation in talking about 
 a comma that had been inserted in a Greek text ; telling the 
 class who inserted it, and when and why he did so ; also 
 
 30 who had since accepted it, and who had since rejected it, 
 and when and why ; also what effect the insertion had, and 
 what the omission, on the sense of the passage. Now, if
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 'j'j 
 
 the students had all been predestined or predetermined 
 specialists in Greek, this might possibly have been the right 
 way ; but, as they were not so predestined or predeter- 
 mined, the way was most certainly wrong, and a worse one 
 could hardly have been taken. For the right course of study 5 
 for those who are to be specialists in this or that pursuit is 
 one thing ; the right course for those who cannot be, and 
 have no thought of being, specialists is a very different 
 thing ; and to transfer the former course to the latter class, 
 is a most preposterous blunder, yes, and a most mischievous 10 
 one too. 
 
 I have lately been given to understand that some of our 
 best classical teachers have become sensible of this great 
 error, and have set to work to correct it in practice. I under- 
 stand also that noble old Harvard, wise in this, as in many 15 
 other things, is leading the return to the older and better 
 way. I hope most devoutly that it is so ; for the proper effect 
 of the modern way can hardly be any other than to atten- 
 uate and chill and dwarf the student's better faculties. The 
 thing, to be sure, has been done in the name of thoroughness, 20 
 but I believe it has proved thorough to no end but that of 
 unsinewing the mind, and drying the sap out of it. 
 
 But now the selfsame false mode that has thus run itself 
 into the ground in classical study must, it seems, be used 
 in the study of English authors. For so the wise ones 25 
 aforesaid, those who are for having everybody know Shake- 
 speare in an eminent sense, would, apparently, have the 
 study ennobled by continual diversions into the science 
 of language, exercising the pupil's logical faculty, or rather 
 his memory, with points of etymology, grammar, historical 30 
 usage, etc. ; points that are, or may be made to appear, 
 scientifically demonstrable. Thus the thing they seem to
 
 78 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 have in view is about the same that certain positivist 
 thinkers mean when they would persuade us that no knowl- 
 edge is really worth having but what stands on a basis of 
 scientific demonstration, so that we not only may be certain 
 5 of its truth, but cannot possibly be otherwise. 
 
 So I have somewhere read of a certain mathematician 
 who, on reading Paradise Lost, made this profound criti- 
 cism, that " it was a very pretty piece of work, but he did 
 not see that it proved anything." But, if he had studied 
 
 lo it in the modern way of studying poetry, he would have 
 found that divers things might be proved from it ; as, for 
 instance, that a metaphor and a simile are at bottom one 
 and the same thing, differing only in form, and that the 
 author very seldom, if ever, makes use of the word its. 
 
 15 And so the singing of a bird does not prove anything scien- 
 tifically; and your best way of getting scientific knowledge 
 about the little creature is by dissecting him, so as to find 
 out where the music comes from, and how it is made. And 
 so, again, what good can the flowers growing on your 
 
 20 mother's grave do you, unless you use them as things to 
 "peep and botanize" about, like the "philosopher" in 
 one of Wordsworth's poems? 
 
 The study of Shakespeare an entertainment? Yes, to be 
 sure, precisely that, if you please to call it so ; a pastime, 
 
 25 a recreation, a delight. This is just what, in my notion of 
 things, such a study ought to be. Why, what else should 
 it be? It is just what I have always tried my utmost, and 
 I trust I may say with some little success, to make the 
 study. Shakespeare's poetry, has it not a right to be to us 
 
 30 a perennial spring of sweetness and refreshment, a thing 
 
 Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 Our pastime and our happiness may grow ?
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 79 
 
 And so my supreme desire has been that the time spent in 
 the study should be, to the pupils, brimful of quiet gladness 
 and pleasantness ; and in so far as at any time it has not 
 been so, just so far I have regarded my work as a sorry 
 failure, and have determined to try and do better next 5 
 time. What the dickens — I beg everybody's pardon — 
 what can be the proper use of studying Shakespeare's poetry 
 without enjoyment? Or do you suppose that any one can 
 really delight in his poetry, without reaping therefrom the 
 highest and purest benefit? The delectation is itself the 10 
 appropriate earnest and proof that the student is drinking 
 in — without knowing it indeed, and all the better for that 
 — just the truest, deepest, finest culture that any poetry 
 can give. What touches the mind's heart is apt to cause 
 pleasure; what merely grubs in its outskirts and suburbs 15 
 is apt to be tedious and dull. Assuredly, therefore, if a 
 teacher finds that his or her pupils, or any of them, cannot 
 be wooed and won to take pleasure in the study of Shake- 
 speare, then either the teacher should forthwith go to teach- 
 ing something else, or the pupils should be put to some 20 
 other study. 
 
 What wise and wonderful ideas our progressive oblivion 
 of the past is putting into people's heads ! Why, it has 
 been, from time immemorial, a settled axiom, that the proper 
 aim of poetry is to please ; of the highest poetry, to make 25 
 wisdom and virtue pleasant, to crown the True and the Good 
 with delight and joy. This is the very constituent of the 
 poet's art ; that without which it has no adequate reason 
 for being. To clothe the austere forms of truth and wisdom 
 with heart-taking beauty and sweetness, is its life and law, 30 
 But then it is only when poetry is read as poetry that it is 
 bound to please. When or so far as it is studied only as
 
 80 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 grammar or logic, it has a perfect right to be unpleasant. 
 Of course I hold that poetry, especially Shakespeare's, ought 
 to be read as poetry ; and when it is not read with pleasure, 
 the right grace and profit of the reading are missed. For 
 
 5 the proper instructiveness of poetry is essentially dependent 
 on its pleasantness ; whereas in other forms of writing this 
 order is or may be reversed. The sense or the conscience 
 of what is morally good and right should indeed have a hand, 
 and a prerogative hand, in shaping our pleasures ; and so, 
 
 10 to be sure, it must be, else the pleasures will needs be tran- 
 sient, and even the seedtime of future pains. So right- 
 minded people ought to desire, and do desire, to find 
 pleasure in what is right and good ; the highest pleasure in 
 what is Tightest and best : nevertheless the pleasure of the 
 
 IS thing is what puts its healing, purifying, regenerating virtue 
 into action ; and to converse with what is in itself beautiful 
 and good without tasting any pleasantness in it, is or may 
 be a positive harm. 
 
 But, indeed, our education has totally lost the idea of 
 
 20 culture, and consequently has thrown aside the proper 
 methods of it : it makes no account of anything but acquire- 
 ments. And the reason seems to be somewhat as follows : 
 — The process of culture is silent and unconscious, because 
 it works deep in the mind ; the process of acquirement is 
 
 25 conscious and loud, because its work is all on the mind's 
 surface. Moreover the former is exceedingly slow, insomuch 
 as to yield from day to day no audible results, and so cannot 
 be made available for effect in recitation : the latter is rapid, 
 yielding recitable results from hour to hour ; the effect comes 
 
 30 quickly, is quickly told in recitation, and makes a splendid 
 appearance, thus tickling the vanity of pupils mightily, as 
 also of their loving (self -loving?) parents.
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 8l 
 
 But then, on the other hand, the culture that you have 
 once got you thenceforward keep, and can nowise part with 
 or lose it ; slow in coming, it comes to stay with you, and 
 to be an indelible part of you : whereas your acquirement 
 is, for the most part, quickly got, and as quickly lost ; for, 5 
 indeed, it makes no part of the mind, but merely hangs or 
 sticks on its outside. So, here, the pupil just crams in study, 
 disgorges in recitation, and then forgets it all, to go through 
 another like round of cramming, disgorging, and forgetting. 
 Thus the pulse of your acquirement is easily counted, and 10 
 foots up superbly from day to day ; but nobody can count 
 the pulse of your culture, for it has none, at least none that 
 is or can be perceived. In other words, the course of cul- 
 ture is dimly marked by years ; that of acquirement is plainly 
 marked by hours. 15 
 
 And so no one can parse, or cares to parse, the delight 
 he has in Shakespeare, for the parsing just kills the delight : 
 the culture one gets from studying his poetry as poetry, he 
 can nowise recite, for it is not a recitable thing, and he can 
 tell you nothing about it : he can only say he loves the 20 
 poetry, and that talking with it somehow recreates and 
 refreshes him. But any one can easily learn to parse the 
 Poet's words : what he gets from studying his poetry as 
 grammar, or logic, or rhetoric, or prosody, this he can recite, 
 can talk glibly about it; but it stirs no love in him, has no 25 
 recreation or refreshment for him at all ; none, that is, 
 unless by touching his vanity, and putting him in love with 
 himself for the pretty show he makes in recitation. There 
 is, to be sure, a way of handling the study of Shakespeare, 
 whereby the pupils may be led to take pleasure not so much 30 
 in his poetry itself as in their own supposed knowledge and 
 appreciation of it. That way, however, I just do not believe
 
 82 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 in at all ; no ! not even though it be the right way for 
 bringing pupils to know Shakespeare in the eminent sense. 
 I have myself learned him, if I may claim to know him at all, 
 in a very uneminent sense, and have for more than forty 
 5 years been drawn onwards in the study purely by the natural 
 pleasantness of his poetry ; and so I am content to have 
 others do. Thus, you see, it has never been with me 
 " a noble study " at all. 
 
 Well now, our education is continually saying, in effect if 
 
 lo not in words, "What is the use of pursuing such studies, or 
 pursuing them in such a way, as can produce no available 
 results, nothing to show, from day to day? Put away your 
 slow thing, whose course is but faintly marked even by years, 
 and give us the spry thing, that marks its course brilliantly 
 
 1 5 by days, perhaps by hours. Let the clock of our progress 
 tick loudly, that we may always know just where it is, and 
 just where we are. Except we can count the pulse of your 
 process, we will not believe there is any life or virtue in it. 
 None of your silences for us, if you please ! " 
 
 2o A few words now on another, yet nearly connected, topic, 
 and I have done. — I have long thought, and the thought 
 has kept strengthening with me from year to year, that our 
 educational work proceeds altogether too much by recita- 
 tions. Our school routine is now a steady stream of these, 
 
 25 so that teachers have no time for anything else; the pupils 
 being thus held in a continual process of alternate crammings 
 and disgorgings. As part and parcel of this recitation sys- 
 tem, we must have frequent examinations and exhibitions, 
 for a more emphatic marking of our progress. The thing 
 
 30 has grown to the height of a monstrous abuse, and is threat- 
 ening most serious consequences. It is a huge perpetual 
 motion of forcing and high pressure ; no possible pains
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 83 
 
 being spared to keep the pupils intensely conscious of their 
 proficiency, or of their deficiency, as the case may be : 
 motives of pride, vanity, shame, ambition, rivalry, emula- 
 tion, are constantly appealed to and stimulated, and the 
 nervous system kept boiling hot with them. Thus, to make 5 
 the love of knowledge sprout soon enough, and grow fast 
 and strong enough for our ideas, we are all the while dosing 
 and provoking it with a sort of mental and moral canthar- 
 ides. Surely, the old arguments of the rod and the ferule, 
 as persuasives to diligence, were far wholesomer, yes, and 10 
 far kinder too, than this constant application of intellectual 
 drugs and high wines : the former only made the skin tingle 
 and smart a little while, and that was the end of it ; whereas 
 the latter plants its pains within the very house of life, and 
 leaves them rankling and festering there. "^ So our way is, to 15 
 spare the skin and kill the heart. 
 
 And, if the thing is not spoiling the boys, it is at all 
 events killing the girls. + For, as a general rule, girls are, I 
 take it, more sensitive and excitable naturally than boys, 
 and therefore more liable to have their brain and nervous 20 
 system fatally wronged and diseased by this dreadful, this 
 cruel, fomenting with unnatural stimulants and provocatives. 
 To be sure, it makes them preternaturally bright and inter- 
 esting for a while, and w'e think the process is working glori- 
 ously : but this is all because the dear creatures have come 25 
 to blossom at a time when as yet the leaves should not 
 have put forth ; and so, when the proper time arrives for 
 them to be in the full bloom of womanhood, leaf, blossom, 
 and all are gone, leaving them faded and withered and joy- 
 less; and chronic ill health, premature old age, untimely 30 
 death, are their lot and portion. Of course, the thing can- 
 not fail to have the effect of devitalizing and demoralizing
 
 84 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and dwarfing the mind itself. The bright glow in its cheeks 
 is but the hectic flush of a consumptive state. 
 
 This is no fancy picture, no dream of speculative imagi- 
 nation : it is only too true in matter of fact ; as any one 
 5 may see, or rather as no one can choose but see, who uses 
 his eyes upon what is going on about us. Why, Massachusetts 
 cannot now build asylums fast enough for her multiplying 
 insane ; and, if things keep on as they are now going, the 
 chances are that the whole State will in no very long time 
 
 10 come to be almost one continuous hospital of lunatics. All 
 this proceeds naturally and in course from our restless and 
 reckless insistence on forcing what is, after all, but a showy, 
 barren, conceited intellectualism. But, indeed, the conse- 
 quences of this thing are, some of them, too appalling to be 
 
 15 so much as hinted here : I can but speak the word tnother- 
 hood, — a word even more laden with tenderness and sacred 
 meaning than tuomanhood. 
 
 I have talked with a good many of our best teachers on 
 this subject, never with any one who did not express a full 
 
 20 concurrence with me in the opinion, that the recitation 
 business is shockingly and ruinously overworked in our 
 teaching. But they say they can do nothing, or at the best 
 very little, to help it ; the public will have it so ; the thing 
 has come to be a deep-seated chronic disease in our educa- 
 
 25 tional system : this disease has got to run its course and 
 work itself through ; it is to be hoped that, when matters 
 are at the worst, they will take a turn, and begin to mend : 
 at all events, time alone can work-out a redress of the wrong. 
 In all this they are perfectly right; so that the blame of the 
 
 30 thing nowise rests with them. Neither does the blame rest 
 ultimately with superintendents, supervisors, or committee- 
 men, where Gail Hamilton, in her recent book, places it :
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 85 
 
 the trouble lies further back, in the state of the public mind 
 itself, which has for a long time been industriously, -inces- 
 santly, systematically, perverted, corrupted, depraved, by 
 plausible but shallow innovators and quacks. 
 
 The real truth is, things have come to that pass with us, 5 
 that parents will not believe there is or can be any real 
 growth of mind in their children, unless they can see them 
 growing from day to day ; whereas a growing that can be 
 so seen is of course just no growing at all, but only a bloat- 
 ing ; which I believe I have said somewhere before. In this 10 
 wretched mispersuasion, they use all possible means to foster 
 in their children a morbid habit of conscious acquirement ; 
 and a system of recitations, examinations, and exhibitions 
 to keep the process hot and steaming, is the thing to do it. 
 
 But I more than suspect the primitive root of the difficulty 15 
 Ues deeper still, and is just here : That, having grown into a 
 secret disreUsh of the old religion of our fathers, as being too 
 objective in its nature, and too firm and solid in its objec- 
 tiveness, to suit our taste, we have turned to an idolatry of 
 intellect and knowledge ; have no faith in anything, no love 20 
 for anything, but what we spin, or seem to spin, out of our 
 own minds. So in the idolatry of intellect, as in other idol- 
 atries, the marble statue with which it begins naturally comes, 
 in process of time, to be put aside as too weighty, too ex- 
 pensive, and too still, and to be replaced with a hollow and 25 
 worthless image all made up of paper and paint. And the 
 cheaper and falser the idol is, the more eagerly do the 
 devotees cut and scourge themselves in the worship of it. 
 Hence the prating and pretentious intellectualism which we 
 pursue with such suicidal eagerness. 3° 
 
 I must add, that of the same family with the cant spoken 
 of before is that other canting phrase now so rife among us
 
 86 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 about " the higher education." The lower education, yes, 
 the lower, is what we want ; and if this be duly cared for, 
 the higher may be safely left to take care of itself. The 
 latter will then come, and so it ought to come, of its own 
 
 5 accord, just as fast and as far as the former finds or develops 
 the individual aptitude for it ; and the attempting to give it 
 regardless of such aptitude can only do what it is now doing, 
 namely, spoil a great many people for all useful handwork, 
 without fitting them for any sort of headwork. 
 
 10 Of course there are some studies which may, perhaps must, 
 proceed more or less by recitation. But, as a perpetual show 
 of mind in the young is and can be nothing but a perpetual 
 sham, so I am and long have been perfectly satisfied that at 
 least three fourths of our recitations ought to be abandoned 
 
 15 with all practicable speed, and be replaced by the better 
 methods of our fathers, — methods that hold fast to the old 
 law of what Dr. William B. Carpenter terms " unconscious 
 cerebration," which is indeed the irrepealable law of all true 
 mental growth and all right intellectual health. Nay, more ; 
 
 20 the best results of the best thinking in the best and ripest 
 heads come under the operation of the selfsame law, — just 
 that, and no other. 
 
 Assuredly, therefore, the need now most urgently pressing 
 upon us is, to have vastly more of growth, and vastly less of 
 
 25 manufacture, in our education ; or, in other words, that the 
 school be altogether more a garden, and altogether less a 
 mill. And a garden, especially with the rich multitudinous 
 flora of Shakespeare blooming and breathing in it, can it be, 
 ought it to be, other than a pleasant and happy place? 
 
 30 The child whose love is here at least doth reap 
 
 One precious gain, that he forgets himself.
 
 PREFACE TO THE HARVARD 
 EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The most obvious peculiarity of this edition is, that it 
 has two sets of notes ; one mainly devoted to explain- 
 ing the text, and printed at the foot of the page ; the other 
 mostly occupied with matters of textual comment and criti- 
 cism, and printed at the end of each play."*" Of course the 5 
 purpose of this double annotation is, to suit the work, as far 
 as practicable, to the uses both of the general reader and of 
 the special student. Now, whatever of explanation general 
 readers may need, they naturally prefer to have it directly 
 before them ; and in at least nine cases out of ten they will 10 
 pass over an obscure word or phrase or allusion without un- 
 derstanding it, rather than stay to look up the explanation 
 either in another volume or in another part of the same 
 volume. Often, too, in case the explanation be not directly 
 at hand, they will go elsewhere in quest of it, and then find, 15 
 after all, that the editor has left the matter unexplained; so 
 that the search will be to no purpose : whereas, with the plan 
 of footnotes, they will commonly see at once how the matter 
 stands, and what they have to expect, and so will be spared 
 the labor and vexation of a fruitless quest. 20 
 
 It scarce need be said that with special students the case 
 is very different."*" In studying such an author as Shake- 
 speare, these naturally expect to light upon many things for 
 the full discussion or elucidation of which they will have to 
 
 87
 
 88 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 go beyond the page before them ; though I believe even 
 these like to have the matter within convenient reach and 
 easy reference. At all events, they are, or well may be, 
 much less apt to get so intent on the author's thought, and 
 5 so drawn onwards by the interest of the work, but that they 
 can readily pause, and turn elsewhere, to study out such 
 points as may call, or seem to call, for particular investiga- 
 tion. In fact, general readers, for the most part, pay little 
 or no attention to the language of what they are reading, 
 
 lo and seldom if ever interrogate, or even think of, the words, 
 save when the interest of the matter is choked or checked 
 by some strangeness or obscurity of expression ; whereas 
 special students commonly are or should be carrying on a 
 silent process of verbal interrogation, even when the matter 
 
 15 is their chief concern : and as these are more sharp-sighted 
 and more on the lookout for verbal difficulties than the 
 former, so they are less impatient of the pauses required 
 for out-of-the-way explanation. 
 
 This edition has been undertaken, and the plan of it 
 
 20 shaped, with a special view to meeting what is believed to 
 be a general want, and what has indeed been repeatedly 
 urged as such within the last few years."*" It has been said, 
 and, I think, justly said, that a need is widely felt of an 
 edition of Shakespeare, with such and so much of explana- 
 
 25 tory comment as may sufifice for the state of those unlearned 
 but sane-thoughted and earnest readers who have, or wish to 
 have, their tastes raised and set to a higher and heartier kind 
 of mental feeding than the literary smoke and chalif of the 
 time. I have known many bright and upward-looking 
 
 30 minds, — minds honestly craving to drink from the higher 
 and purer springs of intellectual power and beauty, — who 
 were frank to own that it was a sin and a shame not to love
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 89 
 
 Shakespeare, but who could hardly, if at all, make that love 
 come free and natural to them. 
 
 To be plying such minds with arguments of duty, or with 
 thoughts of the good to be gained by standing through un- 
 pleasant taskwork, seems to me a rather ungracious and 5 
 impotent business. For it has long been a settled axiom 
 that the proper force of poetry is to please ; of the highest 
 poetry, to make wisdom and virtue pleasant, to crown the 
 True and the Good with delight and joy.+ This is the very 
 constituent of the poet's art ; that without which it has no 10 
 adequate reason for being. To clothe the austere forms of 
 truth and wisdom with heart-taking beauty and sweetness, is 
 its hfe and law. Poetry, then, ought of course to be read as 
 poetry ; and when not read with pleasure, the right grace and 
 profit of the reading are missed. For the proper instructive- 15 
 ness of poetry is essentially dependent on its pleasantness ; 
 whereas in other forms of writing this order is or may be 
 reversed. The sense or the conscience of what is morally 
 good and right should indeed have a hand, and a prerogative 
 hand, in shaping our pleasures ; and so indeed it must be, 20 
 else the pleasures will needs be transient, and even the seed- 
 time of future pains. So right-minded people ought to 
 desire, and do desire, to find pleasure in what is right and 
 good ; the highest pleasure in what is rightest and best : 
 nevertheless the pleasure of the thing is what puts its healing, 25 
 purifying, regenerating virtue into act ; and to converse with 
 what is in itself beautiful and good without tasting any pleas- 
 antness in it, is or may be a positive harm. 
 
 How, then, in reference to Shakespeare, is the case of 
 common readers to be met? As before remarked, to urge 30 
 reasons of duty is quite from the purpose : reading Shake- 
 speare as duty and without pleasure is of no use, save as it
 
 90 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 may lift and draw them into a sense of his pleasantness. 
 The question is, therefore, how to make him pleasant and 
 attractive to them ; how to put him before them, so that his 
 spirit may have a fair chance to breathe into them, and 
 
 5 quicken their congenial susceptibilities ; for, surely, his soul 
 and theirs are essentially attuned to the same music. Doubt- 
 less a full sense of his pleasantness is not to be extemporized : 
 w'ith most of us, nay, with the best of us, this is and must be 
 a matter of growth : none but Shakespeare himself can edu- 
 
 lo cate us into a love of Shakespeare ; and such education, 
 indeed all education, is a work of time. But I must insist 
 upon it, that his works can and should be so edited, that 
 average readers may find enough of pleasantness in them 
 from the first to hold them to the perusal : and when they 
 
 1 5 have been so held long enough for the workmanship to steal 
 its virtue and sweetness into them, then they will be naturally 
 and freely carried onwards to the condition where " love is 
 an unerring light, and joy its own security." 
 
 These remarks, T believe, indicate, as well as I know how 
 
 2o to do, my idea — I can hardly say, I dare not say, my ideal — 
 of what a popular edition of Shakespeare ought to be.+ The 
 editorial parts should, as far as possible, be so cast and tem- 
 pered and ordered as to make the Poet's pages pleasant and 
 attractive to common minds. Generally to such minds, and 
 
 25 often even to uncommon minds, Shakespeare's world may 
 well seem at first a strange world, — strange not only for the 
 spiritualized realism of it, but because it is so much more 
 deeply and truly natural than the book world to which they 
 have been accustomed. The strangeness of the place, to- 
 
 30 gether with the difficulty they find in clearly seeing the real 
 forms and relations of the objects before them, is apt to ren- 
 der the place unattractive, if not positively repulsive, to them.
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 91 
 
 The place is so emphatically the native home of both the soul 
 and the senses, that they feel lost in it; and this because 
 they have so long traveled in literary regions where the soul 
 and the senses have been trained into an estrangement from 
 their proper home. It is like coming back to realities after 5 
 having strayed among shadows till the shadows have come to 
 seem realities. 
 
 Not seldom the very naturalness of Shakespeare's world 
 frightens unaccustomed readers : they find, or feel, so to 
 speak, a kind of estranged familiarity about it, as of a place 10 
 they have once known, but have lost the memory of ; so that 
 it seems to them a land peopled with the ghosts of what had 
 long ago been to them real living things. Thus the effect, for 
 some time, is rather to scare and chill their interest than to 
 kindle and heighten it. And the Poet is continually popping 15 
 his thoughts upon them so pointedly, so vividly, so directly, 
 so unceremoniously, that their sensibilities are startled, and 
 would fain shrink back within the shell of custom ; so different 
 is it from the pulpy, pointless, euphemistic roundaboutness 
 and volubility which they have been used to hearing from 20 
 the pulpit, the press, the vulgar oratory, and the popular 
 authorship of the day. Therewithal, the Poet often springs 
 upon them such abrupt and searching revelations of their 
 inner selves, so stings them with his truth, so wounds them 
 with his healing, and causes such an undreamed-of birth of 25 
 thoughts and feelings within them, that they stare about 
 them with a certain dread and shudder, and " tremble like 
 a guilty thing surprised," as in the presence of a magician 
 that has stolen their inmost secrets from them, and is show- 
 ing them up to the world."*" 3° 
 
 But this is not all. Besides the unfamiliarity of Shake- 
 speare's matter, so many and so great lingual changes have
 
 92 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 taken place since his time, and, still more, his manner both 
 of thought and expression is so intensely idiomatic, his diction 
 so suggestive and overcharged with meaning, his imagery so 
 strong and bold, his sense so subtle and delicate, his mod- 
 
 5 ulation so various and of such solid and piercing sweetness, 
 that common readers naturally have no little difficulty in 
 coming to an easy and familiar converse with him. On some 
 of these points, an editor can give little or no positive help : 
 he can at the best but remove or lessen hindrances, and per- 
 
 lo haps throw in now and then a kindling word or breath. But, 
 on others of them, it lies within an editor's province to ren- 
 der all the positive aid that common readers need for mak- 
 ing them intelligently and even delightedly at home with 
 the Poet. 
 
 IS Of course this is to be mostly done by furnishing such and 
 so much of comment and citation as may be required for 
 setting the Poet's meaning out clear and free, and by trans- 
 lating strange or unfamiliar words, phrases, and modes of 
 speech into the plain, current language of the day. And 
 
 20 here it is of the first importance that an editor have the mind, 
 or the art, not only to see things plainly, but to say a plain 
 thing in a plain way ; or, in the happy phrase of old Roger 
 Ascham, to " think as wise men do, and speak as common 
 people do."+ And the secret of right editing is, to help aver- 
 
 25 age readers over the author's difficulties with as little sense 
 as possible of being helped ; to lead them up his heights and 
 through his depths with as little sense as possible of being led. 
 To do this, the editor must have such a kind and measure of 
 learning in the field of his labor as can come only by many 
 
 30 years of careful study and thought; and he must keep the 
 details and processes of his learning out of sight, putting forth 
 only the last and highest results, the blossom and fragrance,
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 93 
 
 of his learnedness : and the editor who does not know too 
 much in his subject to be showing his knowledge is green 
 and crude, and so far unfitted for his task. Generally speak- 
 ing, it is doubtless better to withhold a needed explanation 
 than to offer a needless one ; because the latter looks as if 5 
 the editor were intent on thrusting himself between the 
 author and the reader. 
 
 Probably we all understand that the best style in writing 
 is where average minds, on reading it, are prompted to say, 
 " Why, almost anybody could have done that " ; and a style 10 
 that is continually making such readers sensible of their 
 ignorance, or of their inferiority to the writer, is not good. 
 For the proper light of a truly luminous speaker is one that 
 strikes up a kindred light in the hearer ; so that the light 
 seems to come, and indeed really does come, from the 15 
 hearer's own mind. It is much the same in editing a stand- 
 ard author for common use. And for an editor to be all 
 the while, or often, putting average readers in mind how 
 ignorant and inferior they are, is not the best way, nor the 
 right way, to help them. 20 
 
 But what seems specially needful to be kept in mind is, 
 that when common people read Shakespeare, it is not to 
 learn etymology, or grammar, or philology, or lingual antiqui- 
 ties, or criticism, or the technicalties of scholarism, but to 
 learn Shakespeare himself; to understand the things he puts 25 
 before them, to take in his thought, to taste his wisdom, to 
 feel his beauty, to be kindled by his fire, to be refreshed with 
 his humor, to glow with his rapture, and to be stolen from 
 themselves and transported into his moral and intellectual 
 whereabout ; in a word, to live, breathe, think, and feel with 30 
 him. I am so simple and old-fashioned as to hold that, in 
 so reading the Poet, they are putting him to the very best
 
 94 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and highest use of which he is capable. Even their intellects, 
 I think, will thrive far better so, than by straining themselves 
 to a course of mere intellectualism. All which means, to be 
 sure, that far more real good will come, even to the mind, 
 5 by foolishly enjoying Shakespeare than by learnedly parsing 
 him. So that here I am minded to apply the saying of 
 Wordsworth, that "he is oft the wisest man who is not wise 
 at all." 
 
