: I S E M I N E N C ! 
 
 .\RDINAL WISEMAN
 

 
 V 

 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

 
 IN PREPARATION. 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS EMINENCE 
 
 CARDINAL WISEMAN. 
 
 Any persons possessing Manuscripts, Letters, Sfc., or 
 having the knowledge of any facts of importance con- 
 nected with the life of His Eminence, are requested to 
 communicate, by letter, with the Right Reverend H. E. 
 Manning, D.D., care of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, 
 13, Great Marlborough Street, London.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 HIS EMINENCE 
 
 CARDINAL WISEMAN. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1865. 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 TN the autumn of last year a communication was 
 made to His Eminence the late Cardinal Wise- 
 man by H. Bence Jones, Esq., M.D., as Secretary 
 of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, request- 
 ing him to deliver a lecture before that society. 
 The Cardinal, with the prompt kindness usual to 
 him, at once assented. The Shakespeare Tercen- 
 tenary seemed to prescribe the subject, which His 
 Eminence therefore selected. 
 
 The following pages were dictated by him in the 
 last weeks of his life. The latter part was taken 
 down in the beginning of January ; the earlier part 
 was dictated on Saturday the fourteenth of that 
 month. It was his last intellectual exertion, and it 
 overtaxed his failing strength. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Clifford, Chaplain to the Hospital 
 of S. John and S. Elizabeth, who acted as his
 
 VI PREPACK. 
 
 amanuensis, states, from the lips of His Eminence, 
 that the matter contained in these pages is the 
 beginning and the ending of what he intended 
 to deliver. We have, therefore, only a fragment 
 of a whole which was never completed except in 
 the author's mind. Dr. Clifford adds : " I have 
 no recollection of the Cardinal's telling me the 
 manner in which he intended filling up the hiatus, 
 but the day before his illness he said, ' I shall 
 have no more real work, for I have every sentence 
 that I am going to dictate already in my mind ; it 
 is only a question of time now. I know word for 
 word what I shall say/ ' 
 
 It is needless to state that no part of this lecture 
 has had the benefit of the author's revision. It 
 may be asked : If then it be no more than a frag- 
 ment, why publish it ? Is it just to the literary 
 reputation of so great a name ? 
 
 The lecture is now published for the following 
 reasons : 
 
 First, because we believe that the beauty of 
 these pages will abundantly justify their publica- 
 tion. Fragmentary as they are, they are the frag- 
 ments of such a whole as could hardly come from 
 any other hand. There is in this lecture an ex- 
 quisite refinement of thought, and a singular grace-
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 fulness of intellectual expression, together with a 
 beauty of outline which it would be difficult to 
 equal. If the work be imperfect, so, as he tells 
 us in his opening paragraphs, were the last labours 
 of others who have gone before him. There is but 
 one end to the greatest and the noblest minds. 
 And happy are they who preserve their power, 
 exuberance, and freshness so vividly even to the 
 last. 
 
 Secondly, this lecture is committed to the press, 
 because we believe he would have desired us to 
 give to the people of England the last work he 
 undertook even when life and strength were 
 failing for their sake. It was his last effort in 
 their service ; his last endeavour for their rational 
 pleasure. 
 
 Finally, so wide-spread a desire to possess this 
 lecture has been expressed by His Eminence's 
 friends, and by many others not personally related 
 to him, that we do not feel justified in disappointing 
 a wish which arises from affection and veneration 
 for his person. 
 
 H. E. MANNING. 
 WILLIAM THOMPSON. 
 
 St. Mary's, Bayswater, March, 1865.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 i. 
 
 have been some men in the world's 
 history and they are necessarily few who 
 by their deaths have deprived mankind of the 
 power to do justice to their merits, in those par- 
 ticular spheres of excellence in which they had 
 been pre-eminent. When the " immortal" Raphael 
 for the last time laid down his palette, still moist 
 with the brilliant colours which he had spread 
 upon his unfinished masterpiece, destined to be 
 exposed to admiration above his bier, he left none 
 behind him who could worthily depict and trans- 
 mit to us his beautiful lineaments : so that posterity 
 has had to seek in his own paintings, among the 
 guards at a sepulchre, or among the youthful 
 disciples in an ancient school, some figure which 
 may be considered as representing himself. 
 
 B
 
 2 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 When his mighty rival, Michelangelo, cast down 
 that massive chisel which no one after him was 
 worthy or able to wield, none survived him who 
 could venture to repeat in marble the rugged 
 grandeur of his countenance ; but we imagine that 
 we can trace in the head of some unfinished satyr, 
 or in the sublime countenance of his Moses, the 
 natural or the idealized type from Avhich he drew 
 his stern and noble inspirations. 
 
 And, to turn to another great art, when Mozart 
 closed his last uncompleted score, and laid him 
 down to pass from the regions of earthly to those 
 of heavenly music, which none had so closely ap- 
 proached as he, the science over which he ruled 
 could find no strains in which worthily to mourn 
 him except his own, and was compelled to sing for 
 the first time his own marvellous Eequiem at his 
 funeral.* 
 
 No less can it be said that when the pen dropped 
 from Shakespeare's hand, when his last mortal ill- 
 ness mastered the strength of even his genius, the 
 world was left powerless to describe in writing his 
 noble and unrivalled characteristics. Hence we 
 turn back upon himself, and endeavour to draw 
 
 * The same may be said of the celebrated Cimarosa.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 3 
 
 from his own works the only true records of his 
 genius and his mind.* 
 
 We apply to him phrases which he has uttered 
 of others ; we believe that he must have involun- 
 tarily described himself, when he says, 
 
 " Take him all in all, 
 "We shall not look upon his like again ;" 
 
 or that he must even consciously have given a re- 
 flection of himself when he so richly represents to 
 us " the poet's eye in a fine phrenzy rolling." 
 (" Midsummer Night's Dream," act v., scene 1.) 
 
 But in fact, considering that the character of a 
 man is like that which he describes "as com- 
 pounded of many simples extracted from many 
 objects" (" As You Like It," act iv., scene 1), 
 we naturally seek for those qualities which enter 
 into his composition ; we look for them in his own 
 
 * Even in his lifetime this seems to have been foreseen. 
 In 1664 an Epigram addressed to "Master William Shake- 
 speare," and first published by Mr. Halliwell, occurred the 
 following lines : 
 
 *' Besides in places thy wit windes like Maeander, 
 When (whence) needy new composers borrow more 
 Thence (than) Terence doth from Plautus or Menander, 
 But to praise thee aright I want thy store. 
 Then let thine owne words thine owne worth upraise 
 And help t' adorne thee with deserved baies." 
 
 HALLIWELL'S Life of Shakespeare, p. 160. 
 
 B2
 
 4 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 pages ; we endeavour to cull from every part of his 
 works such attributions of great and noble qualities 
 to his characters, and unite them so as to form what 
 we believe is his truest portrait. In truth, no 
 other author has perhaps existed who has so com- 
 pletely reflected himself in his works as Shake- 
 speare. For, as artists will tell us that every 
 great master has more or less reproduced in his 
 works characteristics to be found in himself, this is 
 far more true of our greatest dramatist, whose 
 genius, whose mind, whose heart, and whose entire 
 soul live and breathe in every page and every line 
 of his imperishable works. Indeed, as in these 
 there is infinitely greater variety, and consequently 
 greater versatility of power necessary to produce 
 it, so must the amount of elements which enter into 
 his composition represent changeable yet blending 
 qualities beyond what the most finished master 
 in any other art can be supposed to have pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 The positive and directly applicable materials 
 which we possess for constructing a biography of 
 this our greatest writer, are more scanty than 
 have been collected to illustrate the life of many 
 an inferior author. His contemporaries, his friends, 
 perhaps admirers, have left us but few anecdotes
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 5 
 
 of his life, and have recorded but few traits of 
 either his appearance or his character. Those who 
 immediately succeeded him seem to have taken 
 but little pains to collect early traditions concern- 
 ing him, while yet they must have been fresh in 
 the recollections of his fellow-countrymen, and 
 still more of his fellow-townsmen.* 
 
 It appears as though they were scarcely conscious 
 of the great and brilliant luminary of English litera- 
 ture which was shining still, or had but lately passed 
 away ; and as though they could not anticipate 
 either the admiration which was to succeed their 
 
 * As evidence of this neglect we may cite the "Journal " of 
 the Rev. John Ward, Incumbent of Stratford-upon-Avon, 
 to which he was appointed in 1662. This diary, which has 
 been published by Doctor Severn, " from the original MSS.," 
 preserved in the library of the Medical Society of London, 
 contains but two pages relating to Shakespeare, and those 
 contain but scanty and unsatisfactory notices. I will quote 
 only two sentences : 
 
 "Remember to peruse Shakespeare's Plays bee much 
 versed in them, that I may not bee ignorant in that matter, 
 whether Dr. Heylin does well, in reckoning up the dramatick 
 poets which have been famous in England, to omit Shakes- 
 speare" (p. 184). Shakespeare's daughter was still alive 
 when this was written, as appears from the sentence that im- 
 mediately follows : it seems to us wonderful that so soon 
 after the Poet's death a shrewd and clever clergyman and 
 physician (for Mr. Ward was both) should have known so 
 little about his celebrated townsman's works or life.
 
 6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 duller perceptions of his unapproachable grandeur, 
 or the eager desire which this would generate, of 
 knowing even the smallest details of its rise, its 
 appearance, its departure. For by the biography 
 of Shakespeare one cannot understand the re- 
 cords of what he bought, of what he sold, or the 
 recital of those acts which only confound him with 
 the common mass which surrounded him, and 
 make him appear as the worthy burgess or the 
 thrifty merchant ; though even about the ordinary 
 common-place portions of his life such uncertainty 
 exists, that doubts have been thrown on the very 
 genuineness of that house which he is supposed to 
 have inhabited. 
 
 Now, it is the characteristic individualizing 
 quality, actions, and mode of executing his works, 
 to whatever class of excellence he may belong, 
 that we long to be familiar with in order to say 
 that we know the man. What matters it to us 
 that he paid so many marks or shillings to pur- 
 chase a homestead in Stratford-upon- Avon? The 
 simple autograph of his name is now worth all the 
 sums that he thus expended. One single line of 
 one of his dramas, written in his own hand, would 
 be worth to his admirers all the sums which are 
 known to have passed between him and others.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 7 
 
 What has become of the goodly folios which must 
 have once existed written in his own hand? 
 Where are the books annotated or even scratched 
 by his pen, from which he drew the subjects and 
 sometimes the substance of his dramas ? What 
 Vandalism destroyed the first, or dispersed the 
 second of these valuable treasures ? How is it 
 that we know nothing of his method of composi- 
 tion? Was it in solitude and sacred seclusion, 
 self-imprisoned for hours beyond the reach of the tur- 
 moil of the street or the domestic sounds of home ? 
 Or were his unrivalled works produced in scraps 
 of time and fugitive moments, even perhaps in the 
 waiting-room of the theatre, or the brawling or 
 jovial sounds of the tavern ? 
 
 Was he silent, thoughtful, while his fertile brain 
 was seething and heaving in the fermentation of 
 his glorious conceptions ; so that men should have 
 said " Hush ! Shakespeare is at work with some 
 new and mighty imaginings!" or wore he always that 
 light and careless spirit which often belongs to the 
 spontaneous facility of genius ; so that his comrades 
 may have wondered when, and where, and how his 
 grave characters, his solemn scenes, his fearful 
 catastrophes, and his sublime maxims of original 
 wisdom, were conceived, planned, matured, and
 
 8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 finally written down, to rule for ever the world of 
 letters ? Almost the only fact connected with his 
 literary life which has come down to us is one 
 which has been recorded, perhaps with jealousy, 
 certainly with ill-temper, by his friend Ben Jonson 
 that he wrote with overhaste, and hardly ever 
 erased a line, though it would have been better 
 had he done so with many. 
 
 This almost total absence of all external informa- 
 tion, this drying-up of the ordinary channels of 
 personal history, forces us to seek for the character 
 and the very life of Shakespeare in his own works. 
 But how difficult, in analysing the complex consti- 
 tution of such a man's principles, motives, passions, 
 and affections, to discriminate between what he has 
 drawn from himself, and what he has created by 
 the force of his imagination. Dealing habitually 
 with fictions, sometimes in their noblest, sometimes 
 in their vilest forms here gross and even savage, 
 there refined and sometimes ethereal, how shall we 
 discover what portions of them were copied from 
 the glass which he held before himself, what from 
 the magic mirrors across which flitted illusive or 
 fanciful imagery ? The work seems hopeless. It 
 is not like that of the printer, who, from a chaotic 
 heap of seemingly unmeaning lead, draws out
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 letter after letter, and so disposes them that they 
 shall make senseful and even brilliant lines. It is 
 more like the hopeless labour of one who, from the 
 fragments of a tesselated pavement, should try to 
 draw the elegant and exquisitely tinted figure 
 which once it bore. 
 
 This difficulty of appreciating, and still more of 
 delineating, the character of our great poet, makes 
 him, without perhaps an exception, the most difficult 
 literary theme in English letters. 
 
 How to reduce the subject to a lecture seems 
 indeed a literal paradox. But when to this diffi- 
 culty is added that of an impossible compression 
 into narrow limits of the widest and vastest com- 
 pass ever embraced by any one man's genius, it 
 must appear an excess of rashness in anyone to 
 presume that he can do justice to the subject on 
 which I am addressing you. 
 
 It seems, therefore, hardly wonderful that even 
 the last year, dedicated naturally to the tercen- 
 tenary commemoration of William Shakespeare, 
 should have passed over without any public eulogy 
 of his greatness, in this our metropolis. It 
 seemed, indeed, as if the magnitude of that one 
 man's genius was too oppressive for this generation. 
 It was not, I believe, an undervaluing of his merits
 
 10 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 which produced the frustration of efforts, and the 
 disappointment of expectations, that seemed to put 
 to rout and confusion, or rather to paralyse the ex- 
 ertions so strenuously commenced to mark the year 
 as a great epoch in England's literary history. I 
 believe, on the contrary, that the dimensions of 
 Shakespeare had grown so immeasurably in the 
 estimation of his fellow-countrymen, that the pro- 
 portions of his genius to all that had followed him, 
 and all that surround us, had grown so enormously 
 in the judgment and feeling of the country, from 
 the nobleman to the workman, that the genius of 
 the man oppressed us, and made us feel that all our 
 multiplied resources of art and speech were un- 
 equal to his worthy commemoration. No plan 
 proposed for this purpose seemed adequate to attain 
 it. Nothing solid and permanent that could 
 either come up to his merits or to our aspirations 
 seemed to be within the grasp either of the arts or 
 of the wealth of our country. The year has passed 
 away, and Shakespeare remains without any monu- 
 ment, except that which, by his wonderful writings, 
 he has raised for himself. Even the research after 
 a site fit for the erection of a monument to him, in 
 the city of squares, of gardens, and of parks, 
 seemed only to work perplexity and hopelessness.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 11 
 
 Presumptuous as it may appear", the claim to 
 connect myself with that expired and extinct move- 
 ment is my only apology for my appearing before 
 you. If, a year after its time, I take upon myself 
 the eulogy of Shakespeare, if I appear to come 
 forward as with a funeral oration, to give him, in a 
 manner, posthumous glory, it is because my work 
 has dropped out of its place, and not because I 
 have inopportunely misplaced it. In the course 
 of the last year, it was proposed to me, both 
 directly and indirectly, to deliver a lecture on 
 Shakespeare. I was bold enough to yield my 
 assent, and thus felt that I had contracted an ob- 
 ligation to the memory of the bard, as well as to 
 those who thought that my sharing what was done 
 for his honour would possess any value. A task 
 undertaken becomes a duty unfulfilled. When, 
 therefore, it was proposed to me to perform my 
 portion of the homage which I considered due to 
 him, though it was to be a month too late, I felt 
 it would be cowardice to shrink from its perform- 
 ance. 
 
 For in truth the undertaking required some 
 courage ; and to retire before its difficulties might 
 be stigmatised as a dastardly timidity. It is a 
 work of courage at any time and in any place to
 
 12 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 undertake a lecture upon Shakespeare, more in fact 
 than to venture on the delivery of a series. The 
 latter gives scope for the thousand things which 
 one would wish to say it affords ample space for 
 apposite illustration, and it enables one to enrich 
 the subject with the innumerable and inimitable 
 beauties that are flung like gems or flowers over 
 every page of his magnificent works. But in the 
 midst of public, or rather universal, celebration of 
 a national and secular festival in his honour, in the 
 presence probably of the most finished literary 
 characters in this highly-educated country, still 
 more certainly before numbers of those whom 
 the nation acknowledges as deeply read in the 
 works of our poet as the most accomplished critic 
 of any age has been in the writings of the Classics 
 men who have introduced into our literature a 
 class-name that of " Shakespearian scholars," to 
 have ventured to speak on this great theme might 
 seem to have required, not courage, but temerity. 
 Why, it might have been justly asked, do none of 
 those who have consumed their lives in the study 
 of him, not page by page, but line by line, who 
 have pressed his sweet fruits between their lips 
 till they have absorbed all their lusciousness, who 
 have made his words their study, his thoughts their
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 13 
 
 meditation, why does not one at least among them 
 stand forward now, and leave for posterity the 
 record of his matured observation ? Perhaps I 
 may assign the reason which I have before, that 
 they know, too, the unapproachable grandeur of the 
 theme, and the rare powers which are required to 
 grasp and to hold it. 
 
 Be it so ; but at any rate if in the presence of 
 others so much more capable it would have been 
 rash to speak, to express one's thoughts, when 
 there is no competition, may be pardonable at 
 least. 
 
 And yet, when everybody else is silent, it may be 
 very naturally asked have I a single claim to put 
 forward upon your attention and indulgence ? I 
 think I may have one ; though I fear that when I 
 mention it, it may be considered either a paradox 
 or a refutation of my pretensions. My claim, then, 
 to be heard and borne with is this that I have 
 never in my life seen Shakespeare acted ; I have 
 never heard his eloquent speeches declaimed by 
 gifted performers ; I have not listened to his noble 
 poetry as uttered by the kings or queens of 
 tragedy ; I have not witnessed his grand, richly- 
 concerted scenes endowed with life by the graceful 
 gestures, the classical attitudes, the contrasting
 
 14 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 emotions, and the pointed emphasis of those who 
 in modern times may be considered to have even 
 added to that which his genius produced ; I know 
 nothing of the original and striking readings or 
 renderings of particular passages by masters of 
 mimic art ; I know him only on his flat page, as he 
 is represented in immoveable, featureless, unemo- 
 tional type. 
 
 Nor am I acquainted with him surrounded, 
 perhaps sometimes sustained, but, at any rate, 
 worthily adorned and enhanced in accessory beauty 
 by the magic illusion of scenic decorations, the 
 splendid pageantry which he simply hints at, but 
 which, I believe, has been now realised to its 
 most ideal exactness and richness banquets, 
 tournaments, and battles, with the almost deceptive 
 accuracy of costume and of architecture. When I 
 hear of all these additional ornaments hung around 
 his noble works, the impression which they make 
 upon my mind creates a deeper sense of amaze- 
 ment and admiration, how dramas written for the 
 " Globe " Theatre, wretchedly lighted, incapable 
 of grandeur, even from want of space, and without 
 those mechanical and artistical resources which 
 belong to a later age, should be capable of bearing 
 all this additional weight of lustre and magnificence
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 15 
 
 without its being necessary to alter a word, still 
 less a passage, from their original delivery.* This 
 exhibits the nicely-balanced point of excellence 
 which is equally poised between simplicity and 
 gorgeousness ; which can retain its power and 
 beauty, whether stript to its barest form or loaded 
 with exuberant appurtenances. 
 
 After having said thus much of my own pro- 
 bably unenvied position, I think I shall not be 
 wrong in assuming that none of Shakespeare's 
 enthusiastic admirers, one of whom I profess myself 
 to be, and that few of my audience are in this 
 
 * The chorus, which serves as a prologue to " King Henry 
 V.," shows how Shakespeare's own mind keenly felt the 
 deficiencies of his time, and almost anticipatingly wrote 
 for the effects which a future age might supply : 
 
 " But pardon, gentles all, 
 This flat unraised spirit that hath dar'd, 
 On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth 
 So great an object. Can this cock-pit hold 
 The vasty fields of France ? Or may we cram 
 Within this wooden O the very casques 
 That did affright the air at Agincourt. 
 
 Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ; 
 
 Into a thousand parts divide one man, 
 
 And make imaginary puissance : 
 
 Think, when we talk of horses, that ye see them 
 
 Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; 
 
 For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings."
 
 16 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 exceptional position. They will probably consider 
 this a disadvantage on my side ; and to some extent 
 I must acknowledge it for Shakespeare wrote to 
 be acted, and not to be read. 
 
 But on the other hand is it not something to 
 have approached this wonderful man, and to have 
 communed with him in silence and in solitude, face 
 to face, alone with him alone ; to have read and 
 studied and meditated on him in early youth, with- 
 out gloss, or commentary, or preface or glossary ? 
 For such was my good or evil fortune ; not during 
 the still hours of night, but during that stiller por- 
 tion of an Italian afternoon, when silence is deeper 
 than in the night, under a bright and sultry sun, 
 when all are at rest, all around you hushed to the 
 very footsteps in a well-peopled house, except the 
 unquelled murmuring of a fountain beneath orange 
 trees, which mingled thus the most delicate of 
 fragrance with the most soothing of sounds, both 
 stealing together through the half-closed windows 
 of wide and lofty corridors. Is there not more of 
 that reverence and that relish which constitute the 
 classical taste to be derived from the concentration of 
 thought and feelings which the perusal of the simple 
 unmarred and unoverlaid text procures ; when you 
 can ponder on a verse, can linger over a word, can
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEAPE. 17 
 
 repeat mentally and even orally with your own 
 deliberation and your own emphasis, whenever 
 dignity, beauty, or wisdom invite you to pause, or 
 compel you to ruminate ? 
 