 Now I cannot choose but think that, if this were always 
 
 10 duly borne in mind, we should see much more economy of 
 erudition than we do. It is the instinct of a crude or con- 
 ceited learning to be ever emphasizing itself, and poking its 
 fingers into the readers' eyes : but a ripe and well-assimilated 
 learning does not act thus : it is a fine spirit working in the 
 
 15 mind's blood, and not a sort of foam or scum mantling its 
 surface, or an outgrowth bristling into notice."^ So that here, 
 as in all true strength, modesty rules the transpiration. 
 Accordingly an editor's proper art is to proceed, not by a 
 formal and conscious use of learning, but by the silent effi- 
 
 20 cacy thereof transfusing itself insensibly into and through 
 his work, so as to accomplish its purpose without being 
 directly seen. 
 
 Nor is Shakespeare's language so antiquated, or his idiom 
 of thought so remote from ordinary apprehension, as to 
 
 25 require a minute, or cumbrous, or oppressive erudition for 
 making his thoughts intelligible to average minds. His 
 diction, after all, is much nearer the common vernacular of 
 the day than that of his editors : for where would these be 
 if they did not write in a learned sXy\tl To be sure, here, 
 
 30 as elsewhere, an editor's art, or want of art, can easily find 
 or make ever so many difficulties, in order to magnify itself 
 and its office by meeting them, or by seeming to meet them.
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 95 
 
 And in fact it has now become, or is fast becoming, very- 
 much the fashion to treat Shakespeare in this way; an elab- 
 orate and self-conscious erudition using him as a sort of 
 perch to flap its wings and crow from. So we have had and 
 are having editions of his plays designed for common use, 5 
 wherein the sunlight of his poetry is so mufifled and stran- 
 gled by a thick haze of minute, technical, and dictionary 
 learning, that common eyes can hardly catch any fresh and 
 clear beams of it. Small points and issues almost number- 
 less, and many of them running clean off into distant tenth- 10 
 cousin matters, are raised, as if poetry so vital and organic 
 as his, and with its mouth so full of soul music, were but a 
 subject for lingual and grammatical dissection ; or a thing 
 to be studied through a microscope, and so to be " exam- 
 ined, ponder'd, search'd, probed, vex'd, and criticised.""^ Is 15 
 not all this very much as if the main business of readers, 
 with Shakespeare's page before them, were to " pore, and 
 dwindle as they pore "? 
 
 Here the ruling thought seems to be, that the chief profit 
 of studying Shakespeare is to come by analyzing and parsing 20 
 his sentences, not by understanding and enjoying his poetry. 
 But, assuredly, this is not the way to aid and encourage 
 people in the study of Shakespeare. They are not to be 
 inspired with a right love or taste for him by having his 
 lines encumbered with such commentatorial redundances 25 
 and irrelevancies. Rather say, such a course naturally ren- 
 ders the Poet an unmitigable bore to them, and can hardly 
 fail to disgust and repel them ; unless, perchance, it may 
 superinduce upon them a certain dry rot of formalistic 
 learning. For, in a vast many cases, the explanations are 30 
 far more obscure to the average reader than the things 
 explained ; and he may well despair of understanding the
 
 96 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Poet, when he so often finds it impossible to understand 
 his explainers. Or the effect of such a course, if it have 
 any but a negative effect, can hardly be other than to tease 
 and card the common sense out of people, and train them 
 
 5 into learned and prating dunces, instead of making them 
 intelligent, thoughtful, happy men and v^'omen in the ordi- 
 nary tasks, duties, and concerns of life. 
 
 Thus Shakespeare is now in a fair way to undergo the 
 same fate which a much greater and better book has already 
 
 lo undergone."^ For even so a great many learned minds, 
 instead of duly marking how little need be said, and how 
 simply that little should be said, have tried, apparently, how 
 much and how learnedly they could write upon the Bible ; 
 how many nice questions they could raise, and what elabo- 
 
 15 rate comments they could weave about its contents. Take, 
 for example, the Sermon on the Mount : left to its natural 
 and proper working, that brief piece of writing has in it more 
 of true culture-force or culture-inspiration than all the mere 
 scientific books in the world put together : and learned com- 
 
 20 mentaries stand, or claim to stand, in the rank of scientific 
 works. Yet even here, as experience has amply proved, a 
 sort of learned incontinence can easily so intricate and per- 
 plex the matter, and spin the sense out into such a curious 
 and voluminous interpretation, as fairly to swamp plain 
 
 25 minds, and put them quite at a loss as to what the Divine 
 utterances mean. The thing is clear enough, until a garru- 
 lous and obtrusive learning takes it in hand; and then dark- 
 ness begins to gather round it. 
 
 And so the Bible generally, as we all know, has been so 
 
 30 worried and belabored with erudite, or ignorant, but at all 
 events diffusive, long-winded, and obstructive commentary; 
 its teachings and efficacies have got so strangled by the
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 97 
 
 interminable yarns of interpretation spun about them ; that 
 now at length common people have pretty much lost both 
 their faith in it and their taste for it : reverence for it has 
 come to be regarded as little better than an exploded super- 
 stition : and indeed its light can hardly struggle or filtrate 5 
 through the dense vapors of learned and elaborate verbosity 
 exhaled from subjacent regions. The tendency now is to 
 replace the Bible with Shakespeare as our master code of 
 practical wisdom and guidance. I am far, very far indeed, 
 from regarding this as a sign of progress, either moral or 10 
 intellectual : viewed merely in reference to literary taste, the 
 Bible is incomparably beyond any other book in the world : 
 but, if such a substitution must be made, Shakespeare is 
 probably the best. The Poet himself tells us, " they that 
 dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton." 15 
 And so, to be sure, the process has set in, and is already 
 well advanced, of smothering his proper light beneath com- 
 mentatorial surplusage and rubbish. 
 
 So strong is the conceit of studying all things scientific- 
 ally, that we must, forsooth, have Shakespeare used as the 20 
 raw material of scientific manufacture. It seems to be pre- 
 sumed that people cannot rightly feed upon his poetry, 
 unless it be first digested for them into systematic shape 
 by passing through some gerund-grinding laboratory.^ But 
 the plain truth is, that works of imagination cannot be 25 
 mechanized and done over into the forms of science, with- 
 out a total dissipation of their life and spirit, of all indeed 
 that is properly constitutive in them. It is simply like dis- 
 secting a bird in order to find out where the music comes 
 from and how it is made. 3° 
 
 I have, perhaps, dwelt upon this topic too long, and may 
 fitly close it with a few pertinent words from Bacon, which
 
 98 HUDSOiN'S ESSAYS 
 
 always come into my remembrance when thinking on the 
 subject. " The first distemper of learning," says he, " is 
 when men study words and not matter. And how is it pos- 
 sible but this should have an operation to discredit learn- 
 5 ing, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned 
 men's works like the first letter of a patent, or a limned 
 book ; which, though it hath large flourishes, yet is but a 
 letter? It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good 
 emblem or portraiture of this vanity : for words are but the 
 
 10 images of matter; and, except they have the life of reason 
 and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall 
 in love with a picture." In another passage, he puts the 
 matter as follows : " Surely, like as many substances in 
 Nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into worms ; 
 
 15 so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to 
 putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtile, idle, unwhole- 
 some, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, 
 which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, 
 but no soundness of matter or goodness of quahty." 
 
 20 To preclude misapprehension, as far as may be, I must 
 add that the foregoing remarks have an eye only to editions 
 of the Poet designed for common use ; and so cannot be 
 justly construed as reflecting on such as look mainly to the 
 special use of students and scholars. Doubtless there may 
 
 25 be, nay, there must be, from time to time, say as often as 
 once in forty or fifty years, highly learned editions of Shake- 
 speare; such, for instance, as Mr. Howard Furness's mag- 
 nificent Variorii7n, which, so far as it has come, is a truly 
 monumental achievement of learning, judgment, good sense, 
 
 30 and conscientious, painstaking industry."*" Of course such a 
 work must needs enter very largely into the details and 
 processes of the subject, pursuing a great many points out
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 99 
 
 through all the subtilties and intricacies of critical inquiry. 
 But, for the generality of readers, such a handling of the 
 theme is obviously quite out of the question : in this hard 
 working-day world, they have too much else in hand to be 
 tracing out and sifting the nice questions which it is the 5 
 business of a profound and varied scholarship to investigate 
 and settle; and the last and highest results of such scholar- 
 ship is all that they can possibly have time or taste for. If 
 any one says that common readers, such as at least ninety- 
 nine persons in a hundred are and must be, should have the 10 
 details and processes of the work put before them, that so 
 they may be enabled to form independent judgments for 
 themselves; — I say, whoever talks in this way is either 
 under a delusion himself, or else means to delude others. 
 It may flatter common readers to be told that they are just 15 
 as competent to judge for themselves in these matters as 
 those who have made a lifelong study of them : but the 
 plain truth is, that such readers must perforce either take the 
 results of deep scholarship on trust, or else not have them at 
 all ; and none but a dupe or a quack, or perhaps a com- 20 
 pound of the two, would ever think of representing the 
 matter otherwise. 
 
 But the main business of this Preface is yet to come, and 
 what remains must be chiefly occupied with certain ques- 
 tions touching the Poet's text. And here I must first make 25 
 a brief general statement of the condition in which his 
 text has come down to us, leaving the particular details in 
 this kind to be noted in connection with the several plays 
 themselves. 
 
 Of the thirty-eight plays included in this edition, sixteen, 30 
 or, if we count in the originals of the Second and Third
 
 lOO HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Parts of King Henry the Sixth, eighteen, were published, 
 severally and successively, in what are known as the quarto 
 editions, during the Poet's life. Some of them were printed 
 in that form several times, but often with considerable 
 5 variations of text. One more, Othello, was issued in that 
 form in 1622, six years after the Poet's death. Copies 
 of these editions are still extant, though in some cases 
 exceedingly rare.+ Most of these issues were undoubtedly 
 "stolen and surreptitious"; and it is nowise likely that 
 
 10 in any of them a single page of the proofs was ever cor- 
 rected by Shakespeare himself. In the popular literature 
 of his time, proof reading generally was done, if done at all, 
 with such a degree of slovenliness as no one would think 
 of tolerating now. And that proof sheets can be rightly 
 
 15 and properly corrected by none but the author himself, or 
 by one very closely and minutely familiar with his mind, 
 his mouth, and his hand, is a lesson which an experience 
 of more than thirty years in the matter has taught me beyond 
 all peradventure. And, in fact, the printing in most of 
 
 20 these quarto issues is so shockingly bad, that no one can 
 gain an adequate idea of how bad it is, except by minutely 
 studying the text as there given, and comparing it in detail 
 with the text as given in modern editions. 
 
 All the forecited plays, with one exception, Pericles, were 
 
 25 set forth anew in the celebrated folio of 1623,"*" seven years 
 after the Poet's death. Most of them are indeed printed 
 much better there than in the earlier issues, though some 
 of them are well known to have been printed from quarto 
 copies. Therewithal the folio set forth, for the first time, so 
 
 30 far as is known, all the other plays included in this edition, 
 except The Two Noble Kinsmen. The volume was pub- 
 lished, professedly at least, under the editorial care of the
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE lOI 
 
 Poet's friends and fellow-actors, John Heminge and Henry 
 Condell. 
 
 The printing of the folio is exceedingly unequal : in 
 some of the plays, as, for instance, Julius Ccssar, Twelfth 
 Night, and As You Like It, it is remarkably good for the 5 
 time, insomuch that the text, generally, is got into an 
 orderly and intelligible state without much trouble ; while 
 others, as AlPs Well, Coriolatius, and Tijnon of Athens, 
 abound in the grossest textual corruptions, so that the labor 
 of rectification seems to be literally endless. Even where 10 
 the printing is best, there are still so many palpable, and 
 also so many more or less probable, misprints, that the text, 
 do the best we can with it, must often stand under con- 
 siderable uncertainty. It is not unlikely that in some parts 
 of the volume the editors themselves may have attended 15 
 somewhat to the correcting of the proofs, while in others 
 they left it entirely to the printers. Of course all the plays 
 then first published must have been printed either from the 
 author's own manuscripts, or else from playhouse transcripts 
 of them. Doubtless these were made by different hands, 20 
 sometimes with reasonable care, sometimes otherwise, and 
 so with widely varying degrees of accuracy and legibility. 
 
 In their " Address to the Readers," the editors, after 
 referring to the earlier quarto issues, go on as follows : "^ 
 " Even those are now offered to your view cured and per- 25 
 feet of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers 
 as he [the author] conceived them ; who, as he was a happy 
 imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it : and 
 what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have 
 scarce received from him a blot in his papers." Heminge 30 
 and Condell appear to have been honest and amiable men ; 
 but they naturally felt a strong interest in having the volume
 
 102 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 sell well, and so were moved to recommend it as highly as 
 they could to purchasers. Probably there was something of 
 truth in what they said, perhaps enough to excuse, if not to 
 justify them in saying it : nevertheless it is perfectly certain 
 5 that their words were not true to the full extent ; and most 
 likely what was true only of a portion of the volume they 
 deemed it right to put forth in a general way as if appli- 
 cable to the whole, without staying to express any limita- 
 tions or exceptions. The folio was reprinted in 1632, again 
 
 10 in 1664, and yet again in 1685."^ The folio of 1632 was 
 set forth with a good many textual changes, made by an 
 unknown hand ; sometimes corrections, and sometimes 
 corruptions, but none of them carrying any authority. 
 Changes of text, though less both in number and impor- 
 
 15 tance, were also made in the third and fourth folios. 
 
 Before passing on from this topic, I must add that, after 
 1623, single plays continued to be reprinted, from time to 
 time, in quarto form. But as these are seldom of any use 
 towards ascertaining or helping the text, it seems not worth 
 
 20 the while to specify them m detail. Probably the most val- 
 uable of them is that of Othello, issued in 1630. Others 
 of them are occasionally referred to in the Critical Notes. 
 
 As I have frequent occasion to cite a famous volume 
 which I designate as " Collier's second folio," + it appears 
 
 25 needful to give some account thereof in this place. — In 
 1849, Mr. J. P. Collier, a very learned and eminent Shake- 
 spearean, lighted upon and purchased a copy of the second 
 folio containing a very large number of verbal, literal, and 
 punctuative alterations in manuscript ; all of course intended 
 
 30 as corrections of the text. At what time or times, and by 
 what hand or hands, these changes were made, has not been 
 settled, nor is likely to be. For some time there was a good
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 103 
 
 deal of pretty warm controversy about them. All, I believe, 
 are now pretty much agreed, and certainly such is my own 
 judgment, that none of them have any claim to be regarded 
 as authentic : most of them are corruptions decidedly ; but 
 a considerable number may be justly spoken of as correc- 5 
 tions ; and some of them are exceedingly happy and valu- 
 able. To be sure, of those that may be called apt and good, 
 the larger portion had been anticipated by modern editors, 
 and so had passed into the current text. Still there are 
 enough of original or unanticipated corrections to render the 10 
 volume an important contribution towards textual rectifica- 
 tion. Nevertheless they all stand on the common footing of 
 conjectural emendation, and so carry no authority in their 
 hand but that of inherent fitness and propriety. 
 
 Herewith I must also mention another copy of the same 15 
 folio, which is sometimes referred to in my Critical Notes. 
 This was owned by the late Mr. S. W. Singer, also one of 
 the most learned and eminent Shakespeareans of his time. 
 All that need be said of it here may as well be given in 
 Singer's own words : " In June, 1852, 1 purchased from Mr. 20 
 Willis, the bookseller, a copy of the second folio edition of 
 Shakespeare, in its original binding, which, like that of Mr. 
 Collier, contains very numerous manuscript corrections by 
 several hands : the typographical errors, with which that 
 edition abounds, are sedulously corrected, and the writers 25 
 have also tried their hands at conjectural emendation exten- 
 sively. Many of these emendations correspond to those in 
 Mr. ColUer's volume, but chiefly in those cases where the 
 error in the old copy was pretty evident ; but the readings 
 often vary, and sometimes for the better." 3° 
 
 Thus much may suffice for indicating generally the con- 
 dition in which Shakespeare's plays have come down to us.
 
 104 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Of course the early quartos and the first folio are, in the 
 proper sense, our only authorities for the Poet's text. But 
 his text has not been, and most assuredly never will be 
 allowed to remain in the condition there given. The labors 
 
 5 and the judgment of learned, sagacious, painstaking, diligent 
 workmen in the field have had, ought to have, must have, a 
 good deal of weight in deciding how the matter should go."*" 
 And now the question confronts us whether, after all, there 
 is any likelihood of Shakespeare's text being ever got into a 
 
 lo satisfactory state. Perhaps, nay, I may as well say probably, 
 not. Probably the best to be looked for here is a greater 
 or less degree of approximation to such a state. At all 
 events, if it come at all, it is to come as the slow cumula- 
 tive result of a great many minds working jointly, or sever- 
 
 15 ally, and successively, and each contributing its measure, 
 be it more, be it less, towards the common cause. A mite 
 done here, and a mite done there, will at length, when time 
 shall cast up the sum, accomplish we know not what. 
 
 The Bible apart, Shakespeare's dramas are, by general 
 
 20 consent, the greatest classic and literary treasure of the 
 world. His text, with all the admitted imperfections on its 
 head, is nevertheless a venerable and sacred thing, and 
 must nowise be touched but under a strong restraining 
 sense of pious awe."*" Woe to the man that exercises his 
 
 25 critical surgery here without a profound reverence for the 
 subject ! All glib ingenuity, all shifty cleverness, should be 
 sternly warned off from meddling with the matter. Nothing 
 is easier than making or proposing ingenious and plausible 
 corrections. But changes merely ingenious are altogether 
 
 30 worse than none ; and whoever goes about the work with 
 his mind at all in trim for it will much rather have any cor- 
 rections he may make or propose flatly condemned as bad,
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 105 
 
 than have that sweetish epithet politely smiled, or sneered, 
 upon them. On the other hand, to make corrections that are 
 really judicious, corrections that have due respect to all sides 
 of the case, and fit all round, and that keep strictly within 
 the limits of such freedom as must be permitted in the pre- 5 
 senting of so great a classic so deeply hurt with textual cor- 
 ruptions ; — this is, indeed, just the nicest and most delicate 
 art in the whole work of modern editorship. And as a due 
 application of this art requires a most circumspective and 
 discriminating judgment, together with a Hfelong acquaint- 10 
 ance with the Poet's mental and rhythmic and lingual idiom ; 
 so, again, there needs no small measure of the same prep- 
 aration, in order to a judicious estimate of any ripely 
 considered textual change. 
 
 The work of ascertaining and amending Shakespeare's 15 
 text systematically began with Rowe in lyog,"*" his first edi- 
 tion having come out that year, his second in 17 14. The 
 work was continued by Pope, who also put forth two edi- 
 tions, in 1 7 25 and 1 728."*" Pope was followed by Theobald, + 
 whose two editions appeared in 1733 and 1740. Then came 20 
 Hanmer's edition in 1744,"*' and Warburton's in 1747."^ All 
 through the latter half of the eighteenth century the process 
 was sedulously continued by Johnson, + Capell,"'" Steevens,"*" 
 Malone,"*" and sundry others. Heath, though not an editor, 
 was hardly inferior to any of them in understanding and 25 
 judgment ; and his comments remain to this day among the 
 best we have. Most of these men were very strong and 
 broad in learning and sagacity, and in the other furnishings 
 needful for their task ; none of them were wanting in 
 respect for the Poet ; and all of them did good service. 30 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that many, if not most, of 
 these workmen handled the text with excessive freedom ;
 
 I06 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and perhaps it may be justly said that, taken all together, 
 they corrupted quite as much as they corrected it. They 
 seem to have gone somewhat upon the principle of giving 
 what, in their judgment, the Poet ought to have written ; 
 S whereas the thing we want is not what anybody may think 
 he ought to have written, but what, as nearly as can be 
 judged, he actually did write. Accordingly much labor has 
 since had to be spent in undoing what was thus overdone. 
 During the present century the process of correction has 
 
 10 been kept up, but much more temperately, and by minds 
 well fitted and furnished for the task, though probably, as a 
 whole, not equal to the earlier series of workmen. Among 
 these are Singer, Collier, Dyce, Staunton, Halliwell, and 
 White, faithful and highly competent laborers, whose names 
 
 15 will doubtless hold prominent and permanent places in 
 Shakespearean lore. 
 
 The excessive freedom in textual change used by the ear- 
 lier series of editors has naturally had the effect of provoking 
 a reaction. For the last forty years or thereabouts, this 
 
 20 reaction has been in progress, and is now, I think, at its 
 height, having reached an extreme fully as great, and not 
 a whit more commendable than the former extreme. Of 
 course this can hardly fail in due time to draw on another 
 reaction ; and already signs are not wanting that such a 
 
 25 result is surely forthcoming. To the former license of cor- 
 rection there has succeeded a license, not less vicious, of 
 interpretation. Explanations the most strained, far-fetched, 
 and oversubtile are now very much the order of the day, — 
 things sure to disgust the common sense of sober, candid, 
 
 30 circumspective, cool-judging minds. It is said that the old 
 text must not be changed save in cases of " absolute neces- 
 sity " ; and this dictum is so construed, in theory at least.
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 107 
 
 as to prompt and cover all the excesses of the most fanciful, 
 fine-drawn, and futile ingenuity. The thing has grown to 
 the ridiculous upshot of glozing and belauding printers' 
 errors into poetic beauties, and the awkwardest hitchings 
 and baitings of meter into " elegant retardations." To 5 
 minds so captivated with their own ingenuity, an item of the 
 old text that is utter nonsense is specially attractive ; because, 
 to be sure, they can the more easily spell their own sense, 
 or want of sense, into it. And so we see them doggedly tena- 
 cious of such readings as none but themselves can explain, 10 
 and fondly concocting such explanations thereof as none 
 but themselves can understand ; tormenting the meaning 
 they want out of words that are no more akin to it than the 
 multiplication table is to a trilobite. Surely, then, the thing 
 now most in order is a course of temperance and modera- 13 
 tion, a calmness and equipoise of judgment, steering clear 
 of both extremes, and sounding in harmony with plain old 
 common sense, one ounce of which is worth more than a ton 
 of exegetical ingenuity. For Shakespeare, be it observed, 
 is just our great imperial sovereign of common sense ; and 20 
 sooner or later the study of him will needs kill off all the 
 editors that run in discord with this supreme quality of his 
 workmanship. 
 
 The present generation of Shakespeareans are rather con- 
 spicuously, not to say ostentatiously, innocent of respect 25 
 for their predecessors. They even seem to measure the 
 worth of their own doings by their self-complacent ignoring 
 or upbraiding of what has been done before. Might it 
 not be well for them to bethink themselves now and then 
 what sort of a lesson their contempt of the past is likely to 30 
 teach the future ? Possibly plain sensible people, who prefer 
 small perspicuities to big obscurities, soft-voiced solidities to
 
 I08 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 high-sounding nihihties, may take it into their heads that 
 wisdom was not born with the present generation, and will 
 not die with it. After all, Rovve, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, 
 Warburton, Johnson, Capell, and others, though by no means 
 5 infallible, yet were not fools : they knew several things ; 
 and their minds were at least tolerably clear of conceit and 
 cant : I suspect they understood their business quite as 
 well, and labored in it quite as uprightly and fruitfully, as 
 those who now insist on proceeding as if nothing had ever 
 
 lo been done ; as if it had been reserved exclusively for them 
 to understand and appreciate the Poet. In this, as in some 
 other matters, to " stand as if a man were author of him- 
 self, and knew no other kin," is not exactly the thing. The 
 best that any of us can do is to add somewhat, perhaps a 
 
 15 very, very little, to the building that others have worked 
 upon and helped to rear ; and, if we are to begin by a clean 
 sweeping away of what others have done, that so our puny 
 architecture may have a better chance of being seen, is it 
 not possible that the sum of our own doings, as time shall 
 
 20 foot it up, will prove a minus quantity? 
 
 Certainly changes in the old text of Shakespeare ought 
 not to be made without strong and clear reasons : and, 
 after they have been so made, stronger and clearer reasons 
 may arise, or may be shown, for unmaking them.+ Very 
 
 25 well ; be it so. But such reasons are not to be nonsuited 
 by unreasonable explanations, by superfine glozings, and 
 rhetorical smokings. The cacoethes etnendandi and the 
 cacoethes explana^tdi are alike out of place, and to be 
 avoided. I have already quoted the phrase " absolute neces- 
 
 30 sity," now so often used by the ultraists of textual consen^a- 
 tism. This phrase seems to bind the thing up very tightly : 
 yet, even with those who urge it most strongly, it is found
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 109 
 
 to have, in effect, no firm practical meaning ; at least not 
 a whit more than the phrase "strong and clear reasons." 
 To illustrate what I mean : 
 
 Mr. Furness, in his King Lear, III, vi, prints " This rest 
 might yet have balm'd thy broken sinews"; thus rejecting 5 
 Theobald's reading, " broken senses," for the old text : and 
 he does this on the ground that " the change is not abso- 
 lutely necessary." Yet, in II, iv, he prints "To be a comrade 
 of the wolf, and /iotc>/ necessity's sharp pinch ! " thus substi- 
 tuting /w7ii/, from Collier's second folio, for ow/, the old 10 
 reading. And I think he shows strong and clear reasons for 
 the change. But, strictly speaking, I can see no absolute 
 necessity for it : some tolerable sense can be made, has been 
 made, out of the old text. Nay, more ; the change, in this 
 case, as it seems to me, does not come so near being abso- 15 
 lutely necessary as in the case of Theobald's senses. I must 
 needs think that ow/ yields, of the two, a better and more 
 fitting sense in the one place than sinews does in the other. 
 Nevertheless, in the instance of hoiul, Mr. Furness seems 
 to me to make out a clear case; to justify the change tri- 20 
 umphantly ; this too without any approach to overstrained 
 refinement ; insomuch that I should henceforth never think 
 of printing the passage otherwise than as he prints it. So, 
 be it that absolute necessity is the true rule, have we not 
 here a pretty good instance of that rule being " more hon- 25 
 or'd in the breach than the observance "? 
 
 And I think the same argument will hold even more 
 strongly touching another reading which he adopts from the 
 same source. It is in I, i, where he prints " It is no vicious 
 blot, nor ^M^r foulness," instead of the old reading, "no 30 
 vicious blot, 7inirther, or foulness." Here the need of the 
 change, to my thinking, is not so exigent nor so evident as
 
 no HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 in either of the former cases, especially the first : a good 
 deal, I think, can here be said in defense of the old reading : 
 at all events, I can nowise understand how the absolute 
 necessity that rules out senses can consistently rule in howi 
 5 and tior other. But Mr. Furness, with all his austere and, 
 as I must think, rather overstrained conservatism, so com- 
 mands my respect, that I accept his judgment in both the 
 latter cases, though dissenting from him altogether in the first; 
 herein following, as I take it, the absolute necessity which he 
 
 10 practices, and not the one which he preaches. And indeed 
 
 so many men preach better than they practice, that it is 
 
 decidedly refreshing to meet, now and then, with one who 
 
 reverses this order, and makes his practice come out ahead. 
 
 Of course this point might easily be illustrated at almost 
 
 15 any length. For the old text has hundreds of cases substan- 
 tially parallel with those I have cited ; cases where, in my 
 judgment, there are strong and clear reasons for textual 
 changes made or proposed by former Shakespeareans, but 
 where the new school, with their canon of " absolute neces- 
 
 20 sity," hold on to stark corruptions, and then make up for 
 their textual strictness with the largest exegetical license. 
 Yet I have never caught any of these bigots (so I must term 
 them) of the old letter finding fault when we, of a somewhat 
 more liberal bent, have adopted any corrections which they 
 
 25 have themselves proposed. Here, as, to be sure, is very nat- 
 ural, their "absolute necessity" smiles itself into an aspect 
 practicable enough. 
 
 For, in truth, several of them seem equally intent on 
 finding reasons for condemning corrections that others have 
 
 30 made, and for proposing or approving new corrections ; and 
 their wrong-headed, perhaps I should say pig-headed, inge- 
 nuity in both parts of the business is sometimes ludicrous,
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE iii 
 
 sometimes otherwise. So, for instance, one of them has 
 lately approved, and another adopted, a new reading in The 
 T€iiipcst,l,\\: "Urchins ihaW forth a/ vast of night, that they 
 may work all exercise on thee " ; where both the old and 
 the common reading is, " Urchins shdiW, for that vast of night 5 
 that they may work, all exercise on thee." Here, of course, 
 for gives the sense of duration, or prolonged action ; which 
 is just what the occasion requires. For it is well known that 
 urchins were wont to go forth, and work, or play, during the 
 vast of night, anyhow ; this was their special right or privi- 10 
 lege ; and Prospero means that, during that time, he will 
 have them exercise their talents on Caliban. In my poor 
 opinion, therefore, both the approver and the adopter of the 
 forecited change have thereby, so far as one instance can 
 tell against them, earned an exclusion, or a dismissal, from 15 
 the seat of judgment in questions of that sort. However, 
 when any of these gentlemen offer us, as they sometimes do, 
 corrections that can show strong and clear reasons, I, for 
 one, shall be happy to prefer their practice also to their 
 preaching ; and, if they see fit to frown their preaching 20 
 upon me, I have but to laugh back their own practice upon 
 them : so, if they can stand it, I can. 
 