 In fact, were you desired to give your judg- 
 ment on the refreshing water_ of a pure fountain, 
 you would not care to taste it from a richly -jewelled 
 and delicately-chased cup ; you would not con- 
 sent to have it mingled with the choicest wine, nor 
 flavoured by a single drop of the most exquisite 
 essence ; you would not have it chilled with ice, 
 or gently attempered by warmth. No, you would 
 choose the most transparent crystal vessel, how- 
 ever homely ; you would fill at the very cleft of 
 the rock from which it bubbles fresh and bright, 
 and drink it yet sparkling, and beading with its 
 own air-pearls the walls of the goblet. Nay, is 
 not an opposite course that which the poet himself 
 censures as " wasteful, ridiculous excess ?" 
 
 " To gild refined gold, to paint the lily ; 
 To throw a perfume on the violet. 
 
 Or with a taper light 
 
 To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to varnish." 
 
 (" King John," act iv., scene 2.) 
 
 You will easily understand, from this long and 
 almost apologetic preamble, in the first place, that 
 
 c
 
 18 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I take it for granted that I am addressing an 
 audience which is not assembled to receive elemen- 
 tary or new information concerning England's 
 greatest poet. On the contrary, I believe myself 
 to stand before many who are able to judge, rather 
 than merely accept, my opinions, and in the pre- 
 sence of an assembly exclusively composed of his 
 admirers, thoroughly conversant with his works. 
 A further consequence is this, that my lecture will 
 not consist of extracts still less of recitations of 
 any of those beautiful passages which occur in 
 every play of Shakespeare. The most celebrated 
 of these are present to the mind of every English 
 scholar, from his school-boy days to his maturer 
 studies. 
 
 II. 
 
 It would be superfluous for a lecturer on Shake- 
 speare to put to himself the question, What place 
 do you intend to give to the subject of your dis- 
 course in the literature of England or of Europe ? 
 Whatever difference of opinion may exist elsewhere, 
 I believe that in this country only one answer will 
 be given. Among our native writers no one
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 19 
 
 questions that Shakespeare is supremely pre-emi- 
 nent, and most of us will probably assign him as 
 lofty a position in the whole range of modern 
 European literature. Perhaps no other nation 
 possesses among its writers any one name to which 
 there is no rival claims, nor even an approximation 
 of equality, to make a balance against it. Were 
 we to imagine in England a Walhalla erected 
 to contain the effigies of great men, and were one 
 especial hall to contain those of our most eminent 
 dramatists, it must needs be so constructed as to 
 have one central niche. Were a similar structure 
 prepared in France, it would be natural to place 
 in equal prominence at least two figures, or, in 
 classical language, two different muses of Tragedy 
 and of Comedy would have to be separately repre- 
 sented. But in England, assign what place we 
 may to those who have excelled in either branch 
 in mimic art, the highest excellence in both would 
 be found centered in one man ; and from him on 
 either side would have to range the successful 
 cultivators of the drama. 
 
 But this claim to so undisputed an elevation 
 does not rest upon his merits only in this field of 
 our literature. Shakespeare has established his 
 claim to the noblest position in English literature on a 
 
 c2
 
 20 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 wider and more solid basis than the mere composi- 
 tion of skilful plays could deserve. As the great 
 master of our language, as almost its regenerator, 
 quite its refiner as the author whose use of a word 
 stamps it with the mark of purest English coinage 
 whose employment of a phrase makes it household 
 and proverbial whose sententious sayings, flowing 
 without effort from his mind, seem almost sacred, 
 and are quoted as axioms or maxims indisputable 
 as the orator whose speeches, not only apt, but, 
 natural to the lips from which they issue, are more 
 eloquent than the discourses of senators or finished 
 public speakers as the poet whose notes are richer, 
 more wondrously varied than those of the greatest 
 professed bards as the writer who has run 
 through the most varied ways and to the greatest 
 extent through every department of literature and 
 learning, through the history of many nations, their 
 domestic manners, their characteristics, and even 
 their personal distinctives, and who seems to have 
 visited every part of nature, to have intuitively 
 studied the heavens and the earth as the man, in 
 fine, who has shown himself supreme in so many 
 things, superiority in any one of which gains reputa- 
 tion in life and glory after death, he is pre-eminent 
 above all, and beyond the reach of envy or jealousy.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 21 
 
 And if no other nation can show us another man 
 whose head rises above all their other men of letters, 
 as Shakespeare does over ours, they cannot pretend, 
 by the accumulation of separated excellences, to put 
 in competition with him a type rather than a reali- 
 zation of possible worth. Until, therefore, some 
 other writer can be produced, no matter from 
 what nation, who unites in himself personally these 
 gifts of our bard in an equally sublime degree, his 
 stature overtops them all, wherever born and how- 
 ever celebrated. 
 
 The question, however, may be raised Is he so 
 securely placed upon his pedestal that a rival may 
 not one day thrust him from it ? is he so secure 
 upon his throne that a rebel may not usurp it ? 
 To these interrogations I answer unhesitatingly 
 Yes. 
 
 In the first place, there have only been two poets 
 in the world before Shakespeare who have at- 
 tained the same position with him. Each came at 
 the moment which .closed the volume of the period 
 past and opened that of a new epoch. Of what 
 preceded Homer we can know but little ; the songs 
 by bards or rhapsodists had, no doubt, preceded 
 him, and prepared the way for the first and great- 
 est epic. This, it is acknowledged, has never been
 
 22 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 surpassed ; it became the standard of language, the 
 steadfast rule of versification, and the model of 
 poetical composition. His supremacy, once attained, 
 was shaken by no competition ; it was as well as- 
 sured after a hundred years as it has been by thou- 
 sands. Dante again stood between the remnants 
 of the old Roman civilization and the construction 
 of a new and Christian system of arts and letters. 
 He, too, consolidated the floating fragments of an 
 indefinite language, and with them built and 
 thence himself fitted and adorned that stately 
 vessel which bears him through all the regions of 
 life and of death, of glory, of trial, and of perdi- 
 tion. 
 
 A word found in Dante is classical to the Italian 
 ear ; a form, however strange in grammar, traced 
 to him, is considered justifiable if used by any 
 modern sonneteer.* He holds the place in his 
 own country which Shakespeare does in ours ; not 
 only is his terza rima, considered inimitable, but the 
 concentration of brilliant imagery in our words, 
 the flashes of his great thoughts aud the copious 
 variety of his learning, marvellous in his age, make 
 his volume be to this day the delight of every 
 
 * Any one acquainted with Mastrofini's " Dictionary of 
 Italian Verbs" will understand this.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. . 23 
 
 refined intelligence and every polished mind in 
 Italy. 
 
 And he, too, like Homer, notwithstanding the 
 magnificent poets who succeeded him, has never 
 for a moment lost that fascination which he alone 
 exercises over the domain of Italian poetry. He 
 was as much its ruler in his own age as he is in 
 the present. 
 
 In like manner the two centuries and more 
 which have elapsed since Shakespeare's death have 
 as completely confirmed him in his legitimate com- 
 mand as the same period did his two only real pre- 
 decessors. No one can possibly either be placed in 
 a similar position or come up to his great qualities, 
 except at the expense of the destruction of our 
 present civilization, the annihilation of its past 
 traditions, the resolution of our language into jar- 
 gon, and its regeneration, by a new birth, into 
 something "more rich and strange" than the 
 powerful idiom which so splendidly combines the 
 Saxon and the Norman elements. Should such a 
 devastation and reconstruction take place, whether 
 they come from New Zealand or from Siberia, 
 then there may spring up the poet of that time 
 and condition who may be the fourth in that great 
 series of unrivalled bards, but will no more inter-
 
 24 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 fere with his predecessor's rights than Dante or 
 Shakespeare does with those of Homer. 
 
 But further, we may truly say that the legislator 
 of a people can be but one, and, as such, can 
 have no rival beyond his own shores. Solon, 
 Lycurgus, and Numa are the only three men in 
 profane history who have reached the dignity of 
 this singular title. The first seized on the cha- 
 racter of the bland and polished Athenians, and 
 framed his code in such harmony with it, that no 
 subsequent laws, even in the periods of most cor- 
 rupt relaxation, could efface their primitive 
 stamp, cease to make the Republic proud of their 
 lawgiver's name. 
 
 Lycurgus understood the stern and almost 
 savage hardihood and simplicity of the Spartan 
 disposition, and perpetuated it and regulated it by 
 his harsh and unfeeling system, of which, notwith- 
 standing which, the Lacedaemonian was proud. And 
 so Numa Pompilius comprehended the readiness of 
 the infant Republic, sprung from so doubtful and 
 discreditable a parentage, to discover a noble de- 
 scent, and connect its birth and education with gods 
 and heroes, took hold of this weakness for the 
 sanction of his legislation, and feigned his confer- 
 ences with the nymph Egeria as the sources of his
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 25 
 
 wisdom. No ; whatever may become of kings, 
 legislators are never dethroned. 
 
 And so is Shakespeare the unquestioned legisla- 
 tor of modern literary art. No one will contend 
 that, without certain detriment, it would be possi-- 
 ble for a modern writer, especially of dramatic 
 fiction, to go back beyond him and endeavour to 
 establish a pre-Shakesperian School of English 
 literature, as we have the pre-Raphaelite in art. 
 Struggle and writhe as any genius may even if 
 endowed with giant strength it will be but as the 
 battle of the Titans against Jove. Huge rocks will 
 be rolled down upon him, and the lightning from 
 Shakespeare's hand will assuredly tear his laurels, 
 if it do not strike his head. Byron could not appre- 
 ciate the dramatic genius of Shakespeare ; perhaps 
 his sympathies ranged more freely among Corsairs 
 and Suliotes than among purer and nobler spirits. 
 Certainly he speaks of him with a superciliousness 
 which betrays his inability fully to comprehend 
 him.* And yet would " Manfred " have existed if 
 
 * Lord Byron thus writes to Mr. Murray, July 14th, 
 1821 : " I trust that Sardanapalus will not be mistaken 
 
 for a political play You will find all this very 
 
 unlike Shakespeare ; and so much the better, in one sense, 
 for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the 
 most extraordinary of writers." MOORE'S Life of Lord Byron.
 
 26 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 the romantic drama and the spirit-agency of 
 Shakespeare had not given it life and rule ? So in 
 other nations. I shall probably quote to you the 
 sentiments of foreign writers of highest eminence 
 concerning Shakespeare, not as authorities, but 
 as illustrations of what I may say. 
 
 Singularly enough, the greatest of German 
 modern writers has nowhere recorded a full and 
 deliberate opinion on our poet. But who can 
 doubt that "Gb'tz von Berlichingen with the Iron 
 Hand," and even the grand and tender " Faust," 
 and no less Schiller's " Wallenstein," belong to the 
 family of Shakespeare, are remotely offsprings of his 
 genius, and have to be placed as tributary garlands 
 round his pedestal. To imagine Shakespeare even 
 in intention removed from his sovereignty, would 
 be a treachery parallel only to that of Lear de- 
 throned by his own daughters. 
 