 But there is one thing which I feel bound to set my face 
 against, however insignificant that setting may be. It is 
 this. Of course there are a great many plain cases of textual 25 
 corruption, where, notwithstanding, a full and perfect cer- 
 tainty as to the right correction is not to be attained. These 
 often try an editor's labor and judgment and patience to 
 the uttermost. But it is an editor's business, in such cases, 
 to sift and weigh the whole matter with all possible care, to 30 
 make up his mind, and do the best he can. This is a tedi- 
 ous and painful, as also, in most cases, a thankless process.
 
 112 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 So a custom has lately been started, for editors, when on 
 this score any "doubts or scruples tease the brainj" to 
 shirk the whole matter, to shift off the burden upon others, 
 and to dodge all responsibility and all hazard of a wrong 
 5 decision, by sticking an obelus in to note the corruption ; 
 thus calling the reader's attention to his need of help, and 
 yet leaving him utterly unhelped. This is indeed " most 
 tolerable and not to be endured." It is, in effect, equiva- 
 lent to telling us that they know more than all the pre- 
 
 lo vious editors, yet do not know enough for the cause they 
 have undertaken, and so have no way but to adjourn 
 the court. 
 
 There is one other topic upon which I must say a few 
 words. — It is somewhat in question how far the spelling 
 
 15 and the verbal forms of the old copies ought to be retained, 
 Mr. White, following the folio, prints Diitrther for murdej-, 
 f adorn iox fafhom, and in some cases, if I rightly remember, 
 moder for mother. Now there seems to me just as much 
 reason for keeping the two latter archaisms as for keeping 
 
 20 the first ; that is to say, none at all. Herein, however, 
 Mr. White is at least consistent ; which is more than can be 
 said of some other recent editing; though I admit that in 
 this instance consistency is not a jewel. And Mr. Furness, 
 in the Preface to his King Lear, announces that hereafter he 
 
 25 shall adhere to the old form, or old spelling, of then for thafi, 
 as also of the antique concessive and (or an. In an edition 
 like his, designed chiefly for students and scholars, there may 
 be some reason for this which does not hold in the case of 
 editions looking to general use ; yet even that appears to 
 
 30 me somewhat more than doubtful. Mr. Furness urges that 
 Spenser always uses then for than, and that none of his 
 modern editors think of substituting the latter. But Spenser
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 113 
 
 manifestly took pains to give his language a special air or 
 smack of antiquity, and so made it more archaic than the 
 general usage of his time. Moreover, Spenser is now very 
 little read, if at all, save by scholars and students ; and, if I 
 were to edit any portion of him for common use, I should 5 
 make no scruple of printing than, except in cases where then 
 might need be kept for the rhyme. It may be well to add, 
 that in the original editions of Hooker's great work than is, 
 I think, always spelled then : nevertheless the late Mr. Keble, 
 in his edition, uniformly prints than; and I suspect it will 10 
 be a good while before we shall see any better specimen of 
 editorial workmanship than Keble's Hooker. 
 
 Again : All students of Shakespeare know that the folio 
 has many instances of God buy you, the old colloquial 
 abridgment of God be with you, which has been still further 15 
 shortened into our Good bye. Probably, in the Poet's time, 
 the phrase was sounded Godbwy you. Here I see no other, 
 or no better, way to keep both sense and sound, and rhythm 
 also, than by printing God b' ivi ' you ; and so in this edition 
 I always print, or mean to print. Would Mr. Furness, in 20 
 this instance also, retain the old form or spelling buy ? The 
 phrase, I beUeve, does not occur in A'ino^ Lear, so that he 
 had no occasion there for making any sign of his thought on 
 the subject. The phrase occurs repeatedly in Hafnlet, once in 
 n, i, and again in II, ii ; and there he prints " God be wi' 25 
 you " and " God be wi' ye " ; but on some points his views 
 have changed since his superb edition of that play was 
 issued. Whatever his purpose may be, I cannot but think 
 there is quite as good reason for adhering strictly to the old 
 letter in this instance as in that of then or of and. And the 30 
 case is substantially the same in reference to a great many 
 other words : in fact, I do not see how this principle of
 
 114 
 
 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 retention can consistently stop, till it shall have restored 
 the old spelling altogether. 
 
 My own practice in this matter is, wherever anything either 
 of sense, or of rhythm, or of meter, or of rhyme, is involved, 
 
 5 to retain the old forms or old spelling. For instance, the 
 folio has eytie for eyes, and rhyming with mine ; also denay 
 for deniai, and rhyming with say : it also has throughly for 
 thoroughly, and thorough for through. Of course I should 
 never think, probably no editor would think, of disturbing 
 
 lo these archaisms, or such as these. Even when, as is often 
 the case, there is no reason of meter or of rhyme for keep- 
 ing them, they are essential items in the Poet's rhythm ; for 
 good prose has a rhythm of its own as well as verse. Now, 
 Shakespeare, especially in his verse, was evidently very par- 
 
 15 ticular and exact in the care of his rhythm and meter, and 
 therefore of his syllables. The folio has almost numberless 
 minute proofs and indications of this ; and here, of course, 
 the smaller the note, the more significance it bears as regards 
 the Poet's habit and purpose. Perhaps there is no one 
 
 20 point wherein this is oftener shown than in his very frequent 
 elision of the article the, so as to make it coalesce with the 
 preceding word into one syllable. So, especially in his later 
 plays, there is almost no end to such elisions as by th\ 
 do th\ forth', from th\ on th\ to th\ etc.; and the folio has 
 
 25 many instances of the double elision wV th' for with the. 
 Now, I hold, and have long held, it important that, as far as 
 practicable, these little things be carefully preserved, not 
 only because they are essential parts of the Poet's verbal 
 modulation, but also as significant notes or registers of his 
 
 30 scrupulous and delicate attention to this element of his 
 workmanship. Yet the whole thing is totally ignored in all 
 the recent editions that I am conversant with; all, with
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 115 
 
 the one exception of Mr. Furness's latest volume, his Kitig 
 Lear, where it is carefully attended to.+ And right glad am 
 I that it is ; for, as I must think, it ought never to have 
 been neglected. 
 
 But, in certain other points, — points where nothing of 5 
 rhyme or meter or rhythm or sense is concerned, — I have 
 pursued, and shall pursue, a somewhat different course. — It 
 is well known to Shakespeareans that the old text has some 
 twelve or fifteen, perhaps more, instances of // used posses- 
 sively, or where we should use its, the latter not being a 10 
 current form in the Poet's time, though then just creeping 
 into use. And so the English Bible as originally printed in 
 1 61 1, has not a single instance of its: it has, however, one 
 or two, perhaps more, instances of it used in the same way. 
 In these cases, all modem editions, so far as I know, print 15 
 its, and are, I hold, unquestionably right in doing so. It is 
 true, Shakespeare's old text has repeated instances of its, 
 and these are more frequent in the later plays than in the 
 earlier. And in most of these cases the foHo prints it with 
 an apostrophe, // 's ; though in two or three places, if not 20 
 more, we there have it printed without the apostrophe. 
 
 In all these cases, whether of it or ifs or its, I make no 
 scruple whatever of printing simply its ; though I sometimes 
 call attention to the old usage in my Critical Notes. For, 
 in truth, I can perceive no sort of sense or reason in retain- 25 
 ing the possessive // in Shakespeare's text, or, at all events, 
 in any presentation of it designed for common use. Yet we 
 have some recent editing apparently taking no little credit 
 to itself for keeping up and propagating this unmeaning 
 and worthless bit of archaic usage ; whereas the Poet him- 30 
 self was evidently impatient of it, as he shook himself more 
 and more free from it, the riper he grew. Of course the
 
 Il6 . HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 same recent editing insists punctually on keeping the apos- 
 trophized form, // 'j-, wherever the folio prints it so. Surely 
 there is no more reason for retaining the apostrophe here 
 than there is for omitting it in the numberless cases where 
 5 the folio omits it ; as in " like my brothers fault," and 
 " against my brothers life." For all who have so much as 
 looked into that volume must know that genitives and 
 plurals are there commonly printed just alike. 
 
 And now a word as to the ordering of the plays in this 
 
 lo edition."^ The folio has them arranged in three distinct 
 series, severally entitled Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. 
 The plays of the first and third series are there arranged 
 seemingly at haphazard, and without any regard to the order 
 of time in which they were written ; those of the second 
 
 15 or historic series, simply according to the chronological 
 order of the persons and events represented in them ; the 
 three that were no doubt written first being thus placed 
 after several that were of later composition. In this edition, 
 the three series of the folio are kept distinct ; but the 
 
 20 several plays of each series are meant to be arranged, as 
 nearly as may be, according to the chronological order of 
 the writing. This is done merely because such appears to 
 be the most natural and fitting principle of arrangement, 
 and not that the Poet may be read or studied " historically" ; 
 
 25 a matter which is made a good deal of by some, but which, 
 as it seems to me, is really of no practical consequence 
 whatever."*" Nor is it claimed that the actual order of the 
 writing is precisely followed in every particular : in fact, 
 this order has not yet been fully settled, and probably never 
 
 30 will be ; though, to be sure, something considerable has been 
 done towards such settlement within the last few years. 
 Cambridge, August 2, 1880
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 117 
 
 To my original Preface I am now moved to add, from a 
 high authority, the following paragraphs in corroboration of 
 certain points therein taken. When writing that Preface, 
 I either had not read, or had quite forgotten, the matter 
 in question, else I should have made some use of it then. 5 
 It is from Dr. C. M. Ingleby's book entitled A Complete 
 View of the Shakespeare Controversy, 1861 : "It is unfor- 
 tunately true that in an enormous number of instances the 
 text of Shakespeare, whether we find it in the quartos or 
 the folio, is in such an abominably corrupt state, that emen- 10 
 dation is a necessity, and must be acknowledged to be so 
 even by those who regard it as an evil, and would never 
 allow it where any kmd of sense can be tortured out of the 
 original words. Innumerable are the phrases out of which 
 no possible sense can be tortured, by any kind of exegetical 15 
 maneuver. Every editor has his own favorite nostrums for 
 many of these : but some cases are so hopeless, that it is 
 an almost universal custom for editors to print the nonsense 
 of the original text, in sheer despair of superseding it by 
 any plausible emendations. Of these almost hopeless criices 20 
 the number does not exceed twenty-five. In some the diffi- 
 culty lies in the construction of the sentence ; in others, in 
 the use of words which have not, and probably never had, any 
 meaning. But these form but a drop in the ' multitudinous 
 seas' of misprints with which the text of quartos and folios are 25 
 alike overwhelmed. In fact, it is not going too far to afifirm 
 the very reverse of Professor Craik's dictum, and aver that the 
 first folio edition of Shakespeare is the worst-printed work, of 
 any pretensions to permanent interest, dramatic or otherwise, 
 that the first half of the seventeenth century produced. 30 
 
 " Accordingly, the editors and conjectural critics of the 
 two editions cum notis variorum not unnaturally fell into the 
 extreme of loose conjecture ; they were more anxious to
 
 Ii8 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 reform than to understand : and the editions of our own 
 day afford abundant evidence of a reaction upon that lax- 
 ness of criticism, and almost universally err in the extreme 
 of a too close adherence to the old copies. Against this blind 
 5 deference to the printed authorities, the following protest 
 of Mr. W. N. Lettsom cannot be too often repeated : 
 
 " The earlier editors were no doubt far too ready to tamper 
 with the original text: some of their successors have run into 
 the other extreme ; they perversely maintain the most ridicu- 
 le lous blunders of the old copies, and almost seem disposed to 
 place conjectural criticism on a level with haphazard guesswork. 
 What is called conjecture, however, is neither more nor less 
 than a particular application of circumstantial evidence ; and, 
 if we receive such evidence when property or life is at stake, 
 15 surely we should not reject it when we are sitting in judgment 
 merely on words and syllables. At any rate, we should be sadly 
 disappointed if we expected to escape the hazards of conjec- 
 ture by a servile adherence to old copies. Scholars and critics 
 are not the only persons who tamper with texts. Correctors, 
 20 transcribers, and compositors have been much too ready to 
 alter whatever they were unable to understand ; their stupid 
 -sophistications have too often overlaid the genuine readings, 
 and have been blindly received, as of paramount authority, by 
 the unsuspecting simplicity of overcautious commentators. 
 25 " It would be well if the latter stopped here : unfortunately 
 they are not satisfied with retaining corruptions ; they must 
 needs attempt to defend and explain them. In consequence 
 they get into a bad habit of wresting and straining language, 
 and finally become thorough proficients in the bewildering art 
 30 of forcing any sen.se out of any words. In their desperate 
 efforts to extract sense out of nonsense, the Poet himself has 
 been too often sacrificed to the printer, and has thus gained a 
 character for obscurity to a degree far beyond his deserts." 
 Camrridge, March 4, 1881
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 One hundred years ago to-day, a very quiet but vastly 
 fruitful event took place up in New Hampshire : it was the 
 birth of Daniel Webster. The City of Boston and the State 
 of Massachusetts had this great man in the councils of the 5 
 Nation nearly twenty-eight years ; and I think I may safely 
 say that, from his presence and services there, they have 
 reaped more of honor and of solid benefit than from all the 
 other men they have had in that place during the last two 
 generations put together. Such being the case, I had hoped 10 
 that Boston would remember her illustrious citizen, her peer- 
 less statesman, and make some fitting commemoration of the 
 day. She has not seen fit to do so ; and this is one reason 
 why I have undertaken to do what I can, to manifest a be- 
 coming respect for the hundredth anniversary of Daniel 15 
 Webster's birth.+ I fear, indeed, that Boston has not yet 
 fully recovered from that old disease under which she turned 
 away from her greatest and loveliest man, this too in his 
 gray-haired age, and even " struck him with her tongue, 
 most serpent-like, upon the very heart." In earHer days, she 20 
 seems indeed to have understood and appreciated Webster 
 pretty well ; yet I was much taken, some years ago, with a 
 remark made to me by the late Judge Redfield, that " Boston 
 never could get water enough together to float him." 
 
 The theme I am to speak upon is one that lies very near 25 
 my heart, this too both as an American and as a man ; and 
 
 119
 
 120 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 I propose to utter my thoughts with considerable plainness 
 and freedom. For, in truth, I have no popularity to lose, 
 and do not care to make any ; that being a thing I have no 
 use for, nor should known what to do with, if I had it. 
 5 As Americans, we have a right to be proud, we ought to 
 be proud, it will do us good to be proud, of Daniel Webster. 
 He is the one imperial intellect of our nation ; altogether 
 the greatest and most catholic mind this country has pro- 
 duced. In fact, he is not so properly one man as a multi- 
 
 10 tude of men, rather say, a multitudinous man ; the varied 
 powers, that are commonly dispersed among other men, 
 being massed and consolidated in him. He stands second 
 to none of our lawyers ; and his arguments in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States probably did more than those 
 
 15 of any other one man, except Chief Justice Marshall, towards 
 establishing the principles and the practice of our national 
 Constitution. 
 
 But Webster is something more than our greatest man : 
 he is one of the world's great men. Sage and venerable 
 
 20 Harvard, on mature consideration no doubt, has spoken 
 him for one of the seven great orators of the world. At the 
 theater end of her superb Memorial Hall, which has the 
 form of a semicircular polygon, in as many gablets or niches 
 rising above the cornice, the seven heads, of gigantic size, 
 
 25 stand forth to public view. First, of course, is Demosthenes 
 the Greek ; second, also of course, Cicero the Roman ; 
 third, Saint John Chrysostom, an Asiatic Greek, born about 
 the middle of the fourth century ; fourth, Jaques Benigne 
 Bossuet, the great French divine and author, contemporary 
 
 30 with Louis the Fourteenth ; fifth, William Pitt the elder, 
 Earl of Chatham, an Englishman ; sixth, Edmund Burke, 
 an Irishman, probably the greatest genius of them all,
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 121 
 
 though not the greatest orator ; seventh, Daniel Webster. 
 How authentic the hkenesses may be, I cannot say, except 
 in the case of Webster : here the hkeness is true ; and, to 
 my sense, Webster's head is the finest of the seven, unless 
 that of Bossuet may be set down as its peer. 5 
 
 In the world's volume of illustrious statesmen also, Web- 
 ster's name may justly hold up its head among the highest ; 
 very few men having, in this capacity, done so much for the 
 political order and welfare of mankind. As an author, again, 
 he stands very near, if not in, the foremost rank of English 10 
 classics ; some of his speeches, like those of Burke, holding 
 much the same relative place in what may be termed delib- 
 erative and argumentative discourse, as Paradise Lost holds 
 in epic poetry, Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality and his 
 Ode to Duty in lyrical poetry, and Shakespeare's four great 15 
 tragedies in the sphere of dramatic art. But what, in this 
 regard should make Webster especially dear and venerable 
 to us is, that he stands unquestionably at the head of our 
 American classics, and is perhaps the only one of our authors 
 that will live and be studied in future times : I hope indeed 20 
 that Bryant will so live also, and two or three others, but 
 am far from sure of it. For he must be a mighty tall man, 
 I can tell you, whose head touches the classic summit.""" 
 
 It seems to me that a great deal too much stress is apt to 
 be laid nowadays, at least among us, on the matter of style : 25 
 for a good style is not to be reached by making it a para- 
 mount aim : in that case the style becomes too self-con- 
 scious, thinks quite too much of itself ; whereas the proper 
 virtue of style lies in its being kept altogether subordinate to 
 something else. And so the prime secret of a good style in 30 
 writing is, that words be used purely in their representative 
 character, or as standing for things, and not at all for their
 
 122 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 own sake. This it is tliat so highly distinguishes Webster's 
 style, — ^ the best yet written on this continent. His language 
 is so transparent, that in reading him one seldom thinks of 
 it, and can hardly see it. In fact, the proper character 
 
 5 of his style is perfect, consummate manliness ; in which 
 quality I make bold to affirm that he has no superior in 
 the whole range of English prose authorship : even Burke's 
 style, though richer and more varied, is hardly equal to his 
 in this supreme quality. And Webster, in his Aiitobiog- 
 
 lo raphy, touches the secret of this. " While in college," says 
 
 ' he, " I delivered two or three occasional addresses, which 
 were published. I trust they are forgotten : they were in 
 very bad taste. I had not then learned that all true power 
 in writing is in the idea, not in the style; an error into 
 
 15 which the Ars rhetorica, as it is usually taught, might easily 
 lead stronger heads than mine." + 
 
 But Webster was not only a great lawyer, a great orator, 
 a great statesman, a great author, a mighty discourser : he 
 was emphatically a great man, — great in intellect, great 
 
 20 in eloquence, great in soul, great in character, and in all 
 the proper correspondences of greatness. Mr. Whipple, in 
 the admirable essay prefixed to his selection of Webster's 
 speeches, aptly and felicitously applies to him the phrase, 
 "colossal manhood." I really do not know of any other 
 
 25 single phrase that fits the subject so well. Those who often 
 heard Webster in familiar conversation, if any such survive, 
 will probably tell us they never heard any one else who 
 approached him in that respect. On such occasions he 
 not seldom had the Bible for his theme; and those who 
 
 30 listened to his talk thereon could hardly choose but believe 
 that either the Bible was inspired or else the speaker was. 
 But, in "the talk that man holds with week-day man," his
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 123 
 
 greatness was so tempered with sweetness and amiability, 
 and with the finer and softer graces of eloquence, that one 
 naturally lost the sense of it. For he had no airs of supe- 
 riority; would chat with the humblest as with a brother or 
 a friend. And I have it from those who knew him long and 5 
 well, that intimacy never wore off the impression of his great- 
 ness : on the contrary, none could get so near him, or stay 
 near him so long, but that he still kept growing upon them. 
 A test that few men indeed can stand ! But he had some- 
 thing better than all this : he was as lovely in disposition 10 
 as he was great in mind : a larger, warmer, manlier heart, 
 a heart more alive with tenderness and all the gentle affec- 
 tions, was never lodged in a human breast. Of this I could 
 give many telling and touching proofs from his private his- 
 tory, if time would permit. It has been worthily noted how 15 
 a little child, on entering a room where Webster was seated, 
 and looking up into his great eyes, as these grew soft and 
 mellow and sweet at the vision, would run instinctively into 
 his arms and nestle in his bosom, as if yearning to get as near 
 as possible to that great, tender heart. So that I make no 20 
 scruple of regarding Daniel Webster as the crowning illus- 
 tration of our American manhood. 
 
 In the higher elements of oratory, I find, or seem to find, 
 a close resemblance between Webster and Burke. Both are 
 consummate masters of rhetoric ; yet the rhetoric of both 25 
 is generally charged to the utmost with energy of thought : 
 no hoUowness here; no "sweet smoke"; nothing of mere 
 surface splendor ; all is as solid as marble. Many of Web- 
 ster's strains in this kind have been long and often used for 
 exercise in declamation ; but this has only proved that no 30 
 frequency of reading or hearing can wear the freshness and 
 verdure out of them. And, in the line of parliamentary
 
 124 
 
 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 eloquence, nearly everything else produced in this country 
 seems to me tame and flat beside Webster's ; while Burke's 
 has well-nigh spoiled for me all else in the language except 
 Webster's.+ 
 
 5 In the common principles of all social and civil order, 
 Burke is no doubt our best and wisest teacher. In handling 
 the particular questions of his time, he always involves those 
 principles, and brings them to their practical bearings, where 
 they most " come home to the business and bosoms of men." 
 
 lo And his pages are everywhere bright with the highest and 
 purest political morality, Webster, also, is abundantly at 
 home in those common principles : his giant grasp wields 
 them with the ease and grace of habitual mastery : there- 
 withal he is by far the ablest and clearest expounder 
 
 15 we have of what may be termed the specialties of our 
 American political system. So that we can hardly touch 
 any point of our National State, but that he will approve 
 himself at once our wisest and our pleasantest teacher. In 
 fact, I hardly know which to commend most, his political 
 
 20 wisdom, his ponderous logic, the perfect manliness of his 
 style, or the high-souled enthusiasm which generally ani- 
 mates and tones his discourse ; the latter qualities being 
 no less useful to inspire the student with a noble patriotic 
 ardor than the former to arm him with sound and fruitful 
 
 25 instruction. 
 
 I am not unmindful that, in thus placing Webster along- 
 side of Burke, I may be inviting upon him a trial something 
 too severe."*" I do not indeed regard him as the peer of 
 Burke ; but it is my deliberate judgment that he comes 
 
 30 nearer to Burke, and can better stand a fair comparison 
 with him, than any other English-speaking statesman. In 
 pure force of intellect, Burke may be something ahead of
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 125 
 
 him, and is far beyond him in strength and richness of 
 imagination ; for he was, as Johnson described him, emphat- 
 ically "a constellation " : on the other hand, Burke's tem- 
 pestuous sensibility sometimes whirled him into exorbitances, 
 where Webster's cooler temperament and more balanced 5 
 make-up would probably have held him firm in his propriety. 
 And Webster, though far above imitating any man, abounds 
 in marks of a very close and diligent study of Burke. It 
 seems specially noteworthy, that he was thoroughly at one 
 with Burke in an intense aversion to political metaphysics, 10 
 and to those speculative abstractions which, if attempted to 
 be carried into the practical work of government, can never 
 do anything but mischief. 
 
 This reminds me to say something of the distinguished 
 Southerner who was so long associated with Webster in our 15 
 national councils. — John Caldwell Calhoun was a very able 
 man, — a man, too, of most pure and honorable character ; 
 a perfect gentleman indeed, as Webster also was. And the 
 two men had a profound respect for each other. "^ Webster 
 admired the genius of Calhoun, and honored him for his 20 
 high personal worth. Many a hard pounding, indeed, they 
 gave each other in the national Senate ; but their hard 
 poundings were always so marked with bland and good- 
 natured dignity, that no ill feeling ever sprang up between 
 them : each had indeed, and felt that he had, in the other 25 
 a foeman worthy of his steel ; and their official intercourse 
 may be justly set down as a model of senatorial courtesy. 
 But Calhoun, it seems to me, was rather a great political 
 metaphysician than a statesman, in the right sense of the 
 term. In the latter part of his life at least, he was much 30 
 given to refining among political abstractions, where all sorts 
 of impracticable theories may easily be knocked together.
 
 126 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and as easily knocked to pieces. Herein Webster differed 
 from him in toto ; and would never go along at all with the 
 noble Southerner in those speculative intricacies where men 
 " find no end, in wandering mazes lost." For one of his 
 5 prime characteristics was a large, healthy, vigorous, unfail- 
 ing common sense, which always withheld him from extremes 
 and one-sideness, and kept him from undertaking to upset 
 or overrule experience and fact by dint of fine-spun political 
 theories. He was indeed a very monarch of common sense ; 
 
 lo in which respect he probably surpassed Burke. And this, 
 I take it, comes pretty near being the sovereign element of 
 great statesmanship. — Strange, by the way, that the thing 
 should be called common sense, while in reality it is one of 
 the most uncommon things in the world. But then, though 
 
 15 extremely rare in possession, it is very common in recog- 
 nition : in fact, nearly all men feel it, though few men 
 have it. 
 
 Accordingly in a speech delivered on the 2 2d of March, 
 1838, Webster, after referring to certain questions wherein 
 
 20 Calhoun had quite shifted off from his old ground, has the 
 following : " The honorable member now takes these ques- 
 tions with him into the upper heights of metaphysics, into 
 the region of those refinements and subtile arguments which 
 he rejected with so much decision in 181 7. He quits his 
 
 25 old ground of common sense, experience, and the general 
 understanding of the country, for a flight among theories 
 and ethereal abstractions." I must add, that Calhoun, by 
 his course in this respect, probably did a good deal more 
 than any other one man in the country towards hatching 
 
 30 and breeding the enormous mischief of our late Civil War. 
 It is said that " whom the gods would destroy they first 
 make mad "; and I can hardly conceive a surer way of
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 12/ 
 
 drawing men into suicidal madness than by fascinating them 
 with metaphysical subtilties and abstraction-mongering. 
 
 It is, then, full time that Webster should be reinstated in 
 the place he held some thirty- five years ago in the minds 
 and hearts of the American people. He is as great now as 5 
 he was then, for time gnaws no breaches in workmanship 
 so solid as his ; and his wise counsels are as applicable and 
 as needful in all the leading national questions of this day 
 as they were when his great living voice was heard amongst 
 us. We cannot afford to forget him, or to leave his elo- 10 
 quence and wisdom out of our mental feeding. For the 
 same high lessons, the same sacred inspirations, are needed 
 still ; as much so, perhaps, as when his patriotic ardor and 
 his ponderous logic knocked the brains out of Nullification 
 and Secession in the halls of Congress. For these reasons, 15 
 and sundry others, I was heartily glad when, in 1879, ^ 
 choice selection of his speeches, edited, and well edited 
 too, by Mr. Edwin Percy Whipple of this city, was given 
 to the public in a form much more accessible to the people 
 generally than ever before. Surely the people of this nation 20 
 cannot do a better thing for themselves and their children 
 than to cherish the name and memory of Daniel Webster 
 among their dearest household treasures ; and this not only 
 as the fairest outcome of American genius and manhood, 
 but as their wisest and most attractive teacher in all that is 25 
 or should be nearest their hearts as citizens of this great 
 and free Republic."*" 
 
 As it is now nearly thirty years since Webster died, I 
 may safely presume that many of you, perhaps most of you, 
 never heard or saw him. I will therefore endeavor to give 30 
 some personal description of the man. I saw him a great
 
 128 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 many times, and heard him repeatedly; and you may be 
 sure my eyes and ears were seldom idle or wandering when 
 they had him in view. He was indeed incomparably the 
 finest looking, rather say the grandest looking, man I ever 
 5 set eyes on.+ I doubt whether, in personal appearance, his 
 peer was to be found anywhere on the planet during his 
 time ; and I can well accept as authentic the remark said 
 to have been made by some one, that Daniel Webster must 
 be a humbug, for no man could possibly be so great as he 
 
 10 looked to be. In stature he was of medium height, about 
 five feet and ten or eleven inches, I should say ; his form 
 well proportioned, robust, and vigorous ; his frame close 
 knit and firm set ; his step resolute and fearless ; his 
 carriage erect and manly ; his presence dignified and 
 
 15 impressive in the highest degree. His complexion was 
 dark, insomuch that he is said in his early years to have 
 been familiarly called " black Dan"; his hair a pure raven 
 black, till time sprinkled it with snows. I am little booked 
 in physiology, but I should say his temperament was bilious 
 
 20 sanguineous, as Burke's appears to have been nervous san- 
 guineous. His features were large and strong, but finely 
 chiseled; his neck thick and sinewy, — a fitting support 
 for the magnificent dome poised upon it ; his chin promi- 
 nent just to the point where firmness stops short of obsti- 
 
 25 nacy ; his mouth calm and muscular ; his eyes big, dark, and 
 blazing, — in his excited moments they literally seemed two 
 globes of fire ; his forehead high, broad, projecting, and mas- 
 sive, — a very cathedral indeed of thought ; and the whole 
 suffused and harmonized with an air of majestic grace. 
 