 But still more may we say that, in all such posi- 
 tions as that which we have assigned to Shakespeare, 
 there has always been a culminating point to 
 which succeeds decline if not downfall. It is so 
 in art. Immediately after the death of Raphael, 
 and the dispersion of his school, art took a down- 
 ward direction, and has never risen again to the 
 same height. And while he marks the highest
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 27 
 
 elevation ever reached in the arts of Europe, a 
 similar observation will apply to their particular 
 schools. Leonardo and Luini in Lombardy ; the 
 Carracci in Bologna ; Fra Angelico in Umbria ; 
 Garofalo in Ferrara, not only take the place of 
 chiefs in their respective districts, but mark the 
 period from which degeneracy has to date. And 
 so surely is it in our case, whatever may have been 
 the course of literature which led up to Shake- 
 speare, without pronouncing judgment on Spenser, 
 or "rare Ben Jonson," it is certain that after him, 
 although England has possessed great poets, there 
 stands not one forward among them as Shake- 
 speare's competitor. Milton, and Dryden, and 
 Addison, and Rowe have given us specimens of 
 high dramatic writing of no mean quality ; others 
 as well, and even these have written much and 
 nobly, in lofty as in familiar verse ; yet not one has 
 the public judgment of the nation placed on a level 
 with him. The intermediate space from them to 
 our own times has left only the traces of a weak 
 and enervated school. It would be unbecoming to 
 speak disparagingly of the poets of the present age ; 
 but no one, I believe, has ventured to consider 
 them as superior to the noble spirits of our Augus-
 
 28 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 tan age. The easy descent from the loftiest emi- 
 nence is not easily reclimbed. 
 
 Surely, then, we may consider Shakespeare, as 
 an ancient mythologist would have done, as " en- 
 skied " among " the invulnerable clouds," where 
 no shaft, even of envy, can assail him. From this 
 elevation we may safely predict that he never can 
 be plucked. 
 
 III. 
 
 The next point which seems to claim attention 
 is the very root of all that I have said, or shall 
 have still to say. To what does Shakespeare owe 
 this supremacy, or whence flow all the extraordi- 
 nary qualities which we attribute to him ? You 
 are all prepared with the answer in one single 
 word his GENIUS. 
 
 The genius of Shakespeare is our familiar 
 thought and ready expression when we study him, 
 and when we characterise him. Nevertheless, 
 simple and intelligible as is the word, it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to analyse or to define it. Yet 
 everything that is great and beautiful in his 
 writings seems to require an explanation of the 
 cause to which it owes its origin.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 29 
 
 One great characteristic of genius easily and 
 universally admitted is, that it is a gift, and not 
 an acquisition. It belongs inherently to the person 
 possessing it ; it cannot be transmitted by heri- 
 tage ; it cannot be infused by parental affection ; 
 it cannot be bestowed by earliest care ; neither 
 can it be communicated by the most finished 
 culture or the most studied education. It must be 
 congenital, or rather inborn to its possessor. It is 
 as much a living, a natural power, as is reason to 
 every man. As surely as the very first germ of 
 the plant contains in itself the faculty of one day 
 evolving from itself leaves, flowers, and fruit, so 
 does genius hold, however hidden, however un- 
 seen, the power to open, to bring forth, and to ma- 
 ture what other men cannot do, but what to it is 
 instinctive and almost spontaneous. It may begin 
 to manifest itself with the very dawn of reason ; 
 it may remain asleep for years, till a spark, per- 
 haps accidentally, kindles up into a sudden and ir- 
 repressible splendour, that unseen intellectual fuel 
 which has been almost unknown to its unambitious 
 owner. 
 
 In our own minds we easily distinguish between 
 the highest abilities or the most rare attainments, 
 when the fruit of education and of application, and
 
 30 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 what we habitually distinguish as the manifestation 
 of genius. But still we do not find it so easy to 
 reduce to words this mental distinction ; the one, 
 after all, however gracefully and however brightly, 
 walks upon the earth, adorning it by the good or 
 fair things which it scatters on its way ; the other 
 has wings, and flies above the surface it is like 
 the aurora of Homer or of Thorwaldsen, which, as 
 it flies above the plane of mortal actions, sheds 
 down its flowers along its brilliant path, upon 
 those worthy to gaze upwards towards it. We 
 connect in our minds Avith genius the ideas of 
 flashing splendour and eccentric movement. It is 
 an intellectual meteor, the laws of which cannot 
 be defined or reduced to any given theory. We 
 regard it with a certain awe, and leave it to soar 
 or to droop, to shine or disappear, to dash ir- 
 regularly first in one direction and then in another ; 
 no one dare curb it or direct it ; but all feel sure 
 that its course, however inexplicable, is subject 
 to higher and controlling rule. But in order to 
 define more closely what we in reality understand 
 by genius, it may be well to consider its action in 
 divided and more restricted spheres of activity. 
 For although we habitually attribute this singular 
 quality to many, and often but on light grounds,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 31 
 
 it is seldom that we do so seriously and deliberately 
 without some qualifying epithet. We speak of a 
 military genius, of a mechanical genius, of a 
 poetical genius, of a musical genius, or of an ar- 
 tistic genius. All these expressions contain a 
 restrictive clause. We do not understand when 
 we use them that the person to whom they were 
 attributed possessed any power beyond the limits 
 of a particuler sphere. We do not mean by the 
 use of the word genius that the soldier knew 
 anything of poetry, or the printer of mechanism. 
 We understand that each in his own profession or 
 stage of excellence possessed a complete elevation 
 over the bulk of those who followed the same pur- 
 suits ; a superiority so visible, so acknowledged, 
 and so clearly individual, that no one else con- 
 sidered it inferiority, still less felt shame at not 
 being able to rise to the same level. They gather 
 round them acknowledged disciples and admirers, 
 who rather glory to have been guided by their 
 teaching, and formed on their example. 
 
 And in what consisted that complete though limit- 
 ed excellence? If I might venture to express a judg- 
 ment, I would say that genius in these different courses 
 of science or art may be denned a natural sympathy
 
 32 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 with all that relates to each of them, with the 
 power of giving full and certain execution to the 
 mental conception. The military genius is one who, 
 either untrained by studious preparation, or else 
 starting out of the lines in which many were ranged 
 level with himself, seizes the staff of command, and 
 receives the homage of comrades and superiors. 
 While others have been plodding through the long 
 drill of theory and of practice, he is found to have 
 discovered a new system of the science, bold, irre- 
 gular, but successful. But to possess this genius, 
 there must be a universal sympathy with all that 
 relates to its own peculiar province. The military 
 genius of which we are speaking must embrace 
 or acquire that which relates to the soldier's life 
 and duty, from the dress of the single soldier, from 
 his duties in the sentry-box, or on the picquet, to 
 the practice of the regiment and the evolutions of 
 a field-day ; from the complete command of tens of 
 thousands on the battle-field, with an eagle's eye 
 and a lion's heart, to the scientific planning, on the 
 chessboard of an empire, of the campaign, which he 
 meditates move by move and check by check, till 
 the final victory is crowned in the capital city. 
 He who has not given proof of his being equal to 
 all this, has not made good his claim to military
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 33 
 
 genius. But such a one will find, wherever he 
 puts his hand, generals and marshals, each able to 
 command a host, or to take his place in his rough- 
 est of enterprises. 
 
 I need not pass through other forms of genius to 
 reach similar results ; Stephenson, from the labour of 
 the mine, creating that system of mechanical motion, 
 which may be said to have subdued the world, and 
 bound the earth in iron links ; Mozart, giving 
 concerts at the age of seven, that astonished grey- 
 headed musicians j Raphael, before the ordinary 
 age of finished pupilage, master of every known 
 detail in art of oil or fresco, drawing, expression, and 
 grand composition ; Giotto, caught in the field as a 
 young shepherd by Cimabue, drawing his sheep upon 
 a stone, and soon becoming the master of modern 
 art.* These and many others repeat to us what I 
 have said of the military genius an inborn capa- 
 city, comprehensive and complete, with the power 
 
 * The early manifestation of artistic power is so frequent 
 and well known, that it would be superfluous to enumerate 
 other instances. The expression " ancK io son pittore" is 
 become proverbial. One of the Carracci, on being translated 
 from an inferior profession to the family studio, was found 
 at once to possess the pictorial skill of his race. At the pre- 
 sent, Mintropp at Dusseldorf, and Ackermann at Berlin, 
 are both instances of very high artists, the one in drawing 
 the other in sculpture, both originally shepherds. 
 
 D
 
 34 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 of fully carrying out the suggestions of mind. Had 
 there been a single portion of their pursuits in 
 which they did not excel, if the result of their 
 work had not exhibited the happy union and 
 concord of the many qualities requisite for its per- 
 fection, they never would have attained the attri- 
 bution of genius. 
 
 If this sympathy with one branch of higher pur- 
 suits passes beyond it and associates with it a 
 similar facility of acquisition and execution in 
 some other and distinct art or science, it is clear 
 that the claim to genius is higher and more exten- 
 sive. Raphael was before the world a painter, but 
 he could scarcely have been so without embracing 
 every other department of art. Before the science 
 of perspective was matured or popularly known, 
 when, in consequence, defects are to be found in 
 the disposition of figures, and in the adjustment of 
 aerial distances,* his architecture shows an in- 
 stinctive familiarity with its rules and proportions ; 
 a proof that he possessed an architectural eye. And 
 consequently the one statue which he is supposed 
 to have carved, and the one palace which he is 
 
 * See Mr. Lloyd's article on " Raphael's School of Athens," 
 in Mr. Woodward's .Fin* Art Quarterly Review, January 1864, 
 p. 67.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 35 
 
 said to have built, show how easily he could have 
 undertaken and executed beautiful works in either 
 of those two classes of art. In Orcagna and 
 Michelangelo we have the three branches of art 
 supremely united ; and the second of these adds 
 poetry and literature to his artistic excellence. In 
 like manner, Leonardo has left proof of most varied 
 and accurate mechanical as well as literary genius. 
 It is evident, however, that while a genius has 
 its point of concentration, every remove from this, 
 though wider, will be fainter and less complete. 
 We may describe it as Shakespeare himself de- 
 scribes glory, and say : 
 
 " Genius is like a circle in the water, 
 Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, 
 Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught." 
 
 (" Henry VI.," act i., scene 3.) 
 
 The sympathies with more remote subjects and 
 pursuits will be rather the means of illustration, 
 adornment, and pleasing variety, than for the 
 essential requirements of the principal aim. But 
 though less minute in their application, in the 
 hand of genius they will be wonderfully accurate 
 and apt. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All that I have been saying is applicable in the 
 most complete and marvellous way to Shakespeare's 
 genius. His sympathies are universal, perfect in their 
 own immediate use, infinitely varied, and strikingly 
 beautiful, when they reach remoter objects. And 
 hence, though at first sight he might be classified 
 among those who have displayed a literary genius, 
 he stretches his mind and his feelings so beyond 
 them on every side, that to him, almost, perhaps, 
 beyond any other man, the simple distinctive, 
 without any qualification, belongs. No one need 
 fear to call Shakespeare simply a grand, a sublime 
 genius. 
 
 The centre-point of his sympathies is clearly his 
 dramatic art. From this they expand, for many 
 degrees, with scarce perceptible diminution, till 
 they lose themselves in far distant, and, to him, un- 
 explored space. This nucleus of his genius has 
 certainly never been equalled before or since. Its 
 essence consists in what is the very soul of the 
 dramatic idea, the power to throw himself into the 
 situation, the circumstances, the nature, the 
 acquired habits, the feelings, true or fictitious,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 37 
 
 of every character which he introduces. This 
 forms, in fact, the most perfect of sympathies. We 
 do not, of course, use the word in that more usual 
 sense of harmony of affection, or consent of feeling. 
 Shakespeare has sympathy as complete for Shylock 
 or lago, as he has for Arthur, or King Lear. For 
 a time he lives in the astute villain as in the inno- 
 cent child ; he works his entire power of thought 
 into intricacies of the traitor's brain ; he makes his 
 heart beat in concord with the usurer's sanguinary 
 spite, and then, like some beautiful creature in the 
 animal world, draws himself out of the hateful evil, 
 and is himself again ; and able, even, often to hold 
 his own noble and gentle qualities as a mirror, or 
 exhibit the loftiest, the most generous, and amiable 
 examples of our nature. And this is all done with- 
 out study, and apparently without effort. His 
 infinitely varied characters come naturally into 
 their places, never for a moment lose their pro- 
 prieties, their personality, and the exact flexibility 
 which results from the necessary combination in 
 every man of many qualities. From the beginning 
 to the end each one is the same, yet reflecting in 
 himself the lights and shadows which flit around 
 him. 
 
 This extraordinary versatility stands in striking
 
 38 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 contrast with the dramatic productions of other 
 countries. The Greek tragedian is Greek through- 
 out his subjects, his mythology, his sentences, play 
 wonderfully indeed, but yet restrictedly, within a 
 given sphere. And Rome is but the imitator in 
 all its literature of its great mistress and model. 
 
 " Graiis eloquium, Grails dedit ore rotundo, 
 Musa loqui." 
 
 Even -through the French school, with the strict 
 adhesion to the ancient rule of the unities, seems to 
 have descended the partiality for what may be 
 called the chastely classical subjects. Not so with 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Who, a stranger might ask, is the man, and 
 where was he born, and where did he live, that not 
 only his acts and scenes are placed in any age, or 
 in any land, but that he can fill his stage with the 
 very living men of the time and place represented, 
 make them move as easily as if he held them in 
 strings ; and make them speak not only with general 
 conformity to their common position, but with 
 individual and distinctive propriety, so that each 
 is different from the rest ? Did he live in ancient 
 Rome, strolling the Forum, or climbing the Capitol ; 
 hear ancient matrons converse with modest dignity ;
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 39 
 
 listen to conspirators among the columns of its 
 porticos ; mingle among senators round Pompey's 
 statue ; or with plebeians crowding to hear Brutus 
 or Antony harangue ? Was he one accustomed 
 to idle in the Piazza of St. Mark, or shoot his 
 gondola under the Kialto ? Or was he a knight 
 or even archer in the fields of France or England 
 during the period of the Plantagenets or Tudors, 
 and witnessed and wrote down the great deeds of 
 those times, and knew intimately and personally 
 each puissant lord who distinguished himself by 
 his valour, by his wisdom, or even by his crimes ? 
 Did he live in the courts of princes, perchance 
 holding some office which enabled him to listen to 
 the grave utterances of kings and their counsellors, 
 or to the witty sayings of court jesters ? Did he 
 consort with banished princes, and partake of their 
 sports or their sufferings ? In fine, did he live in 
 great cities, or in shepherds' cottages, or in fields 
 and woods ; and does he date from John and live 
 on to the eighth Henry a thread connecting in 
 himself the different epochs of mediaeval England ? 
 One would almost say so ; or multiply one man 
 into many, whose works have been united under 
 one man. 
 
 This ubiquity, if we may so call it, of Shake-
 
 40 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 speare's sympathies, constitutes the unlimited 
 extent and might of his dramatic genius. It would 
 be difficult to imagine where a boundary line could 
 at length have been drawn, beyond which nothing 
 original, nothing new, and nothing beautiful, could 
 be supposed to have come forth from his mind. 
 We are compelled to say that his genius was inex- 
 haustible. 
 
 V. 
 
 This rare and wonderful faculty becomes more 
 interesting if we follow it into further details. 
 
 I remember an anecdote of Garrick, who, in 
 company with another performer of some eminence, 
 was walking in the country, and about to enter a 
 village. " Let us pass off," said the younger 
 comedian to his more distinguished companion, 
 " as two intoxicated fellows." They did so, 
 apparently with perfect success, being saluted 
 by the jeers and abuse of the inhabitants. When 
 they came forth at the other end of the village, the 
 younger performer asked Garrick how he had ful- 
 filled his part. " Very well," was the reply, 
 " except that you were not perfectly tipsy in your 
 legs."
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 41 
 
 Now, in Shakespeare there is no danger of a 
 similar defect. Whatever his character is intended 
 to be, it is carried out to its very extremities. 
 Nothing is forgotten, nothing overlooked. Many 
 of you, no doubt, are aware that a controversy has 
 long existed, whether the madness of Hamlet is 
 intended by Shakespeare to be real or simulated. 
 If a dramatist wished to represent one of his per- 
 sons as feigning madness, that assumed condition 
 would be naturally desired by the writer to be as 
 like as possible to the real affliction. If the other 
 persons associated with him could at once discover 
 that the madness was put on, of course the entire 
 action would be marred, and the object for which 
 the pretended madness was designed would be de- 
 feated by the discovery. How consummate must 
 be the poet's art, who can have so skilfully de- 
 scribed, to the minutest symptoms, the mental 
 malady of a great mind, as to leave it uncertain to 
 the present day, even among learned physicians 
 versed in such maladies, whether Hamlet's madness 
 was real or assumed. 
 
 This controversy may be said tohavebeenbrought 
 to a close by one of the ablest among those in Eng- 
 land who have every opportunity of studying the 
 almost innumerable shades through which aliena-
 
 42 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 tion of mind can pass.* And so delicate are the 
 changeful characteristics which Shakespeare de- 
 scribes, that Dr. Conolly considers that a twofold 
 form of disease is placed before us in the Danish 
 prince. He concludes that he was labouring under 
 real madness, yet able to put on a fictitious and 
 artificial derangement for the purposes which he 
 kept in view. Passing through act by act and 
 scene by scene, analysing, with experienced eye, 
 each new symptom as it occurs, dividing and 
 anatomatising, with the finest scalpel, every fibre 
 of his brain. He exhibits, step by step, the tran- 
 sitionary characters of the natural disease in a 
 mind naturally, and by education, great and noble, 
 but thrown off his pivot by the anguish of his 
 sufferings and the strain of aroused passion. And 
 to this is superadded another and not genuine 
 affection, which serves its turn with that estranged 
 niind when it suits it to act, more especially that 
 part which the natural ailment did not suffice for. 
 
 * " A Study of Hamlet," by John Conolly, M.D., London, 
 1863. In p. 52 the author quotes Mr. Coleridge and M. 
 Killemain as holding the opinion that Shakespeare has "con- 
 trived to blend both (feigned and real madness) in the ex- 
 traordinary character of Hamlet ; and to join together the 
 light of reason, the cunning of intentional error, and the in- 
 voluntary disorder of a soul."
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 43 
 
 Now, Dr. Conolly considers these symptoms so ac- 
 curately as well as minutely described, that he 
 throws out the conjecture that Shakespeare may 
 have borrowed the account of them from some un- 
 known papers by his son-in-law, Dr. Hall. 
 
 But let it be remembered that in those days 
 mental phenomena were by no means accurately 
 examined or generally known. There was but 
 little attention paid to the peculiar forms of mono- 
 mania, or to its treatment, beyond restraint and 
 often cruelty. The poor idiot was allowed, if 
 harmless, to wander about the village or the 
 country to drivel or gibber amidst the teasing or 
 ill-natured treatment of boys or rustics. The poor 
 maniac was chained or tied in some wretched out- 
 house, at the mercy of some heartless guardian, 
 with no protector but the constable. Shakespeare 
 could not be supposed, in the little town of Strat- 
 ford, nor indeed in London itself, to have had oppor- 
 tunities of studying the influence and the appear- 
 ance of mental derangement of a high-minded and 
 finely-cultivated prince. How then did Shake- 
 speare contrive to paint so highly-finished and yet 
 so complex an image ? Simply by the exercise of 
 that strong sympathetic will which enabled him to 
 transport, or rather to transmute, himself into
 
 44 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 another personality. While this character was 
 strongly before him he changed himself into a 
 maniac ; he felt intuitively what would be his own 
 thought, what his feelings, were he in that situation; 
 he played with himself the part of the madman, 
 with his own grand mind as the basis of its action ; 
 he grasped on every side the imagery which he felt 
 would have come into his mind, beautiful even 
 when dislorded, sublime even when it was grovel- 
 ling, brilliant even when dulled, and clothed it in 
 words of fire and of tenderness, with a varied 
 rapidity which partakes of wildness and of sense. 
 He needed not to look for a model out of himself, 
 for it cost him no effort to change the angle of his 
 mirror and sketch his own countenance awry. It 
 was but little for him to pluck away the crown 
 from reason and contemplate it dethroned. 
 
 Before taking leave of Dr. Conolly'smost interesting 
 monography, I will allow myself to make only one 
 remark. Having determined to represent Hamlet 
 in this anomalous and perplexing condition, it was 
 of the utmost importance to the course and end of 
 this sublime drama, that one principal incident should 
 be most decisively separated from Hamlefs reverse 
 of mind. Had it been possible to attribute 
 the appearance of the Ghostj as the Queen,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 45 
 
 his mother, does attribute it in the fifth act, 
 to the delusion of his bewildered phantasy, the 
 whole groundwork of the drama would have 
 crumbled beneath its superincumbent weight. 
 Had the spectre been seen by Hamlet, or by him 
 first, we should have been perpetually troubled 
 with the doubt whether or not it was the hallucina- 
 tion of a distracted, or the invention of a deceitful 
 brain. But Shakespeare felt the necessity of making 
 this apparition be held for a reality, and therefore 
 he makes it the very first incident in his tragedy, 
 antecedent to the slightest symptom of either 
 natural or affected derangement, and makes it first 
 be seen by two witnesses together, and then con- 
 jointly by a third unbelieving and fearless witness. 
 It is the testimony of these three which first 
 brings to the knowledge of the incredulous prince 
 this extraordinary occurrence. One may doubt 
 whether any other writer has ever made a ghost 
 appear successively to those whom we may call the 
 wrong persons, before showing himself to the one 
 whom alone he cared to visit. The extraordinary 
 exigencies of Shakespeare's plot rendered necessary 
 this unusual fiction. And it serves, moreover, 
 to give the only colour of justice to acts which
 
 46 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 otherwise must have appeared unqualified as mad 
 freaks or frightful crimes. 
 