 30 So that the predominant expression of his face and head 
 was that of immense power, but of power held perfectly in 
 hand, and therefore sure to know its time. Hawthorne, in
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 129 
 
 his Marble Faun, has an expression so fine in itself and so 
 apposite to Webster, that ever since my first reading of the 
 book it has stuck to my memory in connection with him. 
 Speaking of the celebrated bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius 
 the Emperor, he says, " its very look is at once a command 5 
 and a benediction." In his later years, Webster was often 
 spoken of as " the godlike Daniel " ; and, sure enough, the 
 heads that I have seen of old god Jupiter do not show an 
 ampler dome or a more commanding outlook of intellectual 
 majesty. Doubtless it was greatly owing to this expression 10 
 of innate power which radiated from him, that even in his 
 old age, when many minds were full of devouring thoughts 
 about him, wherever he was present in person he was like 
 Daniel in the lions' den : the lions might indeed growl 
 behind their teeth, but they swallowed their rage, and dared 15 
 not open their mouths to bite him. — Webster was a modest 
 man ; everything about him was unaffected, genuine ; no 
 assumption, no arrogance, no conceit : his dignity of man- 
 ner, his greatness of look, were native to him ; and the im- 
 pression his speaking always made upon me was such that I 20 
 cannot better describe it than as follows : 
 
 With grave 
 Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd 
 A pillar of State ; deep on his front engraven 
 Deliberation sat, and public care ; 25 
 
 And princely counsel in his face did shine 
 Majestic : . . . sage he stood 
 With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 
 The weight of mightiest monarchies ; his look 
 Drew audience and attention still as night, 30 
 
 Or Summer's noontide air. 
 
 Webster's vast power of intellect is admitted by all : but 
 it is not so generally known that he was as sweet as he was
 
 130 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 powerful, and nowhere more powerful than in his sweetness. 
 When thoroughly aroused in public speech, there was indeed 
 something terrible about him ; his huge burning eye seemed 
 to bore a man through and through : but in his social hours, 
 
 5 when his massive brow and features were lighted up with a 
 characteristic smile, it was like a gleam of Paradise ; no 
 person who once saw that fuU-souled smile of his could ever 
 forget it. His goodly person, his gracious bearing, and his 
 benignant courtesy made him the delight of every circle 
 
 lo he entered : in the presence of ladies, especially, his great 
 powers seemed to robe themselves spontaneously in beauty ; 
 and his attentions were so delicate and so respectful, that 
 they could not but be charmed. 
 
 In the summer of 1839, Webster, with several members 
 
 1 5 of his family, made a private visit to England ; and it is both 
 pleasant and edifying to learn how he impressed the people 
 there. + Hallam, we are told, was "extremely struck by his 
 appearance, deportment, and conversation." Carlyle pro- 
 nounced him "a magnificent specimen"; adding, withal, that, 
 
 20 " as a preliminary Hercules, one would incline to back him 
 at first sight against all the extant world." Mr. John Kenyon 
 traveled with him four days. Writing, in 1853, to Mr. George 
 Ticknor, of Boston, he says that the acquaintance thus formed 
 " enabled me to know and to love not only the great- brained, 
 
 25 but large-hearted, genial man ; and this love I have held for 
 him ever since, through good report and evil report ; and I 
 shall retain this love for him to the day of my own depart- 
 ure." Again, referring to some of Webster's playful sallies : 
 " Fancy how delightful and how attaching I found all this 
 
 30 genial bearing from so famous a man ; so affectionate, so 
 little of a humbug. His greatness sat so easy and calm upon 
 him ; he never had occasion to whip himself into a froth."
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 131 
 
 Before proceeding further, I must frankly admit certain 
 drawbacks and exceptions in the character of my theme. 
 For I have Uved too long in this world to approve of every- 
 thing that any man does, or to expect any man to approve 
 of everything that I do. And I remember, also, the saying 5 
 of a very wise author, that " the web of our life is of a 
 mingled yarn, good and ill together : our virtues would 
 be proud, if our faults whipped them not ; and our faults 
 would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues." 
 And so, to be sure, I have never known any man or woman 10 
 who seemed to me absolutely perfect, and I venture to 
 doubt whether there be one such now in this room : I have 
 indeed met several who thought or seemed to think them- 
 selves so ; but in that case I always like to know what their 
 neighbors think about it. At all events, Webster, like 15 
 other men, certainly had his faults and imperfections ; and, 
 amidst so much that was great and noble, candor may not 
 permit the blemishes to be passed over in silence ; though 
 I hope to keep ever in mind the saying of Burke, " He 
 censures God, who quarrels with the imperfections of men." 20 
 And even the faults which I find in Webster appear to me 
 mainly, if not entirely, as things lying on the outside and 
 surface of his character, not as entering into the heart and 
 substance of it. 
 
 In the first place, then, it is thought by many, and, I 25 
 am apt to think myself, that Webster sometimes got too 
 nervously anxious to be President of the United States. A 
 great authority tells us that "ambition is the last infirmity 
 of noble minds." Webster undoubtedly had that infirmity 
 in a high degree. As far back as 1834, he began to be 30 
 talked of for the presidency ; and from that time onward 
 his aspirations looked, probably with increasing strength,
 
 132 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 to that ofifice. But I do not believe, and I challenge any- 
 body to prove, that he ever did anything wrong, or any- 
 thing mean, that he ever swerved a hair from his honest 
 convictions of duty, in order to gain the office. Nor did 
 5 he affect any indifference, or use any arts of conceal- 
 ment, about it : all was frank, open, and aboveboard with 
 him ; no intrigue, no playing at hide and seek, no political 
 trickery, had roothold in his ambition. On this head, we 
 may, with supreme fitness, apply to him what he himself 
 
 10 said of Calhoun : " If he had aspirations, they were high 
 and honorable and noble : there was nothing groveling or 
 low or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart 
 of Mr. Calhoun." 
 
 The truth is, Webster had early and honestly identified 
 
 1 5 himself with what was then known as the Whig party against 
 what was called the Jackson party. The latter had openly 
 put forth as its motto, " To the victors belong the spoils " : 
 but the Whig politicians soon became even more recklessly 
 eager to act on this principle than their opponents w'ere. 
 
 20 Webster did not share with them at all in this passion ; he 
 set his face against it utterly : and, though they wanted his 
 help, and gloried in his leadership, they were still dissatis- 
 fied with him because he would not " narrow his mind, 
 and to party give up what was meant for mankind." He 
 
 25 toJd the country again and again, that the spoils system, as 
 it is called, would, if persisted in, " entirely change the 
 character of our government." We have been hearing a 
 great deal lately, none too much though, about the cor- 
 ruption and demoralization growing out of this abominable 
 
 30 system. Well, Webster foresaw and foretold the whole evil 
 and danger of it fifty years ago ; his most emphatic repro- 
 bation of it being uttered in a speech at Worcester, on the
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 133 
 
 12th of October, 1832. But the thing was vastly popular 
 then, and brought immense eclat and success to the authors 
 of it. The politicians all went for it of course, and egged 
 it on as a grand step of progress and reform ; for such men 
 are always sure to be sailing with the wind, it being the 5 
 height of their ambition to serve as weathercocks on the top 
 of an edifice, exalted for their levity and versatility, so as to 
 indicate each shifting of the popular gale. But Webster was 
 quite another sort of man ; a man built high and strong in 
 moral courage : and the great trouble with him was, that he 10 
 was ever stemming some headlong current of popularity, and 
 indeed " striding so far ahead of the time as to dwarf him- 
 self by the distance." I could point out many instances 
 where he planted himself square against the popular rush 
 and clamor of the day. So he stood inexorably firm against 1 5 
 the incorporation of Texas ; and he did this expressly on 
 the ground, that he never would consent to add a single 
 foot to the area of slavery. Here, again, the thing was 
 hugely popular : and so even Northern Freesoilers, as they 
 were then called, went for it, and it was carried by their 20 
 votes ; Webster, meanwhile, solemnly forewarning them that 
 it would one day shake the government to its foundations. 
 And, sure enough, that one act was the seminal principle, 
 the prolific germ, of our Civil War, with all its terrible, its 
 unspeakable retributions. 25 
 
 Though myself for many years among the stanchest of 
 Whigs, yet I must now confess that the Whig party, as a 
 whole, was a confoundedly mean party, — mean in its impo- 
 tent craving for " the loaves and fishes," mean in its unblush- 
 ing preference of success without merit to merit without 30 
 success ; false to its professions, false to its leaders, false to 
 itself. But it has ever been the curse of democracies to be
 
 134 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 infested with greedy demagogues, that is to say, with mere 
 pohticians, — probably the meanest and most noxious ani- 
 mals on the planet. They will at all times eat any quantity 
 of dirt to the people, to get the people's votes. This Web- 
 5 ster never did, never would do. Accordingly he was in fact 
 treated better by his political opponents than by his politi- 
 cal associates. In 1836 the Whigs nominated Mr. Clay. 
 This was a good nomination, and Webster sustained it 
 heartily. Failing to elect Clay, the party then got badly 
 
 10 smitten with the disease of "availability"; in other words, 
 the Whig politicians were dying for the spoils. In the 
 strength of that disease, they elected General Harrison in 
 1840, and General Taylor in 1848 : but they failed to elect 
 General Scott in 1852 ; whereupon the party died of that 
 
 15 disease, as indeed it richly deserved to do. I have it on 
 good authority, that, soon after the nomination of Scott, ^ 
 Webster, then struggling with his last sickness, said to his 
 son Fletcher, " My son, never undertake to serve the Whig 
 party ; Sir, the Whig party cannot be served." 
 
 20 I say we all know that Webster aspired to the presidency. 
 Well, he had a right to aspire to the presidency ; he o!/g/if 
 to have aspired to it ; he must have been either more or less 
 than a man, not to have so aspired : for he could hardly 
 help seeing, what everybody else saw, that he was generally 
 
 25 thought to be altogether the fittest man in the country for 
 that place. And here I am minded to relate a rather appo- 
 site passage that occurred during the presidential campaign 
 of 1852. The matter was told me by Mr. William Bates, (I 
 think his name was William,) a prominent lawyer and an 
 
 30 estimable gentleman, of Westfield, Massachusetts, long a per- 
 sonal and political friend of Webster. It so happened that 
 they met and rode together in a car. Their talk naturally
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER I35 
 
 ran a good deal upon the political movements of the day. 
 In the course of their talk, Mr. Bates said to Webster, 
 " Well, Mr. Webster, I have thought a great deal on the sub- 
 ject, and have often asked myself whether, after all, the 
 presidency could do anything for you : and really, Mr. 5 
 Webster, I doubt whether it could ; I am inclined to think 
 you are quite as well without it." Webster replied : "To be 
 frank with you, Mr. Bates, the same question has occurred 
 to me. And perhaps it is as you say ; perhaps I am just as 
 well without that office. But, Sir, it is a great office ; why, 10 
 Mr. Bates, it is the greatest office in the world : and I am 
 but a man. Sir ; I want it, I want it." Now, if there be any 
 man who thinks a jot the worse of Daniel Webster for all 
 this, I confess I would a little rather not ride in the same 
 coach with that man. 15 
 
 Webster did not rise to that office, or rather the office did 
 not rise to him : it could have added no honor to him ; he 
 would have added much honor to it. In truth, as matters 
 then stood, he was too great for the place, or rather he was 
 a greater man than the politicians thought it for their interest 20 
 to have there. For our politicians, to be sure, like to have 
 their pockets well filled, or their ships well ballasted, with the 
 office patronage of the government ; and so they of course 
 prefer to see the presidency held by a putty-head or a dough- 
 face ; that is to say, a man whom they can work and wind 25 
 and manage. Webster felt the event deeply, indeed, too 
 deeply. And what I rather regret than censure in him is, that 
 he did not view the result with that calmness, that philoso- 
 phy, which the world had a right to expect from so great a 
 man ; that he allowed himself to be grieved and worried by 30 
 the disappointment more than in reason he ought. Doubt- 
 less his grief was the deeper, because he was conscious of
 
 136 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 having served his country faithfully and well ; for the sense of 
 such injustice joined with such ingratitude cuts to the quick : 
 but he should have stayed his lion-hearted manhood on the 
 fact, notorious in all ages, that politicians, in their miserable 
 5 shortsightedness, will at any time sacrifice their best friends 
 in the vain hope of gaining support from their opponents. 
 
 In the second place, Webster was something too loose in 
 his money matters. Though second to none of our states- 
 men as a financier for the public, he allowed his own private 
 
 10 finances to be much disordered ; was too careless of incurring 
 debts, not careful enough of paying them. This I reckon a 
 greater fault than the former : in that, he only wronged him- 
 self; in this, he did wrong to others. Of course nobody 
 can suppose he meant to keep from others their dues ; but 
 
 15 this is not quite enough. Probably the right explanation is, 
 that he had his big head swarming with big thoughts, and so 
 was oblivious in this point. 
 
 A little incident has come to my knowledge, which may 
 here illustrate his character. I have been told that, on some 
 
 20 occasion, Mr. Seaton, one of the editors of The National 
 Intelligencer, called on Webster in Washington, and had a 
 talk with him. During their interview, a beggar man came 
 into the room, and solicited an alms. Webster, without 
 pausing in his talk, thrust his fingers into his vest pocket, 
 
 25 pulled out a bill, and handed it to the man, who then went 
 out. When the talk came to a pause, Mr. Seaton asked 
 Webster if he knew what he had given to that beggar 
 man. " Beggar man? " said Webster ; " what beggar man? " 
 "Why," said Mr. Seaton, " the one who came in just now, 
 
 30 while you were talking." " O yes," said Webster, " it seems 
 to me I do remember something about it. Well, what did I 
 give him?" "A hundred-dollar bill," said Mr. Seaton.
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 137 
 
 Now, a man may have a right, though even that is doubt- 
 ful, to be obUvious of what is due in this kind from others to 
 himself ; but no one has a right to be oblivious of what is 
 due from himself to others. True, Webster was as far as 
 possible from being either stingy or grasping. If prodigal 5 
 of his own means, he was nowise greedy of other men's. 
 Neither did he ever use, or abuse, his place in the govern- 
 ment to the ends of self-enrichment. Herein it may well be 
 wished that more of our present national lawmakers were 
 guilty of his worst fault : in that case, I suspect their patri- 10 
 otic toils would not prove quite so remunerative as they often 
 do. Webster, indeed, cared nothing for money, while at the 
 same time he had " a tear for pity, and a hand open as day 
 for melting charity " ; and whatever cash he at any time had 
 in his purse ran away as freely as water, whether in payment 15 
 of debts or in relief to the needy. I am only sorry he was 
 not more mindful to be just before being generous either to 
 others or to himself. 
 
 But then it is to be borne in mind, that, in giving himself 
 up to the public service, he was obliged to relinquish the 20 
 greater part of a large professional income. After being 
 twice elected to Congress in his native State, he removed 
 from Portsmouth to Boston in 181 7, where he forthwith 
 entered upon a career of great professional distinction, and 
 his legal practice soon rose to the amount of twenty thousand 25 
 dollars a year ; which was a prodigious income for a lawyer in 
 those times. The good people of Boston repeatedly urged 
 him to let himself be nominated for Congress, which he 
 repeatedly declined, chiefly on the ground that he could not 
 afford it. At length, in 1823, they may be said to have 30 
 forced the nomination upon him : he reluctantly yielded, 
 and was elected. After serving through one Congress, he
 
 138 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 was elected again in 1825, having 4990 votes out of 5000. 
 Now, our national legislators at that time were paid only eight 
 dollars a day, and this only during the actual session of Con- 
 gress. No wonder Webster held back from such a curtail- 
 
 5 ment of his means. For he was by nature free, generous, 
 and magnificent in his dispositions. Later in life, his vast 
 reputation, the dignity and elegance of his manners, the 
 engaging suavity and affability of his conversation, in a word, 
 the powerful magnetism of the man, drew a great deal of 
 
 10 high company round him, and necessarily made his expenses 
 large. Then too all the money in the country could not 
 measure the worth of his services. Still it would have been 
 better for his peace of mind, and would have saved a deal 
 of ugly scandal, if he had kept strictly within the small 
 
 15 returns which his great public services brought in to him. 
 
 It is but just to add that in his closing years his mind 
 
 became very uneasy on this account. In the spring of 1852, 
 
 he being then in President Fillmore's cabinet, a fee of 
 
 $15,000 was offered him by Goodyear & Company to engage 
 
 20 his services in their great India-rubber case. He wanted the 
 fee, but was very loath to undertake the case, as it seemed to 
 him hardly becoming for one in his position to do so. His 
 friends, however, the President among them, strongly advised 
 him to accept the offer : so he argued and won the case. 
 
 25 He is said to have expressed a wish for one more such fee, 
 
 as this would discharge his debts, and make him a free man. 
 
 Touching this matter, certain people are wont to speak 
 
 of W^ebster as if no other great man had ever nm into 
 
 like embarrassments. Now, Charles Watson Wentworth, the 
 
 30 celebrated Marquis of Rockingham, died in 1782, while 
 he was Prime Minister. The day before his death, he gave 
 special directions to have a codicil added to his will.
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 1 39 
 
 canceling all acknowledgments of debt due to him from his 
 " admirable friend, Edmund Burke." The amount of Burke's 
 indebtedness to his lordship is not precisely known ; but it 
 is said to have been not less than ;^3o,ooo. As money was 
 then probably worth twice as much as in Webster's time, 5 
 this would make a sum nearly equivalent to ^300,000 in our 
 reckoning. But Rockingham's mind was framed in such 
 nobility of justice, that he seemed to think himself only hon- 
 ored by such munificence to the transcendent statesman of 
 his age ; whose services, however, to his country had not, up 10 
 to that time, come anywhere near those rendered to this 
 nation by Webster. But both these great men were alike 
 drawn away from living for themselves, and from work that 
 pays, to a course of living and working for mankind, — a 
 service that commonly has to be its own reward. 15 
 
 Webster's service to the country was fully commensurate 
 with his greatness as a man. It may well be questioned, 
 indeed, whether even Washington himself did the nation 
 greater service than he : for without our American Union 
 the achievement of our American independence could hardly 20 
 have proved a blessing. And so I think the history shows 
 us that, during the interval from the Revolution to the Con- 
 stitution, the States were not nearly so well off as they had 
 been under the British rule. That rule was of course 
 imperial ; and such, in substance and effect, is the rule of 25 
 our national government now. And, surely, some such para- 
 mount and inclusive authority was and ever must be need- 
 ful in order to keep peace between the States ; otherwise 
 it were hardly possible to prevent a chronic antagonism and 
 bloody quarrels from springing up amongst them. There 30 
 seems to be, indeed, for the American people, no middle
 
 140 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 or tenable ground between the government of our present 
 
 National Union and that state of things, at once horrible and 
 
 contemptible, which we call Mexicanis?fi ; and, rather than 
 
 the nation should become Mexicanized, it were far better 
 
 5 that the whole land, with all the people on it, should be 
 sunk in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Be this as it may, with Webster, love of that Union, 
 ingenerate in his nature, and cherished by his education, had 
 grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. 
 
 lo He was elected to the National Senate in 1827. Early in 
 his senatorial career he saw that certain causes or forces 
 were working deeply and silently, and therefore the more 
 dangerously, to bring about a rupture of that Union. He 
 also saw that, if the structure of our National State were once 
 
 15 demolished, it could never be rebuilt. He also saw that, 
 for preventing this, two things were needful : first, that the 
 people needed to have their minds rightly and thoroughly 
 informed in the nature and principles of our Constitution ; 
 second, that they needed to have their hearts inspired 
 
 20 with a deep, earnest, heroic passion of nationality, with an 
 ardent, self-sacrificing devotion to the Union, as it was. 
 
 Thus his eye took in the whole situation, his mighty grasp 
 of thought surrounded the entire question. He therefore 
 set himself, with all his powers of mind and body, to the 
 
 25 work, and never ceased till the work was done. For more 
 than twenty years, it was the main burden of all his thought 
 and all his discourse. He was a great lawyer, and he knew the 
 law : he was a great orator, and could speak what he knew ; 
 he was a great statesman, with his mind thoroughly at home 
 
 30 in the creative and controlling forces of social, civil, and 
 political well-being : therewithal he had that indispensable 
 element of all high statesmanship, a large, warm, tender
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 141 
 
 heart : and in the strength of this combination he saw and 
 felt that the preservation of our National Union was the one 
 thing needful above all others to the welfare of the American 
 people. So, in due time, he just educated and kindled the 
 people up to his own height, filling their minds with his 5 
 thoughts, their hearts with his fervor, their mouths with 
 his words. In doing this, he won the title of the great 
 Expounder and the great Defender of the American Consti- 
 tution, and surely no title was ever better deserved. On the 
 26th of January, 1830, he met the great champion of South- 10 
 ern Nullification in the Senate, wrestled with him, threw 
 him, and broke every bone in his body. I think I may 
 safely affirm that this reply to Hayne produced a greater 
 effect than any other speech ever delivered in the world; 
 excepting, of course, those recorded in the Bible. Speeches 15 
 greater in themselves have indeed been made : Webster him- 
 self has several that are greater ; and some of Burke's, I 
 suspect, are greater than any of his ; but no one of Burke's, 
 nor any other of Webster's, came up to that in effectiveness. 
 This was greatly owing to the peculiar circumstances of the 20 
 time, and the state of the public mind. The tide of dis- 
 union sentiment was then setting in fast and strong ; men's 
 minds were becoming deeply excited and agitated with 
 doubts and misgivings ; on all hands, the worth and stability 
 of the Union were drawn in question : Webster turned that 25 
 tide completely, and it has gone on ebbing ever since : in 
 short, that speech made, and marks, the beginning of a 
 new era in our national life : from that time forward, other 
 thoughts and other feelings took fast roothold in the minds 
 and hearts of the people. 30 
 
 Mr. Hayne was a superb man, able, eloquent, honorable, 
 high souled. Not long after Webster's speech, he withdrew
 
 142 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 from the Senate, and was replaced by a much greater cham- 
 pion of the same cause, who, meanwhile, had resigned the 
 office of Vice-President for that very purpose. When the 
 question came up again, Mr. Calhoun waited till most of 
 5 the Senators on the other side had said the best they could 
 for the Union ; he then took the floor, and in a rapture of 
 logic tore their arguments all to shreds, and sent them flying 
 like straws in a tempest. Then came Webster's turn. So, on 
 the 1 6th of February, 1833, he took the floor, and just drove 
 
 10 a huge wedge of adamantine logic right through the center 
 of Calhoun's masterly argument, splitting it clean asunder 
 from end to end. Nullification was now fairly pounded to a 
 jelly, nor was it ever after able to resume the form of bone 
 and muscle in Congress. Then and there it was that the 
 
 15 real battles of the Union were fought and won. For the 
 cause had to be tried in the courts of legislative reason before 
 it could come to trial in the field of battle ; nor, in all human 
 probability, would it ever have triumphed in the latter, if its 
 right so to triumph had not first been made good in the 
 
 20 former : and that this right was there and thus made good, 
 was mainly owing, under God, to the Herculean intellect, the 
 mighty eloquence, the great soul, the generous and compre- 
 hensive wisdom of Daniel Webster. 
 
 Of course we all understand that slavery was at the bottom 
 
 25 of this whole business. Other causes were indeed often 
 alleged, but this was only a disguise, and probably deceived 
 nobody. Now, Webster hated slavery much, and on all 
 proper occasions he was downright and outspoken in his 
 aversion to it. He thought it a great moral, social, and 
 
 30 political evil, a consuming cancer, the immedicabile vulnus 
 of the social body; and he often so declared himself. He 
 also saw, what I suppose we all see now, that there was no
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 143 
 
 power in the country which could kill slavery but the national 
 government, and that the national government could do this 
 only in the exercise of its military power, and in a case of 
 actual war, — civil war ; and this was a remedy which, vastly 
 to his credit, he could not bear to think of. 5 
 
 I believe — I hope you all believe — that love is, in gen- 
 eral, if not universally, a higher, better, stronger force than 
 hate. I also hold, — do not you ? — that love of that which 
 is good is abetter and stronger principle than hatred of that 
 which is bad ; though I have nothing to say against hatred 10 
 of what is bad. I have said that Webster hated slavery 
 much : he did so, his whole life proves it ; but he loved the 
 Union more, yes, a good deal more, than he hated slavery. 
 He believed slavery to be bad ; he believed the Union to be 
 good. That love was, indeed, all through his public life, a 15 
 passion with him ; nay, more, it was the master passion of 
 his soul : it had penetrated every fiber of his being. To his 
 eye, " Earth had not anything to show more fair " than the 
 august and beautiful fabric of our National State. That this 
 mighty structure, this masterpiece of political architecture, 20 
 should be laid in the dust, was too much for him : the very 
 thought of it literally wrung his heart with anguish. His 
 supreme desire was, to have the Union so strengthened, so 
 established in the minds and hearts of the people, so bound 
 up, so interwoven with their dearest household ties and 25 
 affections, that neither slavery nor any other power should 
 be able to prevail against it. 
 
 Now, there was a considerable and a growing class of peo- 
 ple at the North who got so possessed with an all-absorbing, 
 all-consuming hatred of slavery, that they went to hating the 30 
 Union on slavery's account : on all hands their orators were 
 denouncing the Constitution as "a covenant with Hell";
 
 144 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 were openly avowing the wish, nay, the purpose, of having 
 it exploded ; and their burning words were threatening to 
 kindle such a fire as would burn it down. Even Washing- 
 ton himself also, and others who had the strongest claims to 
 5 gratitude and veneration as the founders and benefactors 
 of our Republic, were daily dragged forth by them, to be 
 roasted in the fires, or tortured on the racks of detraction 
 and defamation ; like men desecrating the sepulchers and 
 exhuming the bones of their fathers, in order to gibbet them 
 
 10 before the world. At the same time, there was a consider- 
 able and a growing class of people at the South, who got 
 so possessed with an all-absorbing, all-consuming love of 
 slavery, that they also went to hating the Union for slavery's 
 sake, and openly embarked in a crusade for breaking it up. 
 
 15 Though the spirit of disunion had been thrashed out of 
 the ugly form of Nullification, still it was not dead ; and it 
 soon after reappeared in the garb of a very gentle, harmless, 
 smiling lady named Peaceable Secession. Thus the extrem- 
 ists of both sections, the extreme haters of slavery at the 
 
 20 North, and the extreme lovers of slavery at the South, were 
 practically leagued together in a common cause, conjointly 
 aiming to break up the Union, to demolish the fabric of 
 our National State, at once the fortress and the temple of 
 American freedom ; though, to be sure, they were doing 
 
 25 this from opposite motives, the former to destroy slavery, 
 the latter to perpetuate it. Divided in their ultimate aims, 
 they were nevertheless united in their present purpose. And 
 the war of words between them kept waxing hotter and 
 hotter year after year. 
 
 30 At length, in 1850, the thing was visibly growing to a head. 
 Webster saw — at least he believed — that the South were 
 in dead earnest, that they had worked themselves up to the
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 145 
 
 full bent, and were really of a mind to do what they were 
 threatening, come what might. He also saw that the con- 
 troversies then raging between the North and the South, 
 unless they could be allayed, must soon culminate in seces- 
 sion and civil war. The South were talking of peaceable 5 
 secession. Webster knew that secession would not, could 
 not, be peaceable. So, in his speech on the 7 th of March, 
 fixing his big, blazing eyes full on the Southern members, he 
 spoke these words : " Peaceable secession ! Sir, your eyes 
 and mine are never destined to see that miracle. Who is so 10 
 foolish — I beg everybody's pardon — as to expect to see 
 any such thing? There can be no such thing as a peaceable 
 secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is 
 the great Constitution under which we live, covering this 
 whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by seces- 15 
 sion, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence 
 of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? 
 No, Sir ! No, Sir ! I will not state what might produce 
 the disruption of the Union ; but I see, as plainly as I see 
 the sun in heaven, what that disruption itself must produce : 20 
 I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not 
 describe, in its ttvofold character.'' The words twofold 
 character were a hint, if they would but take it, that in such 
 a war the beloved slavery they were fighting for would prove 
 an ugly thorn in their side. 25 
 
 Now, for the prevention, or, if this might not be, for the 
 postponement, of such an issue, Webster felt that every dan- 
 ger must be braved, every exertion made, every sacrifice 
 incurred. For these reasons, he put forth his whole strength 
 in favor of the Compromise Measures of 1850. He well 30 
 knew the risk he was running ; but, in his judgment, the 
 occasion called on him, imperatively, to stand to the work.
 