 What Dr. Couolly has done for Hamlet and 
 Ophelia, Dr. Bucknill had previously performed 
 on a more extensive scale. In his " Psychology of 
 Shakespeare,"* he has minutely investigated -the 
 mental condition of Macbeth, King Lear, Timon, 
 and other characters. On Hamlet he seems in- 
 clined to take a different view from Dr. Conolly ; 
 inasmuch as he considers the simulated madness 
 the principal feature, and the natural unsound- 
 ness which it is impossible to overlook as second- 
 ary. But this eminent physician, well known 
 for his extensive studies of insanity, bears similar 
 testimony to the extraordinary accuracy of Shake- 
 speare's delineations of mental diseases ; the nicety 
 with which he traces their various steps in one in- 
 dividual, the accuracy with which he distinguishes 
 these morbid affections in different persons. He 
 seems unable to account for the exact minuteness 
 in any other way than by external observation. 
 He acknowledges that "indefinable possession of 
 genius, call it spiritual tact or insight, or whatever 
 term may suggest itself, by which the great lords 
 of mind estimate all phases of mind with little 
 
 * Page 58 and 100.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 47 
 
 aid from reflected light," as the mental instrument 
 through which Shakespeare looked upon others 
 at a distance, or within reach of minute observation. 
 Still he seems to think that Shakespeare must have 
 had many opportunities of observing mental pheno- 
 mena. I own I am more inclined to think that the 
 . process by which the genius of Shakespeare reached 
 this painful yet strange accuracy was rather that 
 of introversion than of external observation. At 
 any rate, it is most interesting to see eminent phy- 
 sicians maintaining by some means or other that 
 Shakespeare arrived by some sort of intuition at 
 the possession of a psychological or even medical 
 knowledge, fully verified and proved to be exact 
 by the researches two centuries later of distinguished 
 men in a science only recently developed. Mrs. 
 Jameson has well distinguished the different forms 
 of mental aberration in Shakespeare's characters, 
 when she says that " Constance is frantic, Lear is 
 mad, Ophelia is insane."* 
 
 VI. 
 
 This last quotation may serve to introduce a 
 * Characteristics of Women. New York, 1833, p. 142.
 
 48 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 further and a more delicate test of Shakespeare's 
 insight into character. That a man should be able 
 to throw himself into a variety of mind and 
 characters among his fellow-men, may be not un- 
 reasonably expected. He has naturally a com- 
 munity of feelings, of passions, of temptations, and 
 of motives with them. He can understand what 
 is courage, what ambition, what strength or feeble- 
 ness of mind. Inward observation and matured 
 experience help much to guide him to a concep- 
 tion and a delineation of the character of his fellow- 
 men. But of the stronger emotions, the wilder 
 passions, the subdued gentleness and tenderness, 
 the heroic endurance, the meek bearing, and the 
 saintly patience of the woman, he can have had no 
 experience. Looking into himself for a reflection, 
 he will probably find a blank. 
 
 It has often been said that in his female cha- 
 racters Shakespeare is not equal to himself. The 
 work to which I have just alluded meets, I think, 
 completely, this objection, which, I believe, even 
 Schlegel raises. It required a lady, with mind 
 highly cultivated, with the nicest powers of dis- 
 crimination, and with happiness of expression, to 
 vindicate at once Shakespeare and her sex. The 
 difficulty of this task can hardly be appreciated
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 49 
 
 without the study of its performance. Its great 
 difficulty consists in the almost family resemblance 
 of the different portraits which make up Shake- 
 speare's female gallery. There is scarcely any 
 room for events, even for incident, still less for 
 actions, say for bold and unfeminine deeds. 
 Several of the heroines of Shakespeare are sub- 
 jected to similar persecutions, and almost the same 
 trials. In almost every one the affections 
 and their expression have alone to interest us. 
 From Miranda, the desert-nurtured child in the 
 simplicity of untempted innocence, to Isabella, in 
 her cloistered virtue, or Hermione, in her unyield- 
 ing fortitude there are such shades, such vary- 
 ing yet delicate tints, that not two of these numer- 
 ous conceptions can be said to resemble another. 
 And whence did Shakespeare derive his models ? 
 Some are lofty queens, others most noble ladies, 
 some foreigners, some native ; different types in 
 mind and heart, as in the lineament or complexion. 
 Where did he find them ? Where did he meet 
 them ? In the cottages of Stratford, or in the 
 purlieus of Blackfriars ? Among the ladies of the 
 Court, or in the audience in his pit? No one can 
 say no one need say. They were the formations 
 of his own quickened and fertile brain,which required
 
 50 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 but one stroke, one line, to sketch him a portrait to 
 which he would give immortality. Far more diffi- 
 cult was this success, and not less completely was it 
 achieved, in that character which medical writers 
 seem hardly to believe could be but a conception. 
 We may compare the mind of Shakespeare to a 
 diamond pellucid, bright, and untinted, cut into 
 countless polished facets, which, in constant move- 
 ment, at every smallest change of direction or of 
 angle, -caught a new reflection, so that not one 
 of its brilliant mirrors could be for a moment idle, 
 but by a power beyond its control was ever busy 
 with the reflection of innumerable images, either 
 distinct or running into one another, or repeated 
 each so clearly as to allow him, when he chose, to 
 fix it in his memory. 
 
 VII. 
 
 We may safely conclude that, in whatever con- 
 stitutes the dramatic art in its strictest sense, 
 Shakespeare possessed matchless sympathies with 
 all its attributes. The next arid most essential 
 quality required for true genius is the power to 
 give outward life to the inward conception. With-
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 51 
 
 out this the poet is dumb. He may be a " mute 
 inglorious Milton" ; he cannot be a speaking, noble 
 Shakespeare. I should think that I was almost 
 insulting such an audience, were I to descant 
 upon Shakespeare's position among the bards and 
 writers of England, and of the modern world. 
 Upon this point there can scarcely be a dissentient 
 opinion. His language is the purest and best, his 
 verses the most flowing and rich ; and as for his 
 sentiments, it would be difficult without the com- 
 mand of his own language to characterise them. 
 No other writer has ever given such periods of 
 sententious wisdom. 
 
 I have spoken of genius as a gift to an individual 
 man. I will conclude by the reflection that that 
 man becomes himself a gift ; a gift to his nation ; a 
 gift to his age ; a gift to the world of all times. 
 That same Providence which bestows greatness, 
 majesty, abundance, and grace, no less presents, 
 from time to time, to a people or a race, these few 
 transcendent men who mark for it periods no less 
 decisively, though more nobly, than victories or 
 conquests. On England that supreme power has 
 lavished the choicest blessings of this worldly life ; 
 
 E 2
 
 52 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 it has made it vast in dominion, matchless in 
 strength ; it has made it the arbiter of the earth, 
 and mistress of the sea ; it has made it able to 
 stretch its arm for war to the savage antipodes, 
 and, if it chose, its hand for peace to the utter 
 civilised West ; it has brought the produce of 
 North and South to its feet with skill and power, 
 to transform and to refashion in forms graceful or 
 useful, to send them back, almost as new creations, 
 to its very source. Industry has clothed its most 
 barren plains with luxuriant crops ; and with Titan 
 boldness hollowed its sternest rocks, to plunder 
 them of their ever-hidden treasures. Its gigantic 
 strength seems but to play with every work of 
 venturesome enterprise, till its cities seem to the 
 stranger to overflow with riches, and its country to 
 be overspread with exuberant prosperity. 
 
 Well, these are great and magnificent favours of 
 an overruling, most benignant Power ; and yet there 
 is a boast which belongs to our country that may 
 seem to be overlooked. Yet it is a double gift 
 that that same creating and directing rule has 
 made this country the birthplace and the seat of 
 the two men who, within a short period, were made 
 the rulers each of a great and separate intellectual 
 dominion, never to be deposed, never to be rivalled,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 53 
 
 never to be envied. To Newton was given the 
 sway over the science of the civilised world ; to 
 Shakespeare the sovereignty over its literature. 
 
 The one stands before us passionless and grave, 
 embracing in his intellectual grandeur every portion of 
 the universe, from the stars, to him invisible, to the 
 rippling of the tiny waves which the tide brought 
 to his feet. The host of heaven, that seemed in 
 causeless dispersion, he marshalled into order, and 
 bound in safest discipline. He made known to his 
 fellow-men the secret laws of heaven, the springs of 
 movement, and the chains of connection, which 
 invariably and unchangeably impel and guide the 
 course of its many worlds. 
 
 In this aspect one's imagination figures him as 
 truly the director of what he only describes as the 
 leader of a complicated army, who, with his staff, 
 seems to draw or to send forward the wheeling bat- 
 talions, intent on their own errands, combining or 
 resolving movements far remote ; or, under a more 
 benign and pleasing form, we may contemplate him, 
 like a great master in musical science, standing in 
 the midst of a throng, in which are mingled to- 
 gether the elements of sublimest harmonies, con- 
 fused to the eye, but sweetly attuned to the ear, 
 mingling into orderly combination and flowing
 
 54 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 sequence, as they float through the air, which, 
 though he elicit not nor produce, he seems by his 
 outstretched hand to direct, or, at least, he proves 
 himself fully to understand. For what each one 
 separately does, unconscious of what even his com- 
 panion is doing, he from afar knows, and almost 
 beholds, understanding from his centre the concerted 
 and sure results of their united action. And so 
 Newton, from his chamber on this little earth, with- 
 out being able more than the most helpless insect 
 to add power or give guidance to one single element 
 in the composition of this universe, could trace the 
 orbits of planet or satellite, and calculate the oscil- 
 lations and the reciprocal influences of celestial 
 spheres. 
 
 Then his directing wand seems to contract itself 
 to a space within his grasp. It becomes that magic 
 prism with which he intercepts a ray from the sun 
 on his passage to earth ; and as a bird seizes in its 
 flight the bee laden with its honey, and robs it of 
 its sweet treasure even so he compels the mes- 
 senger of light to unfold itself before us, and lay 
 bare to our sight the rich colours which the rainbow 
 had exhibited to man since the deluge, and which 
 had lain concealed since creation, in every sunbeam 
 that had passed through our atmosphere. And
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 55 
 
 further still, he bequeathes that wonderful alembic 
 of light to succeeding generations, till, in the hand 
 of new discoverers, it has become the key of Na- 
 ture's laboratory, in which she has been surprised 
 melting and compounding, in crucibles huge as 
 ocean, the rich hues with which she overlays the 
 surfaces of suns and stars, yet, at the same time, 
 breathes its delicate blush upon the tenderest petals 
 of the opening rose. 
 
 And all the laws and all the rules which form 
 his code of nature seem engraved, as with a dia- 
 mond point, upon a granite surface of the primi- 
 tive rocks inflexible, immoveable, unchangeable as 
 the system which they represent. 
 