 146 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 His language to a private friend was, " It seemed to me that 
 the country demanded the sacrifice of a human victim, and 
 I saw no reason why I should not be the victim myself." 
 So, in the last hope of saving his cause, he deliberately 
 5 staked his all. He himself went down indeed, but the 
 cause was saved. In all this, most assuredly, he was right, 
 nobly right, heroically right. And his whole action at 
 that time proved him to be as great morally as he was 
 intellectually. 
 
 10 In another speech, on the 1 7 th of July, — the last he ever 
 made in the Senate, — he closed with the following : " For 
 myself, I propose, Sir, to abide by the principles and the 
 purposes which I have avowed. I shall stand by the Union, 
 and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole 
 
 15 country, according to the best of my abihty, in all I say, and 
 act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean 
 to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. 
 The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and 
 Truth's. I was born an American ; I will live an American ; 
 
 20 I shall die an American ; and I intend to perform the duties 
 incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my 
 career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of per- 
 sonal consequences. What are personal consequences? 
 What is the individual man, with all the good or evil that 
 
 25 may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which 
 may befall a great country in a crisis like this? Let the 
 consequences be what they may, I am careless. No man 
 can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he 
 suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and Constitution 
 
 30 of his country." These words, I confess, have to me a very 
 solemn and pathetic interest, as the last ever spoken by our 
 incomparable Senator in that capacity.
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER I47 
 
 The Compromise Measures were at last carried; and it is 
 admitted by all that they could not have been carried with- 
 out Webster's powerful aid. Thus the explosion, then so 
 imminent, was postponed. Ten years of time were thereby 
 gained. It is not too much to say that this gaining of time 5 
 saved the Union : for we may well shudder to think of what, 
 in all probability, would have been the result, had the explo- 
 sion come on in 1851, instead of 1861. At the former 
 period, we had a divided North and a united South. Dur- 
 ing the interval, the hideous doings in Kansas took place; 10 
 which so disgusted and alienated the Northern people, that 
 we then had, for the first time, the golden prospect of a 
 divided South and a united North. 
 
 Webster's course touching the Compromise Measures 
 drew upon him a perfect tempest of obloquy and abuse 15 
 both North and South. My father-in-law, the late Mr. 
 Henry Bright, of Northampton, a very clear-headed and 
 just-thinking man, was in Mobile on private business at the 
 time when Webster's speech of the 7 th of March reached 
 that city. He told me that the " fire-eaters " there were 20 
 seized with such an inexpressible rage against Webster, that 
 he really believed, if they could have got hold of him, they 
 would have chopped him all to pieces. At the same time, 
 and for the same cause, the extremists at the North went 
 with equal fury to butchering his character, — a sort of 25 
 butchery not very much better, perhaps, than the other. I 
 have no language to describe the shocking bitterness and 
 virulence with which his name was vilified and hunted down 
 here in New England. Why, the moral and social atmos- 
 phere of Boston is still sick with the abominable venom 30 
 spouted against him here by certain liberal preachers and 
 lecturers. For I suppose we all know that the most illiberal
 
 148 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and venom-mouthed men in the world are often found among 
 those who make special professions of liberality, and greatly 
 pride themselves thereon ; men who insist on being them- 
 selves perfectly free to think and speak their own thoughts, 
 5 and on having all others perfectly free to think and speak 
 just as they do. For we are to note that the words liberty 
 and liberality are of kindred origin and meaning : and what 
 is the use of our having liberty, if we be not, ipso facto, free 
 to traduce and begnaw and blacken all who are so de- 
 
 10 praved as not to accept our judgment for their own? Now, 
 for my part, I wish to be liberal even towards illiberality 
 itself ; yet must confess I sometimes find this rather diffi- 
 cult. The truth of the matter, as nearly as I can understand 
 it, runs about thus : The men in question had conceived 
 
 15 a bitter hatred of the Union ; Webster had thoroughly iden- 
 tified himself with the Union : so they just transferred their 
 hatred of the Union to him ; + for such men always take 
 more pleasure in hating a person than a thing ; and this, I 
 suppose, partly because a person naturally has sensibilities 
 
 20 that may be hurt, which a thing has not : they were labor- 
 ing with all their might to destroy the Union; Webster had 
 saved the Union ; and now they were possessed with an 
 intense longing to destroy him. It may almost be said 
 indeed that they did destroy him : at least their envenomed 
 
 25 calumnies greatly embittered his closing years, and sent 
 him sorrowing to his grave. But they did not destroy his 
 work : the Union was saved. In all this we have a memor- 
 able instance of what fanaticism can do, especially when 
 actuated by a sort of philanthropic ferocity. Nor has the 
 
 30 spirit engendered by those proceedings fully died out 
 yet : even to this day it is hardly safe for a man to speak 
 an honest plain word in defense of this part of Webster's
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 149 
 
 life, lest popular odium should pelt him with mud or some- 
 thing worse. 
 
 Now, during all those years I was myself a most cordial 
 hater of slavery; though I never went to the extreme — God 
 forbid! — of hating either the Union or Webster : for how 5 
 hatred of these could do anything towards pulling slavery 
 down, was quite beyond me. Nor was I ever able to com- 
 prehend why the Abolitionists should make it an exercise of 
 religion, as they did, to go about cursing and reviling all that 
 was greatest and best in the work of our national fathers : it 10 
 seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, an aggravated 
 revival of that old mystery, the odium theologicum; that is to 
 say, the offspring of sheer fanaticism, and a very malignant 
 fanaticism too ; the selfsame spirit that has more than once 
 set men to cutting throats in the name of liberty and phi- 15 
 lanthropy. 
 
 As for the speech of the 7 th of March, for which Webster 
 was so bitterly, so atrociously maligned, I have read that 
 speech a great many times, and I do not know of a single 
 word in it that I would have otherwise than as it is. I think it 20 
 every way just such a speech as should have been made at 
 that time by a great man, who had a great Union to save, 
 and a great civil war to avert. + Nor could Webster have con- 
 sistently taken any other course : he would have belied his 
 whole record, he would have been recreant to the sovereign 25 
 aim of his life, if, in that great national crisis, he had not 
 thrown all other regards to the winds, and made the Union 
 his paramount, nay, his exclusive concern. So, there again, 
 though, to be sure, with his great heart quivering and bleed- 
 ing at the defection of friends, and the cruel, cruel aspersions 30 
 of those whom he had loved so deeply and served so de- 
 votedly, he stood firm as a rock against the surging and
 
 150 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 dashing waves of unpopularity in his own cherished home. 
 Seeing the peril as he saw it, he must needs have braved 
 popular clamor as he braved it, else he would have ceased 
 to be Daniel Webster. So that Massachusetts went back on 
 5 him, or froze off from him, just at the very time when he was 
 worthiest of her love and honor. But then we all ought to 
 know that, in all cases, the blind or the blear-eyed many 
 are pretty sure to denounce and defame the one who sees. 
 When, in 1830 and 1833, Webster encountered Nullification 
 
 10 in debate, and strangled it in the crushing anaconda folds of 
 his logic and eloquence, he appeared great indeed, and was 
 great ; though he then had all New England and most of the 
 entire North backing him up and cheering him on. But a 
 great man never appears so great as when he stands true to 
 
 15 himself and his cause, with all the world against him. And 
 so, to my thinking, at no other time of his life did Webster's 
 stubborn greatness of soul, his " colossal manhood," tower 
 up in such monumental grandeur as when, in 1850, he stood 
 true to himself, " unshaken, unseduced, unterrified," with all 
 
 20 New England and most of the entire North banded together 
 to pelt him off and hiss him down. 
 
 The fineness of such metal is not found 
 In Fortune's love ; for them the bold and coward, 
 The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin : 
 25 But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, 
 
 Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, 
 Puffing at all, winnows the light away ; 
 And what hath mass and matter, by itself 
 Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. 
 
 30 Webster had foreseen and foretold a whirlwind of civil 
 war as the inevitable consequence of the wind which the an- 
 tagonist extremists were sowing. Both parties alike laughed
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 151 • 
 
 him to scorn ; they derided his fears, they despised his 
 warnings ; could not speak of them save as themes of scoff- 
 ing and ridicule ; saying that they were the mere offspring 
 of his inordinate ambition ; that he had turned prophet 
 merely because he wanted to be President. Nor did they 5 
 give over this work when the great man died : they even 
 made his death a crime ; alleging that he had died of dis- 
 appointed ambition and from the effects of personal vices ; 
 just as if a man at the age of three-score and ten had not 
 a right to die ! Now, Webster, I take it, was at least not a 10 
 fool, not absolutely a fool. Nor was he so little read in the 
 book of human nature and human life as not to know that 
 the course he was taking could not possibly gain him any- 
 thing at the South, while it was sure to lose him much at 
 the North. Any man with but half an eye could not fail 15 
 to see that. And W^ebster himself had plainly declared it 
 in a passage I have already cited. Strange, strange indeed, 
 what absurd reasons even good men will sometimes stick 
 upon, for thinking that a man cannot possibly differ from 
 them in opinion, unless he have a bad heart ! 20 
 
 So, in the instance before us, the treatment Webster re- 
 ceived proceeded, apparently, upon the rather odd notion, 
 that, in the poHtical questions of the time, he was just the 
 last man in the country who ought to be allowed to have 
 a mind of his own. A great many people in Massachusetts, 25 
 it seems, could nowise conceive on what ground, or by what 
 right, he should presume to have a mind larger than their 
 own State, or, at all events, larger than their own section. 
 That his heart dared to be big enough to embrace the whole 
 United States, and to be satisfied with nothing less, and that 30 
 his moral manhood spread so wide, and stood so firm, as 
 to be unflinchingly steadfast to the integrity of the Union, —
 
 • 152 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 this was, in the eye of Massachusetts, an unpardonable sin : 
 she could not forgive it then, she has not forgiven it now. 
 But, assuredly, Webster's great soul will sooner or later be 
 found to have been greater than she, and will prove too 
 5 strong for her yet. For, indeed, he was not her man ; he 
 was emphatically the nation's man : and, though he loved 
 her deeply, yet he would not budge an inch from his life- 
 long purpose as an American, to gratify her sectional nar- 
 rowness, or her war-kindling philanthropy. 
 
 lo How he thought and felt touching this whole matter, is 
 perhaps best shown in a speech made at Buffalo on the 2 2d 
 of May, 185 1. Of course he is referring to his line of action 
 in 1850 : " I am an American. I was made a whole man, 
 and I did not mean to make myself half a one. I felt that 
 
 15 I had a duty to perform to my country, to my own reputa- 
 tion ; for I flattered myself that a service of forty years had 
 given me some character, on which I had a right to repose 
 for my justification in the performance of a duty attended 
 with some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it was 
 
 20 my duty to pursue this course, and I did not care what was 
 to be the consequence. I felt it was my duty, in a very 
 alarming crisis, to come out ; to go for my country, and my 
 whole country ; and to exert any power I had, to keep that 
 country together. I cared for nothing, I was afraid of noth- 
 
 25 ing, but I meant to do my duty. Duty performed makes 
 a man happy ; duty neglected makes a man unhappy. I 
 therefore, in the face of all discouragements and all dangers, 
 was ready to go forth and do what I thought my country, 
 your country, demanded of me. And, Gentlemen, allow me 
 
 30 to say here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared 
 me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard the 
 fagots already crackling, by the blessing of Almighty God I
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 153 
 
 would have gone on and discharged the duty which I thought 
 my country called upon me to perform." 
 
 I think very highly of our Mr. Whittier both as a poet and 
 as a man. I hold him to be a man of real genius, and of an 
 altogether honorable and lovable character. But he has 5 
 one little piece that I am sorry for. It was written in 1850, 
 and is entitled Ichabod.'^ I cannot see that it has any great 
 merit as poetry ; and I see, or seem to see, in it not a little 
 fault of uncharitableness : nay, I must go further, — the 
 uncharity of it is simply atrocious. Now, I do not believe 10 
 there is or can be an honester man than Mr. Whittier ; but 
 I hold Webster to have been every whit as honest as he, and 
 at the same time a thousandfold wiser and vastly more chari- 
 table. It is no business of mine, nor do I propose to make 
 it my business ; but, if I were an intimate friend of Mr. 15 
 Whittier, I should be very earnest with him to recall and 
 suppress that poem. It is not worthy of him. But, whether 
 he did so or not, I should still continue to honor him all the 
 same, notwithstanding. It is nowise likely that I shall ever 
 give a lecture upon him ; if, however, I were to do so, I am 20 
 afraid I should have to note this as a greater fault in him 
 than any I am able to find in Webster. 
 
 It is but fair to add, indeed it would be hardly fair not to 
 add, that Mr. Whittier has lately put forth another poem, in 
 which he makes some considerable amends for the piece of 25 
 1850. This is entitled The Lost Occasion, and was pub- 
 lished in The Atlantic Monthly for April, 1880 ; not known 
 to me, however, when the foregoing strictures were written. ■*" 
 In his later piece, the author thinks that, if Webster had 
 lived ten years longer, he would have been " disillusioned." 30 
 Webster disillusioned ! Disillusioned of what? Why, his 
 presentiments, his predictions, all his worst forebodings,
 
 154 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 were justified, and more than justified, by the event. Was 
 his prevision of civil war an ilkision ? Nay, the horrors and 
 agonies of that war ahogether outstripped the utmost that 
 even he had strength to apprehend. Truly, one would think 
 5 that Mr. Whittier, and not Webster, was the man to be dis- 
 illusioned. Potent, potent indeed must have been the spell 
 which, in so fair a mind, those four dreadful years of civil 
 carnage could not break ! 
 
 In the earlier piece, at all events, Mr. Whittier prophesied 
 
 lo an untrue thing, — for Webster's glory has not departed ; — 
 is it not a glorious thing to be enrolled by wise old Harvard 
 as one of the seven great orators of the world ? — in that 
 case at least, I say, Mr. Whittier prophesied an untrue thing, 
 — and he was believed ; Webster prophesied a true thing, 
 
 15 and he was not believed : for, indeed, "his was the wise 
 man's ordinary lot, to prophesy to ears that would not hear." 
 But Massachusetts had then outgrown Webster, — so far 
 outgrown him as to prefer one Horace Mann, who was 
 among the loudest in rancorous invective against him. So, 
 
 20 to shame Webster into her wisdom, her honorable Legisla- 
 ture had a statue of the said Horace Mann set up in front 
 of the Capitol, and there it stands now. (By the way, I wish 
 the friends of Webster would, some Sunday night when the 
 moon is shining, reverently take his statue out of that inclo- 
 
 25 sure, and put it in some humbler place. For, surely, Webster 
 is not worthy to stand there in such high company ; no, he 
 is not worthy of that !) And Massachusetts has kept on 
 growing since : why, she has grown almost to the bigness 
 of General Butler ! She has not indeed quite overtaken his 
 
 30 stature yet ; but perhaps she will erelong, for she is still 
 growing. Yet no ! I doubt whether she will ever grow big 
 enough for him, — big enough either to swallow him or be
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 155 
 
 swallowed by him ; though, to be sure, he is the owner, or 
 the tenant in fee, of "an unbounded stomach." 
 
 Well, when at length Webster's predictions began to 
 come true ; when Secession stood forth an actual fact, a 
 presence that could not be put by, the political leaders of 5 
 the Northern extremists, both in and out of Congress, were 
 utterly aghast, as indeed they well might be, at the final 
 outcome of their doings. They had, by their incantations, 
 raised, or helped to raise, something that looked very like 
 the Devil ; and now the one all-engrossing thought was how 10 
 to get rid of it. They had not believed the South were really 
 in earnest, and they had imputed Webster's belief of it to 
 bad motives. But there the thing was at last ; and what 
 could be done with it? that was the question. So they put 
 their heads together, and made a formal proposition to the 15 
 Southern leaders, solemnly pledging themselves to use all 
 their efiforts to carry through such an amendment of the 
 Constitution as would secure slavery absolutely and forever 
 against all interference by the general government. The 
 Southern leaders, in the misplaced pride of their hearts, 20 
 spurned away the proposition, and laughed at the makers 
 of it. They had got their heads very high. 
 
 The extremists of both sections had at first hated Webster 
 because they did not understand him, and had wronged him 
 because they hated him ; and now they kept on hating 25 
 him because they had wronged him. He had forewarned 
 them of a particular mischief as the sure result of the course 
 they were taking ; they had despised his counsels, and 
 ascribed them to an evil mind : and when his forecast 
 became a fact, instead of relenting towards him, they even 30 
 hated him worse than ever ; the very thought of him stung 
 them with self-reproach ; and they sought to avenge upon
 
 156 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 him the mischief they had brought upon themselves, and 
 went to accusing him as the author of what he had foretold. 
 So, within the last few years, I have repeatedly found men 
 seriously holding Webster responsible for our Civil War ! 
 5 Such is human nature ; and so, in all ages, have men been 
 wont to recompense their greatest benefactors ! But wis- 
 dom not the less, though late, is sure to be justified of her 
 children. And so, assuredly, it will be with Webster. 
 
 At the time I am referring to, Webster's body had been 
 
 10 in the grave nearly eight years and a half ; but his spirit, 
 though slumbering, was still alive, and would not die. His 
 words were on the lips and in the hearts of the people from 
 Maine to California. Mark, then, how '* the whirligig of 
 time brought in his revenges." When at length the attack 
 
 15 on Fort Sumter rang all through the land like an omni- 
 present clap of thunder, then it was that Webster's spirit 
 awoke as from the dead. This time, the South had raised 
 a spirit, not indeed so hideous as the one I mentioned 
 before, but a great deal more terrible. That spirit was — 
 
 20 love of the Union. And whose spirit was that but Webster's? 
 How gloriously it made the people of the North spring to 
 arms ! Yes, the great soul of Daniel Webster breathing and 
 beating in them, — this it was that set them astir, impelling 
 them to the front, and holding them to the work, till Seces- 
 
 25 sion was finally overwhelmed beneath a wide-sweeping tor- 
 rent of blood and fire ! + 
 
 Now, that war cost the North not less than eight hundred 
 thousand lives and six thousand millions of money ! Per- 
 haps the demoralization engendered out of it should be rated 
 
 30 as a still greater cost : the nation has not got over it yet, 
 nor will it for fifty years to come. But, in the conflict which 
 itself had provoked, slavery fell, and great was the fall
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 157 
 
 thereof. Gloria in excelsis for that fall ! For slavery was 
 a loathsome and execrable old nuisance ; I thought so then, 
 1 think so now : and the only good thing it could possibly 
 do was to die. I admit, indeed, that the purchase was 
 worth the cost ; but it was a dreadful, dreadful price to 5 
 pay, even for so auspicious a riddance as that ! 
 
 Of course, if the extremists, those who got up the war, had 
 foreseen what was coming, the thing would not have come ; 
 at least it would not have come when it did. Yet, surely, it 
 was bound to come, sooner or later ; it was only a question 10 
 of time. But, thanks to Daniel Webster, the war was ad- 
 journed till, as the event proved, the nation was duly pre- 
 pared for it, though not so prepared but that it was deeply 
 punished in and by it. Nor did it escape his "large dis- 
 course " that the crisis, after all, was but postponed : I have 15 
 been told that in his private intercourse he expressed it as 
 his settled conviction that such was the case. But, surely. 
 Providence had a controlling hand in the whole matter ; and 
 Providence knows its time, as it also knows how to make a 
 good use of the blunders of men. Now, those who had no 20 
 foresight of what was coming may stand acquitted of crime, 
 though not of blundering: yet I cannot say this for their 
 huge unbenevolence towards their best friend : ignorance 
 may be pardoned, malice may not. But, as Webster had a 
 forecast of the whole, he was bound on every principle of 25 
 humanity and of manhood to act as he did : nay, he would 
 have been utterly inexcusable both as a statesman and as a 
 man, if he had acted otherwise. 
 
 But why was it that slavery had to fall ? Here I may claim 
 some right to know what I am saying, because I had ocular 30 
 and auricular proof on the subject. For I was myself in the 
 army three years, serving the cause with such poor abilities
 
 158 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 as I had. And I was perfectly satisfied from the outset, that 
 either slavery or the nation was bound to perish : I felt just 
 as sure of it then as I do now. In the summer of 1861, I 
 was living in the city of New York. Seeing in the papers 
 5 one morning a notice of a meeting to be held in Hope 
 Chapel for the purpose of helping on the war, I took a notion 
 to go to it. Being there, I felt moved to make a speech. 
 Having gained the ear of the audience, almost before I knew 
 what I was saying, these words popped out of my mouth : 
 
 10 " Slavery has now forced itself into a mortal duel with Uncle 
 Sam, and one of them has got to die ; and, so far as I am 
 concerned, it shall not be Uncle Sam." At first, I was 
 startled with the apprehension of having gone too far ; but, 
 the audience raising a shout of applause, I saw that things 
 
 15 were all right, and so went on. 
 
 Carrying, as I did, this deep-seated conviction into the 
 field, I longed, intensely longed, to have slavery knocked on 
 the head. So I wanted to blaze away against it in my talks 
 to the soldiers. Once or twice I did so, to some extent, 
 
 20 My official superiors took me to task for this ; telling me 
 that they had nothing to do with slavery ; that they were 
 there to sustain the government ; and that they could not 
 have discord and dissension sown among the soldiers by talks 
 on that subject. In short, they gave me a peremptory order 
 
 25 to let it alone. Of course I obeyed, though it went some- 
 what against the grain with me. And the order was un- 
 doubtedly right. I was serving in the Department of the 
 South ; and my heart fairly leaped for joy when General 
 Hunter issued his order or proclamation for emancipating 
 
 30 the slaves in that Department. Yet I was not without serious 
 misgivings ; for it rather seemed to me that such a measure 
 as that ought to proceed from no one but the Commander-in-
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER I 59 
 
 Chief of the armies and navies of the United States. You 
 are probably aware that, when the order became known 
 to President Lincoln, he forthwith overruled and counter- 
 manded it. This I was then sorry for. But, you see, I was in 
 too great a hurry. Herein I was not so wise, not quite so wise, 5 
 as our great and good and divinely patient President. He, 
 with his patience long and sorely tried by unwise and impa- 
 tient men like myself, — tried quite as much perhaps in that 
 way as in any other, — held back, and waited for the " riping 
 of the time." In calling them unwise and impatient men 10 
 like myself, I am far from meaning to comjmre my insignifi- 
 cant self generally with them ; for they were, many of them, 
 wise and good men in their degree ; but, I suspect, not 
 quite so wise and patient as our good father Abraham. But, 
 when our President saw, — for he had a strong, clear head 15 
 on his shoulders as well as a warm and tender heart in his 
 bosom, — when he saw that the time had come, he just 
 hurled his thunderbolt, and knocked slavery into the place 
 where it should be. By that time the soldiers had all been 
 taught by the discipline and logic of events, that they had 20 
 got to choose between the death of slavery and the death of 
 the nation ; that both of these could not possibly survive the 
 struggle : and, when it came to that, they of course chose 
 as Webster had taught and inspired them to choose. 
 
 So then, while others had been pouring out, in language 25 
 hissing hot, their intense hatred of slavery, and even of the 
 Union for slavery's sake, Webster had been pouring out his 
 irresistible argument and eloquence in behalf of the Union 
 which he loved ; and the love kindled by that eloquence and 
 upheld by that argument, — this it was that really did the 30 
 work. For, in truth, it so happened at that time, that the 
 best and surest way to crush slavery was by strengthening
 
 l6o HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 the Union, — by arming Uncle Sam with a hand so big and 
 so powerful, that he could just seize the bull of disunion by 
 the horns, and wring the bull's head off. And so, when the 
 people, both those at home and those in the field, became 
 5 thoroughly convinced, as in time they did, that either slavery 
 or Uncle Sam had got to die, they said. Uncle Sam shall not 
 die, and slavery shall ; and the spirit which thus spoke had 
 been kindled within them by the man who was born up in 
 New Hampshire one hundred years ago this day. Webster, 
 
 lo to be sure, did not intend the destruction of slavery; that 
 was nowise the motive of his labors : but he did intend 
 that the Union should be kept alive, and all his mighty ener- 
 gies were directed to this end ; such being, as I must think, 
 the special purpose for which he was providentially endowed, 
 
 15 and given to the American people. And so the extremists, 
 North and South, — they it was who, between them, got up 
 our Civil War ; Webster had no hand in that ; but he it was 
 who, in effect, fought the battles and gained the victories 
 of the Union : for, as the late Judge Redfield, of this city, 
 
 20 once said to me, " the war was all fought out on Daniel 
 Webster's lines." 
 
 Now, which do you suppose did the most towards the 
 final result, hatred of slavery, or love of the Union? Which 
 was the stronger principle here, hatred of that which was 
 
 25 bad, or love of that which was good? And who did the 
 most for the final triumph of the very cause which the Abo- 
 litionists had so much at heart, they themselves, or the man 
 whom they so mercilessly calumniated? They endeavored 
 with all their might to break him down ; and he just saved 
 
 30 them from the crime, and the infamy, of breaking up our 
 national Union : for how would they have stood before the 
 world at this day, if that Union had perished by the fire
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER l6l 
 
 which they were kindling? Why, they would have been an 
 object of universal execration ! a mark of abhorrence to 
 coming time, as the philanthropic incendiaries who had de- 
 stroyed the last hope of republican institutions upon earth ! 
 
 This, then, is the revenge that Webster has taken upon 5 
 them, — he served their own cause far better than they did 
 themselves. While they were warring against him, he was 
 preparing victory for them. He did not know this, they did 
 not know it ; but he was doing right, they were doing wrong : 
 he was acting from love, they were acting from hate : he was 10 
 trying to make peace, they were trying to break peace, be- 
 tween the North and the South : they, to be sure, succeeded 
 for a time, but his success was the more lasting : and my 
 copy of the Bible the seventh of the Divine Beatitudes does 
 not read " Blessed are the ^tzct-breakers^'' nor do I think 15 
 it ought to read so. And do you not believe, — do you not 
 know, — that Daniel Webster really did more towards smash- 
 ing up slavery than all the Abolitionists in the country put 
 together ? It need not be said that slavery was killed ; that 
 is pretty evident : but I think it may need to be said, at all 20 
 events it shall be said, that Daniel Webster was the man who 
 killed it ; not, I repeat, from hatred of slavery, but from love 
 of the Union : yes, he, he was the Hercules who slew the 
 monster, and saved the lady ! And may we not reasonably 
 hope that the day is not far distant, when a just sense of his 25 
 vast service in this behalf shall purge the moral and social 
 atmosphere of Boston, and of Massachusetts, of the dread- 
 ful venom and virulence breathed into it more than thirty 
 years ago? 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, great cause have we to thank God 30 
 for the gift of Daniel Webster to this nation, and to bless the
 
 l62 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 day when he was born. I think, withal, we may rest assured 
 that he still lives, and is not going to die. His memory will 
 out-tongue and live down whatever has hitherto tried, or may 
 hereafter try, to choke it off ; his name will still be fresh and 
 5 fragrant in the world's regard, when all the lingual rancors 
 which so embittered his closing years shall have died away in 
 blank forgetfulness."^ He had " a voice whose sound was like 
 the sea " ; and that voice will keep swelling up and rolling 
 on, strong, clear, and sweet, ages after the unbenevolent 
 
 10 shriekings of his time, and of our time, shall have gone silent 
 forever, Nature's air refusing to propagate them ; a treasure 
 to be cherished with reverential affection so long as the 
 American name shall have a place in the reverence and affec- 
 tion of mankind. For, indeed, it is already coming to be 
 
 15 seen, as it has never been seen before, that his broad, wise 
 statesmanship is to be the ample and refreshing shade, his 
 character the bright and breezy presence, in which all the 
 members of this great and illustrious Republic may meet and 
 sit down and feast together.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The speech made by Governor Long, at the dinner given 
 by the Marshfield Club in commemoration of Webster's 
 hundredth birthday, is so manly, so able, so workmanlike, 
 and so eloquent in itself, therewithal so just to the subject, 
 and so honorable to the speaker, that I cannot well resist 5 
 the temptation to transcribe it here, in a place more con- 
 venient for preservation and reference than in the news- 
 paper columns where it appeared : 
 
 It is but a poor tribute that even the most eloquent voice, 
 least of all mine, can pay for Massachusetts to the memory of 10 
 her greatest statesman, her mightiest intellect, and her most 
 powerful orator. Among her sons he towers like the lonely 
 and massive shaft on Bunker Hill, upon the base and the crest 
 of which his name is emblazoned clearer than if chiseled 
 deep in its granite cubes. For years he was her synonym. 15 
 Among the States he sustained her at that proud height, which 
 Winthrop and Samuel Adams gave her in the colonial and pro- 
 vincial days. With what matchle.ss grandeur he defended her ! 
 With what overwhelming power he impressed her convictions 
 upon the national life ! God seems to appoint men to special 20 
 work, and, that done, the very effort of its achievement 
 exhausts them, and they rise not again to the summit of their 
 meridian. So it was with Webster. He knows little even of 
 written constitutions and frames of government who does not 
 know that they exist almost less in the letter than in the inter- 25 
 pretation and construction of the letter. In this light it is not 
 too much to say that the Constitution of the United States, 
 as it existed when it carried our country through the greatest 
 peril that ever tested it, was the crystallization of the mind 
 of Webster as well as of its original framers. It came from 30 
 
 163
 
 l64 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 them, and was only accepted by some of our own, as a com- 
 pact of States, sovereign in all but certain enumerated powers 
 delegated to a central government. He made it the crucible 
 of a welded Union, — the charter of one great country, the 
 5 United States of America. He made the States a Nation and 
 infolded them in its single banner. It was the overwhelming 
 logic of his discussion, the household familiarity of his simple 
 but irresistible statement, that gave us munition to fight the 
 war for the preservation of the Union and the abolition of 
 
 ID slavery. It was his eloquence, clear as crystal, and precipitat- 
 ing itself in the schoolbooks and literature of a people, which 
 had trained up the generation of twenty years ago to regard 
 this Nation as one, to love its flag with a patriotism that knew 
 no faction or section, to be loyal to the whole country, and to 
 
 15 find in its Constitution power to suppress any hand or combi- 
 nation raised against it. The great rebellion of 1861 went 
 down hardly more before the cannon of Grant and Farragut 
 than the thunder of Webster's reply to Hayne. He knew not 
 the extent of his own achievement. His greatest failure was, 
 
 20 that he rose not to the height and actual stroke of his own 
 resistless argument, and that he lacked the sublime inspira- 
 tion, the disentanglement and the courage, to let the giant he 
 had created go upon his errand, first of force, and then, 
 through that, of surer peace. He had put the work and the 
 
 25 genius of more than an ordinary lifetime of service into the 
 arching and knitting of the Union, and this he could not bear 
 to put to the final test : his great heart was sincere in the 
 prayer that his eyes might not behold the earthquake that 
 would shake it to those foundations which, though he knew it 
 
 30 not, he had made so strong that a succeeding generation saw 
 them stand the shock as the oak withstands the storm. Men 
 are not gods, and it needed in him that he should rise to a 
 moral sublimity and daring as lofty as the intellectual heights 
 above which he soared with unequaled strength. So had he 
 
 35 been godlike. 
 