 Beside him stands the Ruler of that world, 
 which, though even sublimely intellectual, is go- 
 verned by him with laws in which the affections, 
 even the passions, the moralities, and the anxieties 
 of life have their share ; in which there is no seve- 
 rity but for vice, no slavery but for baseness, no 
 unforgivingness but for calculating wickedness. 
 In his hand is not the staff of authority ; whether 
 it take the form of a royal sceptre or of a knightly 
 lance, whether it be the shepherdess's crook or the 
 fool's bauble, it is still the same, the magician's 
 wand. Whether it be the divining rod with which
 
 56 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 he draws up to light the most hidden streams of 
 nature's emotions, or the potential instrument of 
 Prosperous spells, which raises storms in the deep or 
 works spirit-music in the air, or the wicked imple- 
 ment with which the witches mingle their unholy 
 charm, its cunning and its might have no limit 
 among created things. But it is not a world of 
 stately order which he rules, nor are the laws of 
 unvarying rigour by which it is commanded. The 
 wildest. paroxysms of passion, the softest delicacy 
 of emotions ; the most extravagant accident of for- 
 tune, the tenderest incidents of home ; the king and 
 the beggar, the sage and the jester, the tyrant and 
 his victim ; the maiden from the cloister and the 
 peasant from the mountains ; the Italian school- 
 child and the Eoman matron ; the princes of Den- 
 mark and the lords of Troy all these and much 
 more are comprised in the vast embrace of his do- 
 minions. Scarcely a rule can be drawn from them, 
 yet each forms a model separately, a finished group 
 in combination. Unconsciously as he weaves his 
 work, apparently without pattern or design, he in- 
 terlaces and combines in its surface and its depth 
 images of the most charming variety and beauty ; 
 now the stern mosaic, without colouring, of an an-
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 57 
 
 cient pavement, now the flowing and intertwining 
 arabesque of the fanciful east; now the rude scenes 
 of ancient medieval tapestry like that of Beauvais, 
 and then the finished and richly tinted production 
 of the Gobelins loom. 
 
 And yet through this seeming chaos the light per- 
 meates, and that so clear and so brilliant as equally 
 to define and to dazzle. Every portion, every 
 fragment, every particle, stands forth separate and 
 particular, so as to be handled, measured, and 
 weighed in the balance of critic and poet. Each 
 has its own exact form and accurate place, so that, 
 while separately they are beautiful, united they are 
 perfect. Hence their combinations have become 
 sacred rules, and have given inviolable maxims 
 not only to English but to universal literature. 
 Germany, as we have seen, studies with love and 
 almost veneration every page of Shakespeare ; na- 
 tional sympathies and kindred speech make it not 
 merely easy but natural to all people of the Teutonic 
 family to assimilate their literature to that its high- 
 est standard. France has departed, or is fast de- 
 parting, from its favourite classical type, and adopt- 
 ing, though with unequal power, the broader and 
 more natural lines of the Shakespearian model.
 
 58 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 His practice is an example, his declarations are 
 oracles. 
 
 Still, as I have said, the wide region of intellec- 
 tual enjoyment over which our great bard exerts 
 dominion, is not one parcelled out or divided into 
 formal and state-like provinces. While the student 
 of science is reading in his chamber the great 
 " Principia" of Newton, he must keep before him 
 the solution of only one problem. On that his mind 
 must undistractedly rest, on that his power of thought 
 be intensely concentrated. Woe to him if imagina- 
 tion leads his reason into truant wanderings ; woe 
 if he drop the thread of finely-drawn deductions ! 
 He will find his wearied intelligence drowsily floun- 
 dering in a sea of swimming figures and evanescent 
 quantities, or floating amidst the fragments of 
 a shipwrecked diagram. But over Shakespeare 
 one may dream no less than pore ; we may drop 
 the book from our hand and the contents remain 
 equally before us. Stretched in the shade by a 
 brook in summer, or sunk in the reading chair by 
 the hearth in winter, in the imaginative vigour 
 of health, in the drooping spirits of indisposition, 
 one may read, and allow the trains of fancy which 
 spring up in any scene to pursue their own way,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 59 
 
 and minister their own varied pleasure or relief ; and 
 when by degrees we have become familiar with the 
 inexhaustible resources of his genius, there is scarcely 
 a want in mind or the affections that needs no higher 
 than human succour, which will not find in one or 
 other of his works that which will soothe suffering, 
 comfort grief, strengthen good desires, and present 
 some majestic example to copy, or some fearful 
 phantom. But when we endeavour to contem- 
 plate all his infinitely varied conceptions as 
 blended together in one picture, so as to take in, 
 if possible, at one glance the prodigious extent 
 of his prolific genius, we thereby build up what 
 he himself so beautifully called the " fabric of 
 a vision," matchless in its architecture, as in the 
 airiness of its materials. There are forms fantas- 
 tically sketched in cloud-shapes, such as Hamlet 
 showed to Polonius, in the midst of others rounded 
 and full, which open and unfold ever-changing 
 varieties, now gloomy and threatening, then 
 tipped with gold and tinted with azure, ever- 
 rolling, ever-moving, melting the one into the 
 other, or extricating each itself from the general 
 mass. Dwelling upon this maze of things and 
 imaginations, the most incongruous combinations
 
 60 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 come before the dreamy thought, fascinated, spell- 
 bound, and entranced. The wild Ardennes and 
 Windsor Park seem to run into one another, their 
 firs and their oaks mingle together ; the boisterous 
 ocean boiling round " the still vexed Bermoothes" 
 runs smoothly into the lagoons of Venice ; the old 
 grey porticos of republican Eome, like the transi- 
 tion in a dissolving view, are confused and entangled 
 with the slim and fluted pillars of a Gothic hall ; 
 here -the golden orb, dropped from the hand of a 
 captive king, rolls on the ground side by side with 
 a jester's mouldy skull both emblems of a common 
 fate in human things. Then the grave chief justice 
 seems incorporated in the bloated Falstaff ; King 
 John and his barons are wassailing with Poins 
 and Bardolph at an inn door ; Coriolanus and Shy- 
 lock are contending for the right of human sensi- 
 bilities ; Macbeth and Jacques are moralising 
 together on tenderness even to the brute. And so 
 of other more delicate creations of the poet's mind 
 Isabella and Ophelia, Desdemona and the Scotch 
 Thane's wife produce respectively composite figures 
 of inextricable confusion. And around and above 
 is that filmy world, Ariel and Titania and Peas- 
 blossom and Cobweb and Moth, who weave us a
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 61 
 
 gossamer cloud around the vision, dimming it 
 gradually before our eyes, in the last drooping 
 of weariness, or the last hour of wakefulness.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PROPOSAL FOR A: TERCENTENARY 
 MEMORIAL OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 "VT EARLY one quarter of the year especially dedi- 
 cated to the commemoration of our greatest 
 Poet has passed away, without anything approach- 
 ing to a practical determination on the mode of 
 permanently celebrating it having been reached. 
 London and Stratford-upon-Avon still hold con- 
 tending claims, and it will be difficult to adjust 
 them. 
 
 Nor can we consider passing and unenduring 
 tributes to his memory and fame sufficient for 
 marking so important an epoch. Speeches, 
 oratorios, theatrical representations, and such 
 other demonstrations of admiration, will end with 
 the breath that utters them, leaving not a wrack 
 behind, nor any vestige by which posterity may
 
 64 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 be able to judge of our age's appreciation of Shake- 
 speare, or of our power to give it any lasting ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Hence it seems agreed on all sides that a monu- 
 ment must be erected to him worthy of our time 
 and of his country ; such that, should art advance 
 or decline, it will at least show forth our love and 
 reverence for the Bard by proving that we did our 
 very best to honour him. 
 
 In our momentary or apparent embarrassment, 
 it can hardly be presumptuous to put forward a 
 new suggestion, not intended to interfere with this 
 idea, but designed to make it more complete. 
 
 And first let us assume that no monument, of 
 whatever form, that may be proposed and accepted, 
 can possibly be completed within the Shakespearian 
 year. If it have to be a mere statue, and no com- 
 petition be permitted, no artist of any reputation 
 would undertake to prepare first his bozzetto to be 
 approved, then his model, and, lastly, his perennial 
 statue in marble or bronze, with its becoming pe- 
 destal, rich in relief, so that it could be set up 
 within the twelvemonth. Still less could this haste, 
 inconsistent with perfection, be used in a memorial 
 of a more complicated character, and involving the 
 concurrence of various arts. If fresco, for instance,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 65 
 
 have to be employed, the architect must have 
 finished his work thoroughly before the painter can 
 commence. 
 
 These preliminary remarks are here introduced 
 to anticipate and disarm any objections, on the 
 score of required time, to the proposal about to 
 be submitted to public judgment. 
 
 We will now ask leave to make some observa- 
 tions on the characteristics which a monument 
 worthy of its proposed object should present. 
 
 First, if possible, it should not be altogether 
 local. A monument fixed and permanent in one 
 only place necessarily offers limited enjoyment and 
 improvement only to a few. Stratford does not 
 lie in the line of general circulation ; and if the 
 house and tomb of the great Poet attract compara- 
 tively but few pilgrims, we can hardly expect a 
 greater confluence of them to visit a modern me- 
 morial. London, on the other hand, is too vast 
 for any one centre to collect its inhabitants ; 
 while the many who travel to it from afar have 
 generally occupations or engagements of a different 
 character from the curiosity or devotion that would 
 lead them to any point of the metropolis for the 
 purpose of seeing Shakespeare's Tercentenary 
 Monument. And, seen once, it would be scarcely 
 
 F
 
 66 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 ever revisited. It may, therefore, be worth while 
 to consider whether such a memorial, connected 
 most specially with the present year, could not be 
 devised as would be within the reach of many, 
 which the merchant of Liverpool and Manchester, 
 or the educated country gentleman who seldom 
 brings his family to London, could enjoy, and 
 transmit to his children as a valuable demonstra- 
 tion of what England could do, and did, for the 
 greatest of her authors in 1864. 
 
 Further, it may be observed that a mere statue 
 or other sculptured monument will employ not 
 only few men who give lustre to the period, but 
 will necessarily present to futurity only an inade- 
 quate means of ascertaining what many would be 
 willing to do in order to hand down their names 
 as tributaries to that genius who can better inspire 
 them than any other native writer, if scope were 
 given them to bring the immense resources of art 
 possessed by the age and country to converge 
 on one point the leaving a memorial of him 
 worthy both of the commemorators and of the 
 commemorated. 
 
 In other words, the monument should not be 
 partial or limited, but embrace and transmit to 
 after-ages a fair exhibition of many combined
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 67 
 
 powers, never before united to honour any one 
 else. 
 
 But still more, we must not forget that Shake- 
 speare's character and merits belong essentially to 
 our literature. A literary monument seems there- 
 fore naturally called for ; or at any rate literature 
 should be the groundwork of anything done to 
 celebrate the name highest in its ranks. 
 
 Now, who will venture to do for Shakespeare 
 what he has done for himself ? He may indeed 
 say, what Horace did, that he has erected " a 
 monument more enduring than brass," that in his 
 day " he accomplished a work which neither the 
 elements in their fury, nor fire, nor hostile steel, 
 nor consuming time will ever destroy." Yet, 
 whatever is so far proposed to be done cannot be 
 more lasting than bronze, nor exempt from these 
 destructive agencies. Let our monument partake 
 of the imperishableness which the poet has gained ; 
 and let all our puny efforts go no further than to 
 add grace and give increased honour to him and 
 his works. 
 