 A great man touches the heart of the people as well as 
 their intelligence. They not only admire, they also love him. 
 It sometimes seems as if they sought in him some weakness of 
 our common human nature, that they may chide him for it, for- 
 
 40 give it, and so endear him to themselves the more. Massachu- 
 setts had her friction with the younger Adams only to lay him 
 away with profounder honor, and to remember him devotedly
 
 APPENDIX 165 
 
 as the defender of the right of petition and " the old man elo- 
 quent." She forgave the overweening conceit of Sumner ; she 
 revoked her unjust censure of him, and now points her youth 
 to him in his high niche as the unsullied patriot, without fear 
 and without reproach, who stood and spoke for equal rights, c 
 and whose last great service was to demand and enforce his 
 country's just claims against the dishonorable trespass of the 
 cruisers of that England he had so much admired. Massachu- 
 setts smote, too, and broke the heart of Webster, her idol, 
 and then broke her own above his grave, and to-day writes his 10 
 name highest upon her roll of statesmen. It seems disjointed 
 to say that, with such might as his, the impression that comes 
 from his face upon the wall, as from his silhouette upon the 
 background of our history, is that of sadness, — the sadness of 
 the great deep eyes, the sadness of the lonely shore he loved, 15 
 and by which he sleeps. The story of Webster from the 
 beginning is the very pathos of romance. A minor chord runs 
 through it like the tenderest note in a song. What eloquence 
 of tears is in that narrative, which reveals in this giant of 
 intellectual strength the heart, the single, loving heart of a 20 
 child, and in which he describes the winter sleigh ride up the 
 New Hampshire hills when his father told him that, at what- 
 ever cost, he should have a college education, and he, too full 
 to speak, while a warm glow ran all over him, laid his head 
 upon his father's shoulder and wept ! 25 
 
 The greatness of Webster and his title to enduring grati- 
 tude have two illustrations. He taught the people of the 
 United States, in the simplicity of common understanding, the 
 principles of the Constitution and government of the country, 
 and he wrought for them, in a style of matchless strength and 30 
 beauty, the literature of statesmanship. From his lips flowed 
 the discussion of constitutional law, of economic philosophy, 
 of finance, of international right, of national grandeur, and of 
 the whole range of high public themes, so clear and judicial 
 that it was no longer discussion, but judgment. To-day, and 35 
 so it will be while the Republic endures, the student and the 
 legislator turn to the full fountain of his statement for the 
 enunciation of these principles. What other authority is 
 quoted or holds even the second or third place ? Even his 
 words have imbedded themselves in the common phraseology, 40 
 and come to the tongue like passages from the psalms or the 
 poets. I do not know that a sentence or a word of Sumner's
 
 l66 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 repeats itself in our everyday parlance. The exquisite periods 
 of Everett are recalled like the consummate work of some 
 master of music, but no note or refrain sings itself over and 
 over again to our ears. The brilliant eloquence of Choate is 
 5 like the flash of a bursting rocket, lingering upon the retina 
 indeed after it has faded from the wings of the night, but as 
 elusive of our grasp as spray-drops that glisten in the sun. 
 The fiery enthusiasm of Andrew did, indeed, burn some of his 
 heart beats forever into the sentiment of Massachusetts ; but 
 
 10 Webster made his language the very household words of a 
 nation. They are the library of a people. They inspired and 
 still inspire patriotism. They taught and still teach loyalty. 
 They are the schoolbook of the citizen. They are the 
 inwrought and accepted fiber of American politics. If the 
 
 15 temple of our Republic shall ever fall, they will "still live" 
 above the ground, like those great foundation stones in ancient 
 ruins, which remain in lonely grandeur, unburied in the dust 
 that springs to turf over all else, and making men wonder 
 from what rare quarry and by what mighty force they came. 
 
 20 To Webster, almost more than to any other man, — nay, at 
 a distance and in the generous spirit of this occasion it is hard 
 to discriminate among the lustrous names which now cluster 
 at the gates of Heaven, as the golden bars mass the West at 
 sunset, — yet to Webster especially of them all is it due that 
 
 25 to-day, wherever a son of the United States, at home or 
 abroad, " beholds the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now 
 known and honored throughout the earth, still full high 
 advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original 
 luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star 
 
 30 obscured," he can utter a prouder boast than Civis Romanus 
 sum. For he can say, I ai)i an American cilizen. 
 
 II 
 
 WEBSTER AND GIDDINGS 
 
 To the Editor of the Transcript : The Transcript of the 
 25 th instant prints a communication from Mr. F. B. San- 
 born, of Concord, which has caused me not a little surprise. 
 35 It contains a letter from the Honorable J. R. Giddings,
 
 APPENDIX 167 
 
 formerly a representative in Congress from Ohio, to the Rev- 
 erend Theodore Parker. A part of the letter is as follows : 
 
 Hall of Representatives, January 29, 1853 
 
 My dear Sir : You may recollect that, early in the session 
 of Congress of 1 847-1 848, the absorbing subject of the presi- 5 
 dential candidates was much agitated. Mr. Webster had a few 
 friends, but it became apparent that his prospect for nomination 
 was not good. I took occasion to suggest to some of his friends 
 that Mr. Webster might yet place himself in a most enviable 
 position by taking ground in favor of liberty, and against the 10 
 encroachments of slavery. I did this with the hope of bringing 
 him out on that subject, as I knew that his talents and influence 
 would do much for the advancement of our cause. Soon after 
 this, at a party, Mr. Webster informed me that he desired to 
 submit a question for my opinion, on which he wished me to be 15 
 very frank. Accordingly, a few days afterward, the skeleton 
 of a speech, in his handwriting, was submitted to my inspection. 
 It took ground in favor of Northern rights and against the 
 encroachments of slavery. I expressed approval, and, for a 
 long time, expected its delivery in the Senate. 20 
 
 It will be seen that this letter was written at least four 
 years after the session of Congress to which it refers. Surely 
 Mr. Giddings must have overlooked or forgotten two very 
 remarkable speeches made by Webster: one on the ist of 
 March, 1847, and entitled The Mexican War ; the other on 25 
 the 23d of March, 1848, and entitled Objects of the Mexican 
 War. Both speeches are given in the fifth volume of 
 Webster's Works, Litde & Brown's edition, 185 1. I hope 
 you will not find it inconvenient to print a few extracts 
 from those speeches, in justice to all the parties concerned. 3° 
 In the first of them we have the following : 
 
 At present, I should hardly have risen but to lay before the 
 Senate the resolutions of the House of Representatives of Massa- 
 chusetts, adopted on Thursday last. We have a great deal of 
 commentary and criticism on State resolutions brought here. 35 
 Those of Michigan particularly have been very sharply and
 
 l68 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 narrowly looked into, to see whether they really mean what they 
 seem to mean. These resolutions of Massachusetts, I hope, are 
 sufficiently distinct and decided. They admit of neither doubt 
 nor cavil, even if doubt or cavil were permissible in such a 
 5 case. 
 
 What the legislature of Massachusetts thinks, it has said, 
 and said plainly and directly. I have not, before any tribunal, 
 tried my ingenuity at what the lawyers call a special demurrer 
 for many years ; and I never tried it here in the Senate. In 
 
 lo the business of legislation, and especially in considering State 
 resolutions and the proceedings of public assemblies, it is our 
 duty, of course, to understand everything according to the com- 
 mon meaning of the words used. Of all occasions, these are the 
 last in which one should stick in the bark, or seek for loopholes 
 
 15 or means of escape ; or, in the language of an eminent judge of 
 former times, " hitch and hang on pins and particles." We must 
 take the substance fairly, and as it is, and not hesitate about 
 fornis and phrases. 
 
 We are in the midst of a war, not waged at home in defense 
 
 20 of our soil, but waged a thousand miles off, and in the heart of 
 the territories of another Government. It is not denied that 
 this war is now prosecuted for the acquisition of territory ; at 
 least, if any deny it, others admit it, and all know it to be true. 
 Seven or eight of the free States, comprising some of the largest, 
 
 25 have remonstrated against the prosecution of the war for such 
 a purpose, in language suited to their meaning. These remon- 
 strances come here with the distinct and precise object of dis- 
 suading us from the further prosecution of the war for the 
 acquisition of territory by conquest. Before territory is actually 
 
 30 obtained, and its future character fixed, they beseech us to give 
 up an object .so full of danger. One and all, they protest against 
 the extension of slave territory; one and all, they regard it as 
 the solemn duty of the Representatives of the free States to take 
 security, in advance, that no more slave States shall be added 
 
 35 to the Union. They demand of us this pledge, this assurance, 
 before the purchase money is paid, or the bargain concluded. 
 
 Then, after reading the Massachusetts resolutions, Webster 
 
 went on as follows : 
 
 The House of Representatives of Massachusetts is, I believe, 
 
 40 the most numerous legislative body in the country. On this 
 
 occasion it was not full ; but among those present there was an
 
 APPENDIX 169 
 
 entire unanimity. For the resolutions there were two hundred 
 and thirty votes ; against them, none. Not one man stood up 
 to justify the war upon such grounds as those upon which it 
 has been, from day to day, defended here. Massachusetts, 
 without one dissenting voice, and I thank her for it, and am 5 
 proud of her for it, has denounced the whole object for which 
 our armies are now traversing the plains of Mexico, or about to 
 plunge into the pestilence of her coasts. The people of Massa- 
 chusetts are as unanimous as the members of her legislature, and 
 so are her Representatives here. I have heard no man in the State, 10 
 in public or in private life, express a different opinion. If anything 
 is certain, it is certain that the sentiment of the whole North is 
 utterly opposed to the acquisition of territory, to be formed into 
 slaveholding States, and, as such, admitted into the Union. 
 
 But here. Sir, I cannot but pause. I am arrested by occur- 15 
 rences of this night, which, I confess, fill me with alarm. They 
 are ominous, portentous. Votes which have just been passed 
 by majorities here cannot fail to awaken public attention. Every 
 patriotic American, every man who wishes to preserve the Con- 
 stitution, ought to ponder them well. ... 20 
 
 Mr. President, I arraign no men and no parties. I take no 
 judgment into my own hands. But I present this simple state- 
 ment of facts and consequences to the country, and ask for it, 
 humbly but most earnestly, the serious consideration of the 
 people. Shall we prosecute this war for the purpose of bringing 25 
 on a controversy which is likely to shake the Government to its 
 center? . . . 
 
 Within a year or two after Texas had achieved her independ- 
 ence, there were those who already spoke of its annexation to 
 the United States. Against that project I felt it to be my duty 30 
 to take an early and a decided course. Having occasion to 
 address political friends in the City of New York in March, 
 1837, I expressed my sentiments as fully and as strongly as I 
 could. From those opinions I have never swerved. From the 
 first I saw nothing but danger to arise to the country from such 35 
 annexation. . . . 
 
 Sir, I fear we are not yet arrived at the beginning of the 
 end. I pretend to see but little into the future, and that little 
 affords no gratification. All I can scan is contention, strife, and 
 agitation. Before we obtain a perfect right to conquered terri- 40 
 tory, there must be a cession. A cession can only be made by 
 treaty. Will the North consent to a treaty bringing in territory
 
 170 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 subject to slavery ? Will the South consent to a treaty bring- 
 ing in territory from which slavery is excluded ? Sir, the future 
 is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We are suffering to 
 pass the golden opportunity for securing harmony and the sta- 
 5 bility of the Constitution. We appear to me to be rushing upon 
 perils headlong, and with our eyes wide open. But I put my trust 
 in Providence, and in that good sense and patriotism of the 
 people which will yet, I hope, be awakened before it is too late. 
 
 Still more emphatic, if possible, are the following passages 
 lo from the speech made a little more than a year later : 
 
 On Friday a bill passed the Senate for raising ten regiments 
 of new troops for the further prosecution of the war against 
 Mexico ; and we have been informed that that measure is shortly 
 to be followed, in this branch of the legislature, by a bill to raise 
 
 15 twenty regiments of volunteers for the same service. I was 
 desirous of expressing my opinions against the object of these 
 bills, against the supposed necessity which leads to their enact- 
 ment, and against the general policy which they are apparently 
 designed to promote. Circumstances personal to myself, but 
 
 20 beyond my control, compelled me to forego, on that day, the 
 execution of that design. . . . 
 
 This war was waged for the object of creating new States, 
 on the southern border of the United States, out of Mexican 
 territory, and with such population as could be found resident 
 
 25 thereupon. I have opposed this object. I am against all acces- 
 sions of territory to form new States. And this is no matter of 
 sentimentality, which I am to parade before mass meetings or 
 before any constituents at home. It is not a matter with me 
 of declamation, or of regret, or of expressed repugnance. It is 
 
 30 a matter of firm, unchangeable purpose. I yield nothing to the 
 force of circumstances that have occurred, or that I can consider 
 as likely to occur. I therefore say. Sir, that, if I were asked 
 to-day whether, for the sake of peace, I would take a treaty for 
 adding two new States to the Union on our southern border, I 
 
 35 would say No ! distinctly, No ! And I wi.sh every man in the 
 United States to understand that to be my judgment and my 
 purpose. . . . 
 
 Just before the commencement of the present administration, 
 the resolutions for the annexation of Texas were passed in 
 
 40 Congress. Texas complied with the provisions of those resolu- 
 tions, and was here, or the case was here, on the 22d day of
 
 APPENDIX 171 
 
 December, 1845, ^o'' ^^^^ final admission into the Union as one 
 of the States. I took occasion then to say that I thought there 
 must be some limit to the extent of our territories, and that I 
 wished this country should exhibit to the world the example 
 of a powerful republic, without greediness or hunger of empire. 5 
 And I added that, while I held with as much faithfulness as any 
 citizen of the country to all the original arrangements and com- 
 promises of the Constitution under which we live, I never could, 
 and I never should, bring myself to be in favor of the admission 
 of any States into the Union as slaveholding States. ... 10 
 
 If you bring in new States, any State that comes in must 
 have two Senators. She may come in with fifty or sixty thou- 
 sand people, or more. You may have from a particular State 
 more Senators than you have Representatives. Can anything 
 occur to disfigure and derange the form of government under 15 
 which we live more signally than that ? The Senate, augmented 
 by these new Senators coming from States where there are few 
 people, becomes an odious oligarchy. It holds power without 
 any adequate constituency. . . . 
 
 Sir, I hardly dare trust myself. I don't know but that I may 20 
 be under some delusion. It may be the weakness of my eyes 
 that forms this monstrous apparition. But, if I may trust myself, 
 if I can persuade myself that I am in my right mind, then it 
 does appear to me that we in this Senate have been and are 
 acting, and are likely to be acting hereafter, and immediately, 25 
 a part which will form the most remarkable epoch in the history 
 of our country. I hold it to be enormous, flagrant, an outrage 
 upon all the principles of popular republican government, and 
 on the elementary provisions of the Constitution under which 
 we live, and which we have sworn to support. ... 30 
 
 I think I see a course adopted which is likely to turn the 
 Constitution of the land into a deformed monster, into a curse 
 rather than a blessing ; in fact, a frame of an unequal govern- 
 ment, not founded on popular representation, not founded on 
 equality, but on the grossest inequality ; and I think that this 35 
 process will go on, or that there is danger that it will go on, 
 until this Union shall fall to pieces. I resist it, to-day and always. 
 Whoever falters or whoever flies, I continue the contest ! 
 
 I know. Sir, that all the portents are discouraging. Would 
 to God I could auspicate good influences ! Would to God that 40 
 those who think with me, and myself, could hope for stronger 
 support ! Would that we could stand where we desire to stand !
 
 1/2 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 I see the signs are sinister. But witli few, or alone, my position 
 is fixed. If there were time I would gladly awaken the country. 
 I believe the country might be awakened, although it may be 
 too late. For myself, supported or unsupported, by the bless- 
 5 ing of God, I shall do my duty. I see well enough all the 
 adverse indications. But I am sustained by a deep and con- 
 scientious .sense of duty ; and, while supported by that feeling, 
 and while such great interests are at stake, I defy auguries, 
 and ask no omen but my country's cause ! 
 
 10 Mr. Sanborn thinks, as he well may, that the alleged dis- 
 honest change in Webster's course, about which so much 
 has been said, was not connected with the speech he made 
 on the 7th of March, 1850, but with a speech which he did 
 not make sometime in 1847 or 1848. The letter which 
 
 15 Mr. Sanborn gives, from Mr. Sumner to Mr. Parker, is with- 
 out date ; but that letter evidently refers also to some speech 
 that Webster did not make against the Mexican war. A 
 part of Mr. Sumner's letter is as follows : " At the Senate 
 I spoke with Giddings. He repeated what he had told me 
 
 20 before, that Webster had submitted to him the brief of a 
 speech against the Mexican war, which he never delivered." 
 Now, whether Webster ever delivered the particular speech 
 here referred to may be a question. But I submit that he 
 could not well have made any fuller or stronger declarations 
 
 25 against admitting any new slaveholding States and against 
 all extension of slavery than we have in the forecited pas- 
 sages from his speeches in 1847 and 1848. Surely these 
 passages must be enough to satisfy any candid and fair- 
 minded man, that W^ebster did not then shirk the honest 
 
 30 expression of his mind, from what Mr. Sumner was pleased 
 to call " the paltriness of his office-seeking." 
 
 Probably the speech which Webster did not deliver, and 
 of which a " skeleton " was shown to Mr. Giddings, was the 
 one referred to in one of the forecited passages from the
 
 APPENDIX 173 
 
 speech of March 23, 1848 : " I was desirous of expressing 
 
 my opinions against the object of these bills," etc. (page 
 
 170). And is not the reason which he there assigns, for not 
 
 having made that intended speech, sufficient? especially in 
 
 view of the speech he made on the 23d of March, 1848? 5 
 
 One would think that even an unbenevolent mind might be 
 
 satisfied with that reason. 
 
 Now, as nearly all the South were at that time manifestly 
 
 bent on conquering new territory for the sole purpose of 
 
 extending slavery, Webster, in his earnest and repeated 10 
 
 protests and warnings against such extension, certainly had 
 
 a very funny way of truckling, or of selling himself, for 
 
 Southern votes. And as the imputing of bad motives, save 
 
 "under a compelling occasion," is not generally regarded 
 
 as a very high act of virtue, therefore we are bound in 15 
 
 charity to presume that Mr. Sumner was strictly compelled 
 
 to impute bad motives in that particular case. But it seems 
 
 not unlikely that his undated letter to Mr. Parker may have 
 
 been written before Webster's delivery of the speech which 
 
 he had been obliged to postpone. Be that as it may, Mr. 20 
 
 Sanborn had of course a perfect right to overlook or ignore 
 
 the facts belonging to the matter in hand, and then speak 
 
 just as if those facts were nonexistent. For it is clearly 
 
 indispensable that Webster's character should somehow be 
 
 put to death ; and, where the end is so high and holy, it is 25 
 
 evidently not worth the while to be at all scrupulous as to 
 
 the means. Finally, in the case of Webster, liberal men, 
 
 to be sure, must be allowed the special privilege of drawing 
 
 upon their own imagination for the facts touching his action, 
 
 and upon their own generous hearts, or their " inner con- 30 
 
 sciousness," for his motives. 
 
 H. N. H. 
 Cambridge, January, 1882
 
 174 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 III 
 
 At an anniversary meeting of the Massachusetts Anti- 
 slavery Society, held in Faneuil Hall, on the 23d and 24th 
 of January, 1850, a series of resolutions was adopted, one 
 of which is as follows : 
 
 5 Resolved, That, admiring the fearlessness, the fidelity to prin- 
 ciple, and the just discernment of slavery's true nature, and its 
 chief strongholds, manifested by the great convention of Ohio's 
 sons and daughters, assembled in September last at Berlin, in that 
 State, we, the members and friends of the Massachusetts Anti- 
 
 10 slavery Society, assembled in Faneuil Hall, do cordially respond 
 to their words, and say with them. With full confidence in the 
 integrity of our purpose and the justice of our cause, we do 
 hereby declare ourselves the enemies of the Constitution, Union, 
 and Government of the United States, and the friends of the 
 
 15 new Confederacy of States, where there shall be no union with 
 slaveholders, but where there shall ever be free soil, free labor, 
 and free men ; and we proclaim it as our unalterable purpose 
 and determination to live and labor for a dissolution of the 
 present Union, by all lawful and just, though bloodless and 
 
 20 pacific, means, and for the formation of a new republic, that 
 shall be such, not in name only, but in full living reality and 
 truth. And we do hereby invite and entreat all our fellow-citi- 
 zens and the friends of justice, humanity, and true liberty 
 throughout the Northern States, to unite with us in laboring 
 
 25 for so glorious an object. 
 
 Many pages might easily be filled with matter just like 
 the above, all plainly demonstrating that the Abolitionists 
 were at that time fierce disunionists, as much so as the 
 " fire-eaters" of the South ; and that the former, in common 
 30 with the latter, were pushing on, with all their might, a 
 scheme of " peaceable secession." How likely such seces- 
 sion was to be peaceable, was charmingly shown by our four 
 smilingly peaceful years of civil war. The Abolitionists 
 were then feeding themselves with eager hopes of a speedy
 
 APPENDIX 175 
 
 disruption or "dissolution " of the Union. Those hopes were 
 badly dashed by the passing of the Compromise Measures, 
 which took place just when their patriotic and philanthropic 
 fervor was at the white heat of intensity. This abundantly 
 explains their amiable and benevolent virulence against 5 
 Webster; for " Death loves a shining mark." To be sure, 
 they had loved Webster mightily when he opposed Nullifi- 
 cation and Secession in South Carolina ; but they hated 
 him with inexpressible bitterness when he opposed the same 
 thing in Massachusetts : the case was then altered com- 10 
 pletely, of course ; and so their milk instantaneously somer- 
 saulted into gall ! 
 
 Upon a fair and candid view of the whole matter, the 
 upshot seems to be about this : Webster was conscientiously 
 loyal, the Abolitionists were conscientiously disloyal, to the 15 
 Union and the Constitution ; he thought the Union ought 
 to be preserved, they thought it ought to be destroyed. 
 Conscience was of course to be respected in them ; and 
 why not as much so in him? Wisdom, also, or moderation, 
 if they had possessed it, would have been worthy of respect 20 
 in them ; Webster did possess it, and in him it was worthy 
 of respect. In other words, the Abolitionists were honest, 
 but they were fanatics ; Webster, also, was honest, and was 
 not a fanatic : this was just the difference between them. 
 So, too, the proslavery fanatics of the South were no doubt 25 
 just as honest as the antislavery fanatics of the North : on 
 both sides the honesty was good ; the fanaticism on both 
 sides was bad. 
 
 One word more. The Abolitionists were eager and impa- 
 tient to run the risk of setting the whole Nation on fire, in 30 
 order to purge off a local and long-standing nuisance, which 
 it was indeed unspeakably desirable to get rid of : Webster
 
 1/6 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 was deeply and most honorably anxious that the nuisance 
 should be abated, as he believed it might and would be in 
 time, without wrapping the Nation in flames. And, when 
 the crisis came, the people of the North proved to be so 
 5 far in sympathy with him, that they preferred an almost 
 desperate civil war to the downfall of the Union. It is also 
 to be said, in praise of the Abolitionists generally, that, when 
 they found, as they did find, that the cause of the Union 
 might become, and was likely to become, a mighty force 
 
 lo for the destruction of slavery, they fell in heartily with the 
 rest, cast off their disloyalty to the Union, turned earnest 
 patriots, and worked nobly, none more so, in support of 
 that cause. And it has really long seemed to me that, now 
 that the struggle is a thing of the past, and passion has 
 
 15 had time to cool, the old Abolitionists, above all other 
 people in the land, frankly discarding the animosities of 
 thirty years ago, ought to love and honor the name of Daniel 
 Webster. Surely they owe him that reparation ; and they 
 owe it even more to themselves than to him ! And I am 
 
 20 the rather moved to say this, inasmuch as, during those long- 
 past years, I was myself in full sympathy with their hatred 
 of slavery.
 
 NOTES 
 
 The figures in heavy-faced tyPe refer to pages ; those in plain type, to the lines 
 
 which are annotated. 
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 
 
 3 15 I still adhere etc. : This subject is somewhat unsettled in the 
 minds of the best editors and teachers, but there can be no doubt 
 that from his point of view Professor Hudson is right. The revised 
 Hudson edition retains the notes at the foot of the page. These 
 notes are of three kinds : the first gives all the important textual 
 variants from the quartos and foUos ; the second deals with obscure 
 words and passages; and the third gives types of aesthetic inter- 
 pretation from the best sources. 
 
 4 18-21 And perhaps the tendency etc. : This tendency has some- 
 what increased since Professor Hudson's time, to the injury of 
 English teaching, for too often it has led the teacher to rely upon 
 such notes for recitational purposes rather than upon individual 
 initiative to reach the message of the text. This is always deaden- 
 ing in its effect. Mr. Alfred Ainger says : "A student might obtain 
 full marks in such an exercise without its proving that he or she 
 was any better, wiser, or happier for any of the literature of which 
 it treats." 
 
 5 20 Critical Notes : At the present time, when cheap reprints of 
 the early texts are accessible, it is possible and desirable to lead the 
 student in the secondary schools to take an interest in the Folios 
 and Quartos. 
 
 6 10-12 I hold etc. : Here is the essence of Professor Hudson's 
 creed as to the teaching of English literature. It is interesting to 
 note that all the great teachers of the present time agree with him. 
 Dr. James Martineau says : " To teach us what to love and what 
 to hate, whom to honor and whom to despise, is the substance of 
 human training ; and I would rather have an hour's communion 
 
 177
 
 178 NOTES 
 
 with one noble soul than to read the law of gravitation through 
 and through." 
 
 " In England, most especially, and at its university centers, this 
 agitation (of the place of literature in liberal studies) has become 
 intense and demonstrative, arousing both scholarly and popular 
 interest, and bidding fair, even now, to revolutionize, in the British 
 Empire, all educational conceptions hitherto held." — Professor 
 T. W. Hunt. 
 
 6 18-19 The world is getting etc. : President Woodrow Wilson says 
 of such authors : " The trouble is they all want to be ' in society,' 
 overwhelmed with invitations from the publishers, well known and 
 talked about at the clubs, named eveiy day in the newspapers, 
 photographed for the news stalls." 
 
 7 24-98 And the cesthetic criticism etc. : There is no doubt that 
 the esthetic criticism of Professor Hudson has done more for the 
 study of Shakespeare in this country than all the verbal criticism 
 published. Dr. H. H. Furness wrote to Professor Hudson in 1S79: 
 " You stand facile princeps among living writers in the domain of 
 Shakespeare cesthetic criticism. Your chapter on the morality of 
 Shakespeare is the finest piece of aesthetic criticism that has been 
 written in our day, or in any day." 
 
 8 20-23 We seem indeed etc. : Speaking of such a pupil, Mr. Alfred 
 Ainger says: "He is eager at once to exercise his judgment, his 
 critical powers ; to be able quickly to give a reason for the faith 
 that is in him. Let him not be in a hurry. Loi'e must come first, 
 criticism afterwards." 
 
 9 11-13 Thus in our hot haste etc.: This paragraph seems very 
 modern, although it was written more than a quarter of a century 
 ago. Browning, in his " What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three 
 souls, one man," reveals the threefold nature of all of us. Unless 
 each of these natures is developed harmoniously, serious results 
 follow. 
 
 10 13-14 One would suppose etc.: The truth of this paragraph is 
 finely illustrated in Dr. Martineau's " The Child's Thought " and 
 Bishop Brooks's "The Beautiful Gate of the Temple," two ser- 
 mons upon the education of the child which no teacher should fail 
 to study. Dr. Martineau says : " If both world and church will 
 only learn what the child's simple presence may teach, instead of
 
 PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 179 
 
 teaching what he cannot innocently learn, the truth may dawn upon 
 them that he seldom requires to be led, — only not to be misled." 
 Bishop Brooks says : " Every child is a separate and peculiar plant, 
 — different from every other. What shall the teacher do, then ? Not 
 say, ' I will make this child before me this or that,' but, ' I will 
 quicken every activity with its own spiritual stimulus.' " 
 
 11 5-8 What a teacher, therefore etc. : That we are getting some 
 results from such teaching as Professor Hudson urges in this para- 
 graph is evident from what President Woodrow Wilson says of 
 the reform in teaching at Princeton. " The new method is founded 
 on the proposition that a university is a place where men go to read 
 great subjects of study, and to be assisted by friendly preceptors 
 who ought to be stimulating and instructive. Not uniformity, but 
 elasticity of method is wanted." " The literary pedant," says 
 Professor T. W. Hunt, " emphasizing names and dates and the 
 minutest matters of an author's life, is one type ; the literary guide 
 and master, bringing to light great generic principles in literature 
 and illustrating its relation to all high forms of mental discipline, 
 is quite another type, and the only worthy one." 
 
 12 4-6 Hence, no doubt, etc. : The truth of this, applied to the 
 general tendency of our time to diffuseness, is aptly illustrated by 
 Mr. R. H. Hutton, who says : "A perfect organization of facilities 
 for expression carries off far too soon everything in the shape of 
 literary feeling and thought into the public mind without giving it 
 time to grow to what is great and forcible. ... It is the damming 
 up of driblets of thought and feeling which really creates great 
 supplies of such thought and feeling. The age of resei-ve prepares 
 the way for the age of literary splendour." 
 
 13 2!i For the learning of words etc. : President Woodrow Wilson 
 says : " It is not knowledge that moves the world, but ideals, con- 
 victions, and whoever studies humanity ought to study it alive, 
 practice the vivisection of reading literature, and acquaint himself 
 with something more than anatomies which are no longer in use 
 by spirits." Professor T. W. Hunt says : " Literature has been so 
 held in abeyance by classical educators to the study of linguistics 
 that it has been sacrificed in the house of its friends." 
 
 14 25-27 A constant dissecting etc. : In speaking of the scientific 
 method President Woodrow Wilson says : " If you do so limit and
 
 l8o NOTES 
 
 constrain what you teach, you thrust taste and insight and delicacy 
 of perception quite out of the schools . . ., make education an 
 affair of tasting and handling and smelling, and so create Philistia, 
 that country in which they speak of ' mere hterature.' " 
 
 16 16-19 I was convinced etc. : These lines reveal the cause of the 
 lack of interest in many English class rooms in school and college. 
 The recitation of the secondary school and the lecture in the col- 
 lege are too often merely mechanical devices to go through the 
 hour, while they offer bounties to the one who can cram and dis- 
 gorge. It is small wonder that Professor William James attacked 
 the Ph.D. Octopus and its destructive effect upon the imagination. 
 Professor Hugo Miinsterberg, in his address at the dedication of 
 Emerson Hall, Harvard University, said that while the psychologist 
 by research might gather all material possible, he would not know 
 what to do with it unless he had imagination. Mr. Herbert Paul says : 
 " Specialists have substituted for the old idea of a liberal education 
 a multitude of narrow and technical schools for cramming the mem- 
 ory and starving the intellect." Mr. A. C. Benson says : " We continue 
 to respect the erudite mind, and to decry the appreciative spirit as 
 amateurish and dilettante, but omniscience is not even desirable in 
 the ordinary mind." 
 
 17 16-17 For these reasons etc.: The method which Professor 
 Hudson used makes the greatest demands upon the teacher, for 
 he must first of all know literature, and he must not parade his 
 knowledge before the class. He must act as a guide to the delight- 
 ful country, but must not lecture on its beauties ; he must allow the 
 class to do its own seeing. 
 
 A significant testimony to this method is given by Dr. H. H. 
 Furness in a letter to Professor Hudson. He writes : " I am filled 
 with measureless content when I reflect how much my boys will 
 owe to you of their introduction to Shakespeare. They always 
 mention your exercises in their letters, with great and increasing 
 interest. After all, I am not sure that such a school as that 
 [St. Paul's, Concord, New Hampshire] does not constitute the finest 
 audience a man can have, the echoes of his voice will float farther 
 down the tide of time, and no computation can estimate the fruit 
 which the seed then sown may produce."
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS l8l 
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 
 
 19 21-23 Then too most of the pupils etc. : One of the greatest 
 problems of modern secondary education is how to furnish the 
 type of training for the city-bred boy and girl which life on the farm 
 gave to the country boy and girl. As yet no mechanic arts school, 
 or school of domestic science, has been created to do this work. 
 As Senator Hoar says : " There was never a better gymnasium for 
 body or mind and soul ; there was never a fitter preparation for 
 college or university, or for the greater university of the world, than 
 the life from the early settlement of the country down to a day 
 most of us can remember, on a New England farm. What an edu- 
 cation in the old days when the thick wood came up close to the 
 village ; when the boys' schoolmates were the hawk and the owl, 
 and the raccoon and the muskrat. In those days when a boy wanted 
 to have a thing done he had to do it for himself. He had to keep 
 his eyes and his ears open to Nature's constant challenge from wood 
 and field and river and pond. The pickerel in the pond, the musk- 
 rat in the river, the hawk in the sky, the woodchuck in his hole, 
 and the gray squirrel on the tree top were calling to him, 'Get me 
 if you can.' " 
 
 21 17-19 And, good as vocal intelligence may be etc. : We are now- 
 acknowledging the truth of this idea, for we have been taught it by 
 the superior efficiency of the German in all that pertains to the 
 crafts, an efficiency which is due to a right relation of mind and 
 hand. 
 
 2125-28 But I suspect etc.: Ruskin says: "I am always struck 
 by the precedence which the idea of 'a position in life ' takes above 
 all other thoughts in the parents' — more especially in the mothers' 
 — minds. The education befitting such and such a station in life, — 
 this is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, so far 
 as I can make out, an education good in itself. It never seems to 
 occur to these parents that there may be an education which is 
 advancement in life." 
 
 23 28-31 For, surely, the two parts of education etc. : This is being 
 practically worked out in those schools where manual training is 
 made a part of the regular curriculum of the school, not a side 
 issue quite unrelated to the main idea of education.
 
 l82 NOTES 
 
 24 26-27 And here let me say etc. : Honorable John D. I,ong, in an 
 address at Vassar College in 1905, said : " No one can look at modern 
 society and not be appalled at the outrage and indignities being com- 
 mitted in all walks of life. It is in this mass of festering sores that 
 our danger lies. I look to see a new infusion of culture and charm 
 given to the world by the educated woman. It is her mission to 
 save human society from vulgarity and decay. If she train up her 
 husband and children to simple living, civilization will go forward 
 in this country." 
 
 25 11-12 Our girls in school etc. : Tennyson makes this idea cen- 
 tral in The Princess. In speaking of his mother, he says : 
 
 One 
 Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
 Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 
 No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
 Interpreter between the Gods and men. 
 Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
 On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
 Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
 Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
 And girdled her with music. Happy he 
 With such a mother ! 
 
 Canto VII, 299-309. 
 
 26 7-8 This leisure etc. : President Woodrow Wilson says : " If 
 this free people to which we belong is to keep its fine spirit, its per- 
 fect temper amidst affairs, its high courage in face of difficulties, its 
 wise temperateness and wide-eyed hope, it must continue to drink 
 deep and often from the old wells of English undefiled, quaff the 
 keen tonic of its best ideals, keep its blood warm with all the great 
 utterances of exalted purpose and pure principle of which its match- 
 less literature is full. The great spirits of the past must command 
 us in the tasks of the future, mere literature will keep us pure and 
 keep us strong." 
 
 26 30 And this is quite as true etc. : Mr. J. M. Barrie says : " When 
 you looked into my mother's eyes, you knew why it was God sent 
 her into the world : to open the eyes of all who look to beautiful 
 thoughts, and this is the beginning and end of literature."
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 183 
 
 27 3-6 I suspect etc. : Mr. Frederic Harrison says : " When will 
 men understand that the reading of great books is a faculty to be 
 acquired, not a natural gift, at least not to those who are spoiled by 
 our current education and habits of life ? An insatiable appetite 
 for new novels makes it as hard to read a masterpiece as it seems 
 to a Parisian boulevardier to live in a quiet country. Until a man 
 can truly enjoy a draft of clear water bubbling from a mountain 
 side, his taste is in an unwholesome state." 
 
 28 1-3 I say pleasure etc. : I have always maintained that the Eng- 
 lish hour in the class room should be an hour of recreation for pupil 
 and teacher. Mr. Alfred Ainger says : " Only through some pleas- 
 ure given, I venture to assert, is any profit afforded by the study 
 of an English writer. . . . The great end then, I submit, of English 
 literature as an element of education is to g\\e pleasured Mr. A. C. 
 Benson says: "A man who reads Virgil for pleasure is a better 
 result of a system of education than one who re-edits Tibullits." 
 
 29 3-7 The thing is etc. : Mr. Frederic Harrison says : "The choice 
 of books is really the choice of an education, of a moral and intel- 
 lectual ideal, of the whole duty of man." 
 
 29 17-21 If people have their tastes etc. : Mr. Augustine Birrell 
 says : " If, then, we would possess good taste, we must take pains 
 about it. We must study models, we must follow examples. . . . The 
 best way of telling a good book from a bad one is to make yourself 
 as well acquainted as you can with some of the great literary models. 
 ... A great crowd of books is as destructive of the literary instinct, 
 which is a highly delicate thing, as is a London evening party of 
 the social instinct." 
 
 30 5-7 The direct aids and inspirations etc. : Dr. Martineau says : 
 " Knowledge bears a double fruit — a physical and a moral. It 
 enables us to do more, and disposes us to be better. But it is not 
 the same kind of knowledge that effects both of these results. We 
 increase our power by knowing objects that are beneath us; our 
 goodness, by knowing those that are above us." 
 
 30 28-31 5 That an author etc. : President Woodrow Wilson says : 
 " Those writings which we reckon worthy of the name of literature 
 are the product not of reasoned thought, but of the imagination 
 and of the spiritual vision of those who see, — writings winged not 
 with knowledge but with sympathy, with sentiment, with heartiness."
 
 l84 NOTES 
 
 Professor T. W. Hunt says : " What is -wanting in these commer- 
 cial and practical days is the spiritual and immortal view of letters, 
 
 — the exaltation and realization of the ideal in literature as distinct 
 from the visible, tangible, and merely mercenary." 
 
 31 23-25 Nor is it the least benefit etc. : Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phil- 
 lipps writes to Professor Hudson in April, 1881 : " My most hearty 
 thanks for the Eiiglish in Sc/iools. What you say is full of interest 
 and of the greatest importance. I am just starting for Stratford- 
 on-Avon and intend to reread it in Shakespeare's own town. Your 
 able and eloquent edition of Henry VIII I am charmed with. It 
 came just in time for me to quote a bit from your introduction in 
 a new book just completed which I shall have the pleasure of 
 sending you." 
 
 32 28-31 The statistics of our public libraries etc. : Recent reports 
 from the Boston Public Library are very suggestive, and show 
 clearly that the conditions are encouraging. They reveal that an 
 increasing proportion of great poetry is being called for. 
 
 33 12-17 Yet, in the matter of practical learning etc. : "A man of 
 sensitive imagination and elevated moral sense, of a wide knowledge 
 and capacity for affairs, Burke stood in the midst of the English 
 nation speaking its moral judgments upon affairs, its character in 
 political action, its purposes of freedom, equity, wide and equal 
 progress. It is the immortal charm of his speech and manner that 
 gives permanence to his works. He is a master in the use of the 
 great style." — President Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 33 18-24 And a few of Webster's etc. : " If ever being walked the 
 earth clad in the panoply of imperial manhood, it was Daniel 
 Webster. If ever being trod the earth whom the Greek or Roman 
 fable would have made a demigod, it was this child of the New Hamp- 
 shire farmhouse. His sentences dwell and abide with us like the 
 psalms of David or the songs of Bums." — George F. Hoar. 
 
 34 14-16 Few, very few etc. : " In our race are thousands of 
 readers, presently there will be millions, who know not a word of 
 Greek or Latin, and will never learn these languages. If this host 
 of readers are ever to gain any sense of the power and charm of the 
 great poets of antiquity, their way to gain it is not through transla- 
 tions of the ancients, but through the original poetry of Milton." 
 
 — Matthew Arnold.
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 185 
 
 34 28-31 I suspect etc.: This is as true now as it was when Pro- 
 fessor Hudson uttered it. The testimony of all those who have 
 made themselves familiar with the teaching of literature in the 
 schools is that it is the one subject which is taught almost uni- 
 formly badly. "Mere literature," says President Woodrow Wilson, 
 " is not an expression of form, but an expression of spirit. This is 
 a fugitive and troublesome thing, and perhaps does not belong in 
 well-conceived plans of universal instruction ; for it offers many 
 embarrassments to the pedagogic method. It escapes all scientific 
 categories. It is not pervious to research. It is too wayward to be 
 brought under the discipline of exposition." 
 
 36 9-12 How strange it is, then etc.: It must be remembered that 
 when these words were written there was no study of Shakespeare 
 or the English classics in our secondary schools, and but little in the 
 colleges. The impulse to such study came more largely from Pro- 
 fessor Hudson, his teaching and writing, than from any other source. 
 
 36 25-27 Nevertheless I am far from thinking etc. : This is essen- 
 tially the position taken by every great teacher of English and, I might 
 almost say, of every great teacher of Science, at the present time. 
 
 Professor Edward Dowden says : " If English literature be con- 
 nected in our courses with Greek, Latin, French, or German litera- 
 ture, the thoughtful student can hardly fail to be aroused by the 
 comparative studies to consider questions which demand an answer 
 from philosophy." Cf. Professor Hugo Miinsterberg, Science and 
 Idealism. 
 
 37 16-19 The fashion indeed has been growing etc. : Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison says : "Assiduous practice in composing neat essays has 
 turned out of late ten thousand men and women who can put 
 together very pleasant prose. It has not turned out one living 
 master in prose as Tennyson was master in verse. . . . The young 
 student — ex hypothesi — has to learn, not to teach. His duty is to 
 digest knowledge, not to popularize it and carry it abroad." 
 
 38 26-29 And so the secret of a good style etc. : " What you need 
 is, not a critical knowledge of language, but a quick feeling for it. 
 You must immerse your thought in your phrase, till each becomes 
 saturated with the other. And you must produce in color, with the 
 touch of imagination, which lifts what you write away from the dull 
 levels of mere exposition." — President Woodrow Wilson.
 
 i86 NOTES 
 
 41 27-29 In short etc. : Fortunately we have made a great gain in 
 this matter during the last decade. Wherever English has had a 
 fair chance in our secondary schools, it assumes a position of dignity 
 and power second to no subject in the curriculum. 
 
 43 6-9 The chronic nervous intensity etc. : Professor William 
 James, in his Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals, — a splendid 
 recent corroboration of Dr. Hudson's ideas on education, — says : 
 " We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse, and 
 have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work 
 so hard. I suspect that this is an immense mistake. I suspect that 
 neither the nature nor the amount of their work is accountable for 
 the frequency and severity of our breakdowns, but that their cause 
 lies rather in those absurd feelings of hurry and having no time, 
 in that breathlessness and tension, that anxiety of feature and that 
 solicitude for results, that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short, 
 by which with us the work is so apt to be accompanied, and from 
 which a European who should do the same work would nine times 
 out of ten be free." 
 
 46 21-24 Nor would I attempt etc. : " It is through the subject- 
 matter that the interest of students can be best maintained, and if 
 so maintained, whatever incidental instruction may be called for 
 (and to be called for, it must be relevant to the subject-matter) will 
 tell the better upon them. But even if relevant it must not be 
 allowed to divert the current of thought and feeling into standing 
 pools." — Professor Hiram Corson. 
 
 47 2-4 For such delight etc. : President Woodrow Wilson, in speak- 
 ing of the deadening results of too much emphasis upon details as 
 revealed in the methods called scientific, says : " We must not be 
 impatient of this truant child of fancy (the spirit of mere literature). 
 When the schools cast her out, she will stand in need of friendly 
 succor. We must be free hearted in order to make her happy, for 
 she will accept entertainment of no sober, prudent fellow who shall 
 counsel her to mend her ways. She has always made light of hard- 
 ships, and she has never loved or obeyed any save those who were 
 of her own mind, those who were indulgent to her humors, re- 
 sponsive to her ways of thought, attentive to her whims, content 
 with her 'mere' charms. She already has her small following of 
 devotees, like all charming, capricious mistresses. There are some
 
 ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 187 
 
 still who think that to know her is better than a liberal edu- 
 cation." 
 
 47 23-29 From all which it follows etc. : The new requirements for 
 college entrance examination in English have done much to rid the 
 schools of scrappy texts. We are now studying authors as individ- 
 uals revealed through their works. This requires the use of single 
 texts rather than aggregations covering long periods of time. 
 
 " Students are not kept long enough in contact with the inner 
 life of English Letters to take in something of that spirit that per- 
 vades them." — Professor T. W. Hunt. 
 
 48 17-19 As for the matter of rhetoric etc. : The place of formal 
 rhetoric in the school and the college is a subject of much discussion. 
 I believe that too much pressure put upon it before the student 
 becomes familiar with the great prose writers leads to mischief, in 
 that it results in a belief, on the part of the student, that rhetoric is 
 the cause of literary workmanship ; whereas, if it be postponed to a 
 period when great prose can be used as illustrating the principles 
 both of logic and rhetoric, the student sees at once that the laws of 
 each only reveal the manner in which the author was in the habit 
 of thinking. The testimony of men of letters on the subject is to the 
 point. Mr. John Morley says : " I have very little faith in rules of 
 style, though I have an unbounded faith in the virtue of cultivating 
 direct and precise expression. But you must carry on the operation 
 inside the mind, and not merely practice hterary deportment on 
 paper. So far as my observation has gone, men will do l)etter if they 
 seek precision by studying carefully and with an open mind and a 
 vigilant eye the great models of writing, than by excessive practice 
 of writing on their own account." 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison says : " The bare art of writing readable 
 paragraphs in passable English is easy enough to master. But it is 
 a poor art which readily lends itself to harm. It leads the shallow 
 ones to suppose themselves deep, the raw ones to fancy they are 
 cultured, and it burdens the world with a deluge of facile common- 
 place." 
 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen says : " I have often heard remarks upon the 
 modern diffusion of literary skill. Ten people, it is said, can write 
 well now for one who could write well fifty years ago. No doubt the 
 demand for facile writing has enormously increased the supply. But
 
 l88 NOTES 
 
 I do not think that first-rate writing — the writing which speaks of 
 a full mind and strong convictions, which is clear because it is 
 thorough not because it is shallow — has increased in the same 
 proportion ; if, indeed, we can be sure that it has increased at all. 
 Perhaps there are ten times as many people who can put other men's 
 thoughts into fine phrases ; but are there ten times as many, are 
 there even as many, who think for themselves and speak at first 
 hand ? " 
 
 50 10-1:3 Unquestionably the right way etc. : Mr. James Russell 
 Lowell says : " One is sometimes asked by young people to recom- 
 mend a course of ' reading.' My advice would be that they should 
 confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever literature, or 
 still better, to choose some one great author, and make themselves 
 thoroughly familiar with him. . . . This method forces upon us the 
 necessity of thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all 
 education." 
 
 50 26-28 It is indeed sometimes urged etc. : Mr. James Russell 
 Lowell says : " We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of the men 
 of three centuries ago, and at a certain dignity of phrase that charac- 
 terizes them. They were scholars because they did not read so many 
 things as we. They had fewer books, but these were of the best. 
 Their speech was noble because they lunched with Plutarch and 
 supped with Plato." 
 
 52 1.1-18 So let our youth etc. : " Of all our study the last end and 
 aim should be to ascertain how a great writer or artist has served 
 the life of man ; to ascertain this, to bring home to ourselves as large 
 a portion as may be of the gain wherewith he has enriched human 
 life." — Edward Dowden. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 
 
 54 18-20 The plays, in all cases etc. : The matter of expurgation 
 is of the greatest importance where the plays are to be read aloud in 
 the class room. Professor Hudson managed this with consummate 
 skill and sound judgment. 
 
 58 29-30 Especially I make much of reading etc. : Professor Hiram 
 Corson says : " Li literary examinations a sufficiently qualified 
 teacher could arrive at a nicer and more certain estimate of what
 
 SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 189 
 
 a student has appropriated, both intellectually and spiritually, of a 
 literary product, by requiring him to read it, than he could arrive at 
 by any amount of catechising." 
 
 61 3-5 As to exercises in the Poet's versification etc. : Much insight 
 into the poet's art of versification may be acquired by simple exer- 
 cises in reading it aloud, by comparing his verse with that of other 
 great poets, and by studying such a simple e.xplanation of it as that 
 given in Professor Dowden's Primer of Shakespeare. I believe that 
 exercises in writing verse are of great value in teaching the tonic 
 resources of language, its flexibility, its wealth, its suggestiveness, 
 and its power of revealing feelings of joy and grief, pity and pathos, 
 love and hate. By such exercises the student's vocabulary will 
 become richer, his habits of expression more dignified, his taste 
 more refined, and his imagination quickened. 
 
 HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 
 
 63 9-14 And in the first place etc.: " Method" has been the word 
 of our teachers of pedagogy, and it has been insisted upon with such 
 force that too often the young teacher is found imitating the method 
 of a successful instructor at the expense of his own initiative. The 
 personal element in the" teacher, his interest, enthusiasm, and devo- 
 tion, will seldom fail of good results. 
 
 66 19-24 And both they and I know etc. : Dr. H. H. Furness wrote 
 to Professor Hudson : " I work for my own satisfaction and the glory 
 of Shakespeare, and if, as the outcome of all my labor, a new edition 
 and a better emerges out of mine, wherein no reference to my toil is 
 found, I should have no feeling but that of grateful delight." 
 
 67 7-9 Now such a love etc. : Professor Edward Dowden says : 
 "An intelligent examiner will give a preference to questions which 
 do more than test the memory. There is a class of questions which 
 serve as a test of close and intelligent reading, and also give the 
 student an opportunity of showing whether he has exercised what 
 I may call the faculty of imaginative realization." 
 
 70 5-9 In the first place, I never have had etc. : Every exercise in 
 English literature ought to be made vital by bringing the pupils into 
 touch with the personaUty which created the work in hand, by cor- 
 relating the principles and ideals it contains with the life of the
 
 1 90 
 
 NOTES 
 
 present, by revealing that literature is not a storehouse of facts, but 
 a reservoir of truths, the appreciation of which constitutes our true 
 being. Such exercises are not concerned with the intellectual 
 activity called acquirement, but with the spiritual activity called cul- 
 ture. Often the colleges do not know what kind of work in the 
 study of literature the best schools are doing. Not long ago a club 
 composed of masters of English in the secondary schools called the 
 attention of the Harvard examiners to the technical character of the 
 questions set for entrance in English, and asked that a fair propor- 
 tion of the questions should test the student's ability to read with 
 insight and appreciation, — a sense of literary values, — rather than 
 his knowledge of details. If one compares the Harvard examina- 
 tions in English in 1894 with those of 1904- 1905, one will readily 
 see the result of this conference. 
 
 President Hadley has said that if the secondary schools con- 
 tinued to send to Yale students with a confirmed dislike for English 
 studies, he would withdraw the entrance requirements in English, 
 as the instructors would rather deal with those students who had no 
 special appreciation of literature than with those who had formed a 
 dislike for it. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the 
 leadership of President Pritchett, has come to recognize the impor- 
 tance of academic studies in technical work, and now asks of a pupil 
 who presents himself for admission in English, "Ability to express 
 himself in writing at once clear and accurate, and power to distinguish 
 in a broad sense literary values, — the qualities which mark a work 
 as being Literature." 
 
 These advances show clearly that the ideals which Professor 
 Hudson held important have now an honorable recognition in the 
 greatest colleges and universities. The establishment of the Honor 
 School in Literature and History by Harvard University is one of 
 the most significant movements in modern education in this country, 
 and will take rank with that of the Preceptorial system at Princeton. 
 Both of these have for their ideal not scientific research, but rather 
 the cultivation of taste, delicacy, and insight by association with 
 those who possessed them without ever being able to pass a credit- 
 able examination on the question, " Where did you get them ? " 
 The student is required to submit himself to a teacher, and to ask 
 no question as to the secret of his influence. This method is a
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 191 
 
 recognition of Mr. Leslie Stephen's teaching, that "all criticism 
 not rooted in history is a nuisance and a parasitic growth upon 
 literature." 
 
 71 1-6 And I make a good deal of having the Poet's lines read properly 
 etc.: Shakespeare's frequent allusions to those qualities of the human 
 voice which give it pathos, charm, and power, reveal the fact that 
 he was responsive to its attractions. 
 
 Professor Hiram Corson says : " There is evidence in the Plays 
 that, in composition, Shakespeare must either have heard imagi- 
 natively what he was writing, or have actually voiced his language 
 as he went along. He did not write for the eye, but for the ear." 
 
 75 5-10 In fact, I cleave rather fondly etc. : I know of no teacher of 
 English literature in this country of whom his pupils oftener think 
 with pleasure and speak with delight than Dr. Hudson. 
 
 83 17-18 And, if the thing etc. : To some this may seem like put- 
 ting the case too emphatically, but those familiar with teaching 
 will, I think, agree with Dr. Hudson. Fortunately we are now 
 giving more attention to the physical training of girls ; we are 
 making less of the examination — especially of that type which 
 admits of cramming — and more of that training which develops 
 power of thought and imagination. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE HARVARD EDITION OF 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 87 1-5 The most obvious peculiarity etc. : Cf. note 3 15, page 177. 
 
 87 21-22 It scarce need be said etc. : The Revised Hudson Shake- 
 speare furnishes the special student with more critical and textual 
 matter than the original, while it does not present so much as to 
 discourage the general reader. Mr. P. A. Daniel, the author of A 
 Time Analysis of the Plots of Shakespeare's Plays, in the New 
 Shakespeare Society Papers, Series I, and Azotes and Emendations, 
 wrote to Dr. Hudson as follows : " To my fancy the common reader 
 wants no notes interspersed with the text : they but distract his 
 attention from the subject which should exclusively engage it. . . . 
 Your edition will probably lead many to the critical study of the 
 text and will probably satisfy the popular demand." Mr. J. O. 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, author of Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare,
 
 192 
 
 NOTES 
 
 etc., wrote : " The division of the excellent notes into two sets is a 
 splendid arrangement that alone would give character to the work." 
 
 88 19-22 This edition etc. : Mr. P. A. Daniel wrote : " Of the im- 
 mense labor, care, and knowledge of the subject you have displayed 
 — or rather, I should say, concealed — in the preparation of the text, 
 each page is witness, and all who know anything of the difficulties 
 which beset the path of an editor of Shakespeare will, I am sure, 
 appreciate the result." 
 
 89 6-9 For it has long been a settled axiom etc. : Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold says: "We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more 
 highly than it has been the custom to conceive it. We should con- 
 ceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies 
 than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More 
 and more mankind will discover that we turn to poetry to interpret 
 life for us, to console us, to sustain us." 
 
 90 19-21 These remarks, I believe etc. : In ordering a set of this 
 edition sent to the English Shakespeare Memorial Library, and the 
 Library of the German Shakespeare Society, Dr. Horace Howard 
 Furness wrote : " I scarcely know how I can better show my high 
 appreciation of this noble edition than by placing it where English 
 and German scholars can have free access to it and learn from it 
 the wealth of love and learning which in this country is dedicated to 
 Shakespeare." Professor Dowden wrote : " Hudson's edition takes 
 its place beside the best work of English Shakespeare students." 
 Mr. F. J. Furnivall, in his introduction to The Leopold Shakespeare^ 
 said : " In Shakesperean criticism, Gervinus of Heidelberg, Dowden 
 of Dublin, and Hudson of Boston are the students' best guides that 
 we have." Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote: "The Harvard edi- 
 tion has given me the greatest treat that I have had for many a 
 day, and I can hardly express how much pleasure it affords me to 
 possess so admirable a work, edited as it is with such exceptional 
 ability and knowledge." The above are but a few of the opinions 
 of the eminent Shakespeareans who expressed to Dr. Hudson their 
 appreciation of his great work. 
 
 91 22-30 Therewithal, the Poet etc. : 
 
 Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
 We ask and ask— Thou smilest and art still, 
 Out-topping knowledge. . . .
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 193 
 
 All pains the immortal Spirit must endure, 
 
 All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow. 
 
 Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 92 19-24 And here it is of the first importance etc. : One who reads 
 Dr. Hudson's Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Characters will be im- 
 pressed with the directness, originality, and vigor of style, — the 
 unique power of putting things clearly. 
 
 94 11-16 It is the instinct etc.: Professor Dowden says: "Our 
 prime object (in reading) should be to get into living relation with 
 a man ; and by this means, with the good forces of nature and 
 humanity which play in and through him. This aim condemns all 
 reading for pride and vainglory as wholly astray, and all reading for 
 scholarship and specialized knowledge as partial and insufficient. 
 We must not read for these, but for life; we must read in order 
 to live." 
 
 95 9-15 Small points and issues etc. : Mr. J. Churton Collins says : 
 " Literature has been regarded (in the schools) not as the expression 
 of art and genius, but as mere material for the study of words, as 
 mere pabulum for philology ; and the teaching of it has failed for 
 the same reason that 'Classics' have failed. It has failed not be- 
 cause it affords no material profitable for teaching, but because we 
 pervert it into material for unprofitable teaching." 
 
 96 8-10 Thus Shakespeare etc. : Fortunately we are now returning 
 to the old habit of reading the Bible as a revelation of a national 
 literature, although such a reading of it is deemed heretical by the 
 severely orthodox. Can the Bible become less influential by being 
 read with interest and pleasure as literature ? After a somewhat 
 extended experience with pupils in secondary schools and in college, 
 I can testify that when thus read and correlated with other great 
 literatures it becomes a source of unique educational power. 
 
 97 21-24 It seems to be presumed etc. : In regard to this matter 
 President Woodrow Wilson wrote me : " I heartily agree with all 
 that you say about the teaching of English literature. No method 
 ' made in Germany ' can ever get at the heart of our great litera- 
 ture, and by using such methods we are cheating ourselves out of a 
 great heritage, stupidly if not deliberately." Mr. J. Churton Collins 
 says : " The instincts and faculties which separate the temperament
 
 194 NOTES 
 
 of the mathematician from the temperament of the poet are not 
 more radical and essential than the instincts and faculties which 
 separate the sympathetic student of Philology from the sympathetic 
 student of Polite Literature. And of all the sciences Philology is 
 the most repugnant to men of artistic and literary taste." 
 
 98 27-30 such, for instance etc. : Every student of Shakespeare 
 feels the truth of Dr. Hudson's praise of these noble monuments to 
 American scholarship. 
 
 The other famous Variorum editions are : Isaac Reed's, based on 
 Steevens's work of 1773, and published in twenty-one volumes in 
 1803; that of James Boswell, the son of Johnson's biographer, based 
 on Malone's edition of 1790, and published in twenty-one volumes 
 in 182 1. 
 
 100 6-8 Copies of these editions etc. : " The largest collections of 
 the original Quartos — each of which only survives in four, five, or 
 si.\ copies — are in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the 
 British Museum, in Trinity College, Cambridge, and in the Bodleian 
 Library. Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from 
 ;i^20o to ;[f30o."^ — Sidney Lee. Inexpensive facsimiles of these 
 Quartos are now accessible. 
 
 100 25 folio of 1623. Cf. A Primer of Shakespeare, Edward Dow- 
 den ; A Life of William Shakespeare, Sidney Lee, page 303. 
 
 101 23-24 In their "Address to the Readers" etc. : Cf. Famous In- 
 troductions to Shakespeare's Plays by B. Warner. 
 
 102 9-10 The folio was reprinted etc.: These are known as the 
 Second, Third, and Fourth Folios respectively, and designated as Fg, 
 F3, F4. 
 
 102 24 " Collier's second folio " : Cf. Sidney Lee's various allusions 
 to Collier's work in A Life of William Shakespeare. 
 
 104 4-7 The labors etc. : Mr. A. C. Swinburne says : " The great- 
 est poet of our age has drawn a parallel of elaborate eloquence 
 between Shakespeare and the sea; and the likeness holds good in 
 many points of less significance than those which have been set 
 down by a master hand. For two hundred years at least have 
 students of every kind put forth in every sort of boats on a longer 
 or shorter voyage of research across the waters of that unsounded 
 sea. . . . There are shoals and quicksands on which many a sea- 
 farer has run his craft aground in times past, and others of more
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 195 
 
 special peril to adventurers of the present day. At one time a main 
 rock of offense on which the stoutest ships of discovery were wont 
 to split was the narrow and slippery reef of verbal emendation : 
 and upon this our native pilots were too many of them prone to 
 steer. Others fell becalmed offshore in a German fog of philosophic 
 theories." 
 
 104 21-24 His text etc. : This sentiment is even more common now 
 than in Dr. Hudson's time, and the tendency of modern editors is 
 to return to the text of the Folios and Quartos. In revising the text 
 of Hudson's Shakespeare changes have been made mainly in favor 
 of the early editions. 
 
 105 15-16 The work of ascertaining etc. : Rowe has the distinction 
 of being the first biographer of Shakespeare, and what he included 
 in his sketch still remains as essentially all that we know in regard 
 to the poet's life. His text was based upon that of the Fourth 
 Folio and has no special value. His greatest service was in prepar- 
 ing a list of Dramatis Personae and dividing the plays into acts and 
 scenes. 
 
 105 17-19 The work was continued by Pope : Pope was Shake- 
 speare's second editor (1725). He made many textual changes in 
 the edition of Rowe, and also improved on Rowe's arrangement of 
 scenes. 
 
 105 19 Pope was followed by Theobald : The war of the critics 
 began with Theobald's vigorous attack upon Pope in 1726 for his 
 freedom with the text. Mr. Sidney Lee calls Theobald " the most 
 inspired of all the textual critics of Shakespeare." He based his 
 text on the First Folio, and by far the larger part of his emenda- 
 tions have become generally adopted. Professor Hudson had the 
 greatest respect for him, and the principles he lays down as to the 
 handling of Shakespeare's text are in the vein of this great editor. 
 
 105 21 Hanmer's edition : This edition was published in 1744 at 
 the Oxford University Press. Hanmer did not indulge in abuse of 
 previous editors, but arranged the text to suit himself, quite disre- 
 garding the old copies. 
 
 105 21 Warburton's : Bishop Warburton published a revised ver- 
 sion of Pope's edition in 1747. The Bishop espoused the cause of 
 Pope and attacked Rowe, Theobald, and Hanmer. His canons of 
 criticism have been recognized as eminently sound and sagacious.
 
 196 NOTES 
 
 In 188 1 Mr. C. M. Ingleby wrote to Professor Hudson : " Karl Elze 
 and I differ /';/ toto about Bishop Warburton. I am pleased to 
 see that you do honor to the great critic, second only, I think, 
 to Theobald." 
 
 105 23 Johnson: In 1765 Dr. Johnson published his edition, in 
 which he reviewed the work of previous editors with a somewhat 
 arrogant criticism. The preface contains some of the most valuable 
 suggestions as to notes to works of literary art and the value of 
 first-hand acquaintance with authors. 
 
 105 23 Capell : Edward Capell, in his edition of 1768, made 
 careful collation of the Quartos and First and Second Folios. In 
 scholarly and painstaking work he resembled Theobald. 
 
 105 23 Steevens : In 1766 Steevens printed twenty plays from the 
 Quartos and correlated contemporary literature with that of Shake- 
 speare ; and in 1773 he revised Johnson's edition. He played so 
 many pranks with the te.xt that he was called the " Puck of 
 Commentators." 
 
 105 24 Malone : Edmund Malone was the last of the great editors 
 of the eighteenth century. He stoutly maintained that the First 
 Folio had a far greater value as authority on text than any other. 
 He was the first of the critics to attempt a proper chronological 
 order of the plays. 
 
 The prefaces to these editions, from the Folio of 1623 to that of 
 Malone, have been recently published in a single volume, with an 
 introduction by Mr. Beverly Warner. It is a book of great value to 
 students of literary history. 
 
 108 21-24 Certainly changes in the old text etc. : In his earliest 
 edition Professor Hudson took some liberties in this matter of te.xt 
 which caused him to be looked upon as extremely radical, but in 
 his later w'ork he was more conservative. 
 
 The following extracts from letters from his coworkers in Eng- 
 land reveal in what esteem he was held as a textual critic. Mr. P. A. 
 Daniel wrote: "Although on some matters of detail I might differ 
 from you, yet on the whole I offer you my hearty congratulations." 
 Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote : " There are some points upon 
 which I don't agree with you, but that, of course, you will expect. 
 Different minds can never quite agree on many points, especially of
 
 THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 197 
 
 authorship." Mr. C. M. Ingleby wrote : " We should have to cross 
 swords, in honor not in hate, many times in the course of a play. 
 The spirit of the whole is good and right ; and you sway your scepter 
 with a dignified fairness which is delightful." 
 
 The distinguished English Shakespearean, Professor Edward 
 Dowden of Dublin, sends me an interesting and suggestive estimate 
 of Dr. Hudson's work. He says : " Hudson seems to me to take a 
 very high place among critics who have interpreted the genius and 
 the art of Shakespeare. He is both comprehensive and penetrating, 
 is alive both to the ethical and the aesthetic aspects of Shake- 
 speare's work ; and he enters in a genial way into the study of 
 character in the tragedies, historical plays, and comedies. He has 
 excellent discretion and good sense. Few persons have done so 
 much as Hudson to make the study of Shakespeare a part of edu- 
 cation. As a textual critic he is often ingenious and acute, but he 
 was perhaps less widely read in Elizabethan Uterature than is 
 required for sure textual criticism, and I think he was somewhat 
 too ready to displace the old text by clear, but not always needful, 
 emendation." 
 
 114 31-115 2 Yet the whole thing is totally ignored etc. : Mr. Hor- 
 ace Howard Fumess, on receiving the Harvard Shakespeare, wrote : 
 " I broke away from Christmas festivity and sat down to your 
 Preface, and I need not say I thoroughly admire it. In one or two 
 places where I do not now agree with you I am ready to wait until 
 better wisdom comes to me. I camiot disagree with you and feel 
 easy in my conscience." 
 
 116 9-10 And now a word as to the ordering of the plays etc. : In 
 this matter Professor Dowden's Prime}- and Mr. Sidney Lee's A Life 
 of Williavi Shakespeare are excellent guides for the student. 
 
 116 22-27 This is done merely etc.: I think Professor Hudson 
 underestimated the value of reading the plays in the order of their 
 creation. If they are, like the works of all great poets, "part of a 
 great confession," then it is of the utmost importance that they be 
 read historically. Professor Dowden has treated this subject with 
 clearness and wisdom in his chapter, " The Teaching of English 
 Literature," A^ew Studies iti Literature.
 
 198 NOTES 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 119 13-16 She has not seen fit etc.: For an interesting review of 
 Webster's life and his various activities, the student should read 
 The Proceedings of the Webster Centennial of Dartmouth College, 
 igoi. 
 
 121 16-23 But what, in this regard etc.: Honorable George F. 
 Hoar, in his speech at the Webster Centennial at Dartmouth College, 
 said : " How many men have there been in this country whose col- 
 lege would celebrate their taking their degree one hundred years 
 afterward t It might have been done for Washington and Lincoln. 
 But they were not college men. It might have been done for Ham- 
 ilton or Jefferson. But neither Hamilton nor Jefferson got through 
 college, and Jefferson was not in general a favorite with college 
 men. I believe Bowdoin will do it for Longfellow, and I believe 
 Harvard will do it for Emerson. I cannot think of any other. Yet 
 no man will doubt the absolute fitness of the ceremonial to-day." 
 
 122 13-16 I had not then learned etc. : Cf. Mr. E. P. Whipple's 
 admirable essay on Webster as a Master of English Style. 
 
 In July, 1 891, Senator George F. Hoar wrote to me the following 
 in regard to Webster's style : " It is very common, even with accom- 
 plished and able critics, to speak of Mr. Webster's style as an exam- 
 ple of pure Sa.xon. This is a great mistake. In a few passages 
 where his mind seems to have been at a white heat his sentences 
 have a rugged Saxon character. But if you open any volume of 
 Mr. Webster's speeches at random and read the first sentences that 
 strike the eye, you will see that his ordinary style is a highly Latin- 
 ized one. He uses long sentences with dependent clauses, and long 
 words of Latin derivation. Indeed, I think some of our teachers 
 of composition carry their dislike of the use of Latin idioms alto- 
 gether too far, and that, if their advice were taken, our language 
 would lose a good deal of its variety, its capacity for expression, nice 
 shades of meaning, and its dignity. Persons who wish to cover up 
 the absence of thought by a pompous and inflated style naturally 
 resort to words which come from the Latin, and against them this 
 condemnation is well directed. But the profound thoughts of 
 Daniel Webster, the great and clear distinctions which the course 
 of his arguments required him to draw and to make plain to the
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 199 
 
 apprehension of his hearers found suitable expression only by using 
 the great resources of the Latin speech." 
 
 124 2-4 while Burke's etc. : President Woodrow Wilson, in his 
 interesting study of Burke, the Iiiterp7-eter of English Liberty, says : 
 " Burke is not literaiy because he takes from books, but because 
 he makes books, transmuting what he writes upon into literature. 
 It is this inevitable literary quality, this sure mastery of style, that 
 mark the man, as much as the thought itself." 
 
 124 26-28 I am not unmindful etc. : In regard to this address Hon- 
 orable E. J. Phelps wrote Dr. Hudson in 1882 : " I like your address 
 extremely. It is ' tender and true,' clearly and eloquently put. You 
 are right, in my small estimation, in all you say except your com- 
 parison of Webster and Burke, in the matter of oratory. Consider- 
 ing the speeches of both as 7vritten essays, I do not pretend to treat 
 them critically. Very likely you may be correct. But first and last 
 in public speeches, it seems to me, regard is to be had to their imme- 
 diate effectiveness as such — that union of matter, language, man- 
 ner, delivery, and timeliness — that makes up oratory. Viewed thus, 
 can there be a comparison between Webster, who chose universal 
 audience, moved and melted all men, and left on their minds and 
 hearts an enduring as well as an immediate result, and Burke, 
 whose speeches, splendidly as they read, always emptied the House ? 
 Webster's sounded better than anything ever read, Burke's read 
 better than anything ever sounded. But on the score of orator)', 
 the immediate audience must determine, — not posterity; because 
 it is to them alone it is addressed, however the echo of it may 
 ' thunder down the corridors of time.' And therefore, with due 
 respect and regard for all the mighty dead, I place Webster first 
 and foremost as an orator, over all men we have any account of. 
 He alone could put a volume into a sentence, and another into the 
 pause that followed it. He alone could blend consummate logic with 
 the most touching eloquence, in such wise that neither weakened, 
 but each strengthened the other." Honorable S. W. McCall says : 
 "Burke is, I think, superior to Webster as a political philosopher, 
 and also in breadth of information and imaginative power, but in 
 excellence of the great mass of oratorical work which he left behind 
 him he does not much surpass Webster, if at all. . . . The glowing 
 oratory of Edmund Burke will live until sensibility to beauty and
 
 200 NOTES 
 
 the generous love of liberty shall die. And I believe the words of 
 Webster, nobly voicing the possibilities of a mighty nation, as yet 
 only dimly conscious of its destiny, will continue to roll upon the 
 ears of men while the nation he helped to fashion shall endure, 
 or indeed while government founded upon popular freedom shall 
 remain an instrument of civilization." 
 
 125 18-19 And the two men etc.: On the occasion of Senator George 
 F. Hoar's visit to Charleston, South CaroHna, as the guest of the New 
 England Society in December, 1891, he said: "I have sometimes 
 fancied South Carolina and Massachusetts, these two illustrious and 
 heroic sisters, instead of sitting apart, one under her palm trees 
 and the other under her pines, one with the hot gales from the tropics 
 fanning her brow and the other on the granite rocks of her ice- 
 bound shores, meeting together and comparing notes and stories as 
 sisters born of the same mother compare notes and stories after a 
 long separation. How the old estrangements, born of ignorance of 
 each other, would have melted away ! 
 
 " Does it ever occur to you that the greatest single tribute ever 
 paid to Daniel Webster was paid by Mr. Calhoun ? and the greatest 
 single tribute ever paid to Mr. Calhoun was paid by Mr. Webster? 
 
 " I do not believe that among the compliments or marks of honor 
 which attended the illustrious career of Daniel Webster there is 
 one that he would have valued so much as that which his great 
 friend, his great rival and antagonist, paid him from his dying bed. 
 
 " ' Mr. Webster,' said Mr. Calhoun, ' has as high a standard of 
 truth as any statesman whom I have met in debate. Convince him, 
 and he cannot reply ; he is silent ; he cannot look truth in the face 
 and oppose it by argument.' 
 
 " There was never, I suppose, paid to John C. Calhoun, during 
 his illustrious life, any other tribute of honor he would have valued 
 so highly as that which was paid him after his death by his friend, 
 his rival and antagonist, Daniel Webster. 
 
 " ' Mr. Calhoun,' said Mr. Webster, ' had the basis, the indispen- 
 sable basis, of all high character; and that was, unspotted integrity, 
 — unimpeached honor and character. If he had aspirations, they 
 were high and honorable and noble. There was nothing groveling, 
 or low, or meanly selfish that came near the head or the heart of 
 Mr. Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic and honest,
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 20I 
 
 as I was sure he was, in the principles he espoused, and in the 
 measures he defended, aside from that large regard for that species 
 of distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the benefit 
 of the republic, I do not believe he had a selfish motive or a selfish 
 feeling.' 
 
 " Just think for a moment what this means. If any man ever lived 
 who was not merely the representative, but the embodiment of the 
 thought, opinion, principles, character, quality, intellectual and moral, 
 of the people of South Carolina for the forty years from 1810 until 
 his death, it was John C. Calhoun. 
 
 " If any man ever lived who not merely was the representative, but 
 the embodiment of the thought, opinion, principles, character, qual- 
 ity, intellectual and moral, of the people of Massachusetts, it was 
 Daniel Webster. 
 
 " Now, if after forty years of rivalry, of conflict, of antagonism, 
 these two statesmen of ours most widely differing in opinions on 
 public questions, who never met but to exchange a blow, the sparks 
 from the encounter of whose mighty swords kindled the fires which 
 spread over the continent, thought thus of one another, is it not 
 likely that if the States they represented could have met with the 
 same intimacy, with the same knowledge and companionship during 
 all these years, they, too, would have understood, and understand- 
 ing, would have loved each other?" 
 
 127 20-27 Surely the people etc. : On the publication of my edition 
 of Webster^ s Select Speeches in 1893, Senator George F. Hoar wrote 
 me : " I wish that every boy and girl in the land would get these 
 speeches by heart." 
 
 128 3-5 He was indeed etc.: Honorable S.W. McCall says : "There 
 can be no doubt as to the majesty of his personal presence. Business 
 would be temporarily suspended when he walked down State Street, 
 while people rushed to doors and windows to see him pass." 
 
 On receiving this address on Webster, February 24, 1882, Dr. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to Dr. Hudson : " Many thanks for 
 your fervid, potent, and eloquent discourse. Mr. Webster's colossal 
 figure is gradually coming out of the mist which gathered around it 
 in the evil days. If he could only have lived through the struggle he 
 could not avert ! He was the most impressive human being I ever 
 looked upon. I could not help being pleased when he quoted a,
 
 202 NOTES 
 
 passage from one of my poems in one of his speeches. That is the 
 way we are made." 
 
 130 14-17 In the summer of 1839 etc. : " Mr. Webster approaches as 
 nearly to the beau ideal of a repubUcan Senator as any man that I 
 have ever seen in the course of my life ; worthy of Rome or Venice 
 rather than of our noisy and wrangling generation." — Hallam. 
 
 " Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of 
 any great man who had not much of the woman in him. Even so 
 the large intellect of Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled with 
 all softer feelings ; and his countenance and bearing, at the very 
 first, impressed me with this. A commanding brow, thoughtful 
 eyes, and a mouth that seemed to respond to all humanities. He 
 deserves his fame, I am sure." — John Kenyon. 
 
 " He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, 
 ' This is our Yankee Englishman ; such limbs we make in Yankee- 
 land ! ' As a parliamentary Hercules one would incline to back 
 him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned com- 
 plexion ; the amorphous craglike face ; the dull black eyes under 
 the precipice of brows, Hke dull anthracite furnaces needing only 
 to be blown; the mastiff mouth, accurately closed; I have not 
 traced so much of silent Berserkir rage that I remember of in any 
 other man." — Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 148 13-17 The truth of the matter etc.: Honorable S. W. McCall 
 says : " In the speeches of some of the leaders of the antislavery 
 movement, denunciation of slavery had the second place and 
 denunciation of Webster the first; and when the time of consum- 
 mation came, even Lincoln did not e.scape their acrimony." 
 
 149 17-23 As for the speech of the 7th of March etc. : In a review 
 of that speech as given in Honorable S. W. McCall's Daniel Webster, 
 Mr. McCall says : "And had that great statesman on the 7th of 
 March shown any less anxiety for the Union, had that great cen- 
 tripetal force become centrifugal or weakened in the attraction 
 which it exerted to hold the States in their orbits, who shall say 
 that our magnificent and now united domain might not be cursed 
 by two hostile flags, one of which would float over a republic 
 founded upon slavery ! " 
 
 153 6-7 It was written in 1850 etc. : This poem has something of 
 the spirit of Browning's Lost Leader, which has been considered as
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 203 
 
 a mild thrust at Wordsworth for the conservatism of his later life, 
 although Browning confessed that he " used the great and vener- 
 ated personality of Wordsworth only as a sort of painter's model, 
 and not as portraying the entire man." Of Webster's treatment as 
 a result of the 7th of March speech, Honorable S. W. McCall says : 
 "And then there is that ill-omened thing which, wherever else it 
 may be found, is sure to attend greatness. The baleful goddess 
 of Detraction sits ever at the elbow of Fame, unsweetening what 
 is written upon the record. . . . This proof of greatness, such as 
 it is, exists in ample measure in the history of Webster. No man 
 since Washington has had more of it. The pity of it all is, that 
 when an unsupported charge is disproved, some people will shake 
 their heads and say it is very unfortunate that it should have been 
 necessary to establish innocence ; as if reproof belonged rather to 
 the innocent victim than to the author of the calumny." 
 
 153 23-28 It is but fair to add etc. : Honorable George F. Hoar 
 says : " Whittier, who had written Ichabod, brought his imperishable 
 tribute of affection and honor, which, alas ! was never placed on the 
 brow of Webster, but only laid on his grave." 
 
 156 22-26 Yes, the great soul of Daniel Webster etc.: Honorable 
 S. W. McCall says of the Reply to Hayne : " It was this speech more 
 than any other single event, from the adoption of the Constitution 
 to the Civil War, which compacted the States into a nation. There 
 were comparatively few people in the country able to read and to 
 follow public affairs who did not read the more important portions 
 of it. The leading newspapers published it in full. Vast numbers 
 of copies were sent out in the form of pamphlets. It was declaimed 
 by schoolboys in every schoolhouse. It gave the nation a definite 
 impulse towards nationality, and it laid down the battle line for 
 those splendid armies which fought and triumphed in the cause of 
 the Union." 
 
 162 2-7 His memory will out-tongue etc. : At the opening exer- 
 cises of the Webster Centennial of Dartmouth College, on Septem- 
 ber 25, 1901, President Tucker said: "Webster's influence is vital 
 to-day in the thought and feehngs of men in respect to the country. 
 We have learned, we have begun to learn, to think about the coun- 
 try in his terms, and to feel about it as he felt. His conceptions 
 were so great that they could find room only in his own mind.
 
 204 NOTES 
 
 They belong to the United States of to-day, not to the nation of 
 his time. Thus far Webster is the only man who has comprehended 
 the American people. Until a greater American than he shall arise, 
 he will live in the still unfulfilled destiny of the Republic." 
 
 Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, at the Webster Centennial of 
 Dartmouth College, said : " Nearly forty-nine years ago, an under- 
 graduate on leave of absence for the purpose, I attended the funeral 
 of Mr. Webster at Marshfield. The beauty of that October day ; 
 the majestic a.spect of the great lawyer and advocate, statesman 
 and orator, as he lay in his accustomed habiliments under the 
 spreading branches of a beautiful tree in front of the mansion ; and 
 the walk of neighbors and friends, distinguished personages and 
 others, over the fields to the grave, are still vivid in my memory. 
 As a youth I paid that tribute to Daniel Webster, an incident quite 
 unimportant save to the boy himself, and I repeat it now after a 
 lapse of nearly fifty years, with the added significance involved in 
 the office I hold, whose incumbent, if another than myself, would 
 have been fully justified, as I am, in bearing witness as such to the 
 immortality of a fame so connected with the administration of jus- 
 tice, and with the vindication of liberty as the creation of law, that, 
 to use his own language, it ' is and must be as durable as the frame 
 of human society.' " 
 
 It is interesting to note that when the poll was taken for the one 
 hundred greatest names in American history, to be placed in the 
 Hall of Fame, W^ashington stood first in the list, while Lincoln and 
 Webster tied for the second place.
 
 BOOKS QUOTED IN NOTES 
 
 AiNGER, A., " Teaching of English Literature," Lectures and Essays, 
 
 Vol. IL 
 Arnold, M., " Milton," " The Study of Poetry," Essays in Criticism 
 
 (Second Series). 
 Barrie, J. M., Margaret Ogilvy. 
 
 Benson, A. C, " Education," From a College Window. 
 Birrell, a., " How to Tell a Good Book from a Bad One," Essays 
 
 and Addresses. 
 Brooks, P., " The Beautiful Gate of the Temple," Twenty Sermons. 
 
 " Literature and Life," Essays. 
 
 Corson, H., Aims of Literary Study. 
 
 The Voice and Spiritual Education. 
 
 Collins, J. C, The Study of English Literature, Chapters II and 
 
 IV. 
 Dowden, E., " The Interpretation of Literature," Transcripts and 
 
 Studies. 
 
 "The Teaching of Literature," New Studies in Literature. 
 
 Fuller, M. W., Address at Webster Centennial, Dartmouth 
 
 College. 
 Harrison, F., The Choice of Books. 
 
 " English Prose," Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill. 
 
 HuTTON, R. H., " The Storing of Literary Power," Brief Literary 
 
 Criticism. 
 Hoar, G. F., Address at the Inauguration of President Carroll D. 
 
 Wright, Clark College. 
 
 Address at Webster Centennial, Dartmouth College. 
 
 Hunt, T. W., " The Place of Literature in Liberal Studies," Litera- 
 ture : Its Principles and Problems. 
 James, W., "The Gospel of Relaxation," Talks on Psychology and 
 
 Life's Ideals. 
 Lee, Sidney, Life of William Shakespeare. 
 
 205
 
 206 BOOKS QUOTED IN NOTES 
 
 Lowell, J. R., " Books and Libraries," Democracy and Other 
 
 Essays. 
 Martineau, J., Faith and Self Surrender. 
 
 " The Child's Thought," Endeavors after a Christian Life. 
 
 McCall, S. W., Daniel Webster. 
 
 MoRLEY, John, "On the Study of Literature," Studies in Literature. 
 
 Paul, H., "Matthew Arnold's Letters," Men and Letters. 
 
 RusKiN, J., Sesame and Lilies. 
 
 Stephen, L., " The Duties of Authors," Social Rights and Duties, 
 
 Vol. II. 
 — — - English Literature in the Eighteenth Century. 
 Swinburne, A. C, A Study of Shakespeare, Chapter I. 
 Warner, B., Famous Introductions to Shakespeare's Plays. 
 Wilson, ^\^, " Mere Literature," " The Author's Company," " Burke, 
 
 the Interpreter of English Liberty," Mere Literature.
 
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