 The simple and obvious way of meeting these 
 requisites and conditions seems to be 
 
 The publication of such an edition of Shake- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 speare's complete works as in its text, its typo- 
 graphy, and its illustration should be unrivalled. 
 
 Let us offer a few more detailed remarks on this 
 proposal. 
 
 I. THE TEXT. The selection of the purest text 
 must be entrusted to a small committee or sub- 
 committee of Shakespearian scholars of acknow- 
 ledged pre-eminence ; and this should be so chosen 
 and edited as to form, for ever, the admitted 
 standard of the' Poet's works. 
 
 It should be printed without notes, beyond any 
 various reading of real consequence and weight, at 
 the foot of the page. A short " argument " may 
 be prefixed to each drama ; though, as the edition 
 would not be intended for learners, this might be 
 dispensed with. 
 
 An entire volume might contain a glossary in 
 alphabetical order for the whole of Shakespeare's 
 works ; and an " apparatus," as it used to be 
 called, comprising a carefully prepared catalogue 
 of editions, and of every work, book, pamphlet, or 
 paper, that has ever appeared, at home or abroad, 
 on his writings. Whatever is known of his life, 
 and all remaining memorials of him, would find a 
 place in this supplementary volume.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 69 
 
 We need hardly add that this edition would 
 include the sonnets, and any other compositions 
 connected with Shakespeare's name. 
 
 II. THE TYPOGRAPHY. It would be presump- 
 tuous in us to suggest anything on this head, 
 further than to express a hope, or rather an assur- 
 ance, that this great requisite for carrying out our 
 proposal would be undertaken by one or more of 
 those great masters in the art of printing who 
 abound in England, and have already produced 
 works which place the press of this country on a 
 level, at least, with that of any other. In type, in 
 paper, in perfection of press-work, it would go hard 
 with us indeed if we could not bring forward in 
 honour of Shakespeare such a specimen of typo- 
 graphical skill and taste as has never yet been 
 witnessed. We feel sure that it would be accepted 
 by the present generation, and treasured by ages 
 to come, as the unrivalled production of the press, 
 rising as superior to every previous effort as the 
 author whom it perpetuates is to all other writers 
 in our language. 
 
 And that it will probably never be reached in 
 times to come may be secured by the union, in this 
 publication, of abilities not easily brought together,
 
 70 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 except by such a grand national undertaking. To 
 this great point we proceed. 
 
 III. THE ILLUSTRATIONS. These we will classify 
 under four distinct heads. 
 
 1. To each play should be prefixed an engraving 
 of an appropriate sketch, expressly drawn by some 
 artist of the highest class and of acknowledged re- 
 putation. Thirty-two or thirty -four will be required ; 
 and we may hope that, without requiring dupli- 
 cates from any one, the United Kingdom can 
 furnish artists equal to their production. It need 
 not be said that these drawings should be of 
 exquisite finish, works of love, worthy of their in- 
 tention, and of the place they are destined to 
 hold in connection with the greatest name in our 
 literature. 
 
 Naturally a scene would be chosen for each sub- 
 ject which would suggest a perfect and character- 
 istic composition ; and which of Shakespeare's 
 dramas contains not one such at least, in a true 
 artist's estimation? Indeed, much has already 
 been done in preparation for such an application of 
 British art. Our annual exhibitions seldom fail to 
 present to us subjects taken from our national Bard. 
 We have seen "Hamlet with the Players," "Wolsey
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 7 1 
 
 at the Abbey-Gate," " Ophelia floating on the 
 Stream," "Malvolio," "Puck," and fifty other cha- 
 racters have given subjects to smaller paintings. Nor 
 must we forget " King Lear and his Daughters " 
 among the frescoes of our greatest public building. 
 
 But these greater illustrations need riot be 
 necessarily historical ; every branch of art may 
 find its place. Will not the " beeches and ferns " 
 of England be characteristic of Windsor Forest, 
 better than a mere scene in its play ? And have 
 we not an artist from whom " The Tempest" would 
 receive a pictorial description worthy to stand side 
 by side with Shakespeare's text ? 
 
 Perhaps the great difficulty to be here en- 
 countered is in the engraving of such works. For 
 they must not be entrusted to xylography ; and, 
 before evanescent photography has driven the 
 immortalizing graver from the field of art, let us 
 in this work leave to posterity a specimen of our 
 prowess on copper or steel. 
 
 From the purest line-engraving to the more 
 popular and more complicated, though less 
 artistic, processes by which so much effect is pro- 
 duced in modern calchography, let us put on record 
 for ever what the art of Marc Antonio could do in
 
 72 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 England in 1864. The style of each artist will 
 naturally suggest that of its engraving. 
 
 2. Each act, if possible, should have in the 
 middle of the page one polychrome picture, such as 
 adorn so admirably Mr. James Doyle's "Annals," 
 in which the costumes, arms, furniture, dwellings, 
 architecture of the piece, with the arts and customs 
 of its place and time, may be accurately repre- 
 sented. From these smaller illustrations the play 
 ought to be able to be acted by any persons 
 wishing to be exact in scenery and costume in any 
 country. 
 
 3. The perfection to which art has arrived in 
 colour-printing would enable us to complete our 
 illustrations by borders such as have never before 
 been produced. It would enable many artists 
 who represent amongst us decorative art, illumina- 
 tion, and arabesque, once so highly prized, to con- 
 tribute their share towards this intended work, and 
 add to its singular beauty. 
 
 Each play would have its own border, deco- 
 rating two pages, or an open leaf, in colour. 
 
 Now, it is one of the great gifts and glories of 
 Shakespeare to have touched with his wand of light 
 every period of civilized art, from the early dawn 
 of literature to his own time. To record this
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 73 
 
 universality of connection between his writings and 
 art, it is proposed that the borders should com- 
 memorate the character of art flourishing in the 
 country and period to which the drama belongs. 
 We will make a rough outline of the connections 
 which would result. 
 
 Artistic periods. Plays. 
 
 ARCHAIC GREEK AND ASIATIC 
 (^Egina and Lycian Mar- 
 bles), Troilus and Cressida. 
 CLASSICAL GREEK, Comedy of Errors Tiinon. 
 ETRUSCAN (Corioli and ancient 
 
 Rome), Coriolanus. 
 
 CLASSICAL ROMAN (Baths of 
 
 Titus, ^-c.), Julius Caesar. 
 
 EGYPTIAN, Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 CELTIC (interlacing, as in Irish}, King Lear Cymbeline. 
 SCANDINAVIAN, Hamlet. 
 
 MEDIAEVAL ENGLISH (MSS.), John to Richard III. 
 SCOTCH, Macbeth. 
 
 FRENCH, All's Well that Ends Well. 
 
 SPANISH, Love's Labour Lost. 
 
 RENAISSANCE (Loggie, Giulio 
 
 Clovio, (J-c.), Henry VIII. 
 
 ITALIAN CINQUECENTO, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, Ro- 
 meo and Juliet. 
 VENETIAN, Othello Merchant of Venice. 
 
 The whole history of decorative art, which may
 
 74 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 be called the history of taste, would thus be as- 
 sociated from its dawn to the commencement of its 
 decay with our great Bard. He will be shown to 
 have sung of whatever in time or place was worthy 
 of his genius. Sometimes solid monuments, like 
 " the Stones of Venice," will have to guide the 
 artist's pencil ; but often, as in the matchless series 
 of English historical plays, our own manuscripts, 
 with their splendid illuminations, will give a com- 
 plete course of our decorative art. 
 
 And after historical decoration shall have been 
 thus exhausted, there will still remain six or seven 
 plays, unattached, so to speak, in which would be 
 room for the Flora, the Fauna, and the Fairydom 
 of Shakespeare to disport round the margins of his 
 ample page under the luxurious but judicious 
 guidance of poetical artists. 
 
 4. There would still remain occupation for wood- 
 engraving, in titles, initial letters, and tail-pieces, 
 analogous to the subjects of the plays. 
 
 Naturally the binding will be made to recall the 
 periods when the taste and beauty of the outward 
 covering gave earnest of the splendour which it 
 protected. 
 
 IV. THE MANAGEMENT OF THIS PROPOSAL. There
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 75 
 
 is not the slightest idea of proposing any interfer- 
 ence with the existing Centenary Committee, which 
 includes in itself probably all, at any rate most, of 
 the persons best capable of carrying this scheme 
 into successful execution. 
 
 All that would be required from it would be a 
 delegation of some of its functions to sub-com- 
 mittees, which would work harmoniously together, 
 settle the details of what is here presented only in 
 block, obtain co-operation, distribute the work, and 
 set it a-going. But the groundwork of such sub- 
 committees exists, and may easily be built on. 
 Probably, in any other country, no small part 
 would have been allotted, in what the country 
 wished to do, to such societies as have a national 
 character and representation for such undertakings. 
 In England too, had science been in question 
 had it been proposed to erect a memorial to 
 Newton, still more, had it been suggested to com- 
 bine with it a perfect edition of his works, no one 
 can doubt that the leaders in such a movement 
 would have been the great scientific Societies, such 
 as the Royal and the Astronomical. 
 
 And here, why should not the established, and 
 now recognized, Committee for the Shakespeare 
 Memorial call in the assistance of such Societies as
 
 76 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 that of Literature, or the Philological, for the text, 
 and of the Royal Academy for the illustration, of 
 the work that has been described ? These bodies 
 could not, indeed, act corporately, but they could 
 depute a certain number of persons to represent 
 them, active and able, as well as willing, to devote 
 themselves to the undertaking ; and either belong- 
 ing to them already, or easily created honorary 
 members. 
 
 Such a compound, not over-numerous, committee 
 once formed, would suggest, without jealousy, the 
 addition of other representative members ; for ex- 
 ample, from the Universities, from the British 
 Museum, and from other learned associations in 
 London and in other cities.* 
 
 V. We will throw into our concluding section a 
 few miscellaneous observations. 
 
 1. It might seem selfish to confine our tribute 
 to Shakespeare to the efforts and contributions of 
 our own country. We should not refuse advice or 
 offers of assistance from abroad. Should we find 
 an insufficiency of artists willing to give a helping 
 hand at home, we feel sure that the land of Schlegel 
 and of Schiller, of the critics and poets who have 
 
 * As the Arundel, the Surtees, &c.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 77 
 
 so thoroughly appreciated our Bard, would be as 
 ready to illustrate his beauties with the pencil as it 
 has been with the pen. The schools of Munich and 
 of Berlin, of Vienna and Diisseldorf, could furnish 
 men who would not refuse to assist us if necessary. 
 But, though we feel sure on this point, would it 
 not be a gracious offer to make to any of these 
 great schools, that it would undertake the entire 
 illustration, on the plan adopted, of some one play, 
 congenial to German taste and character ? 
 
 2. The proposed plan will, no doubt, be expen- 
 sive, for though, doubtless, the noble and patriotic 
 feelings of many artists will impel them to work 
 for the national glory and their admiration of 
 Shakespeare, much must be adequately remune- 
 rated ; and the mechanical labour cannot be 
 obtained free-cost. But the scheme ought to be 
 remunerative. No one, who is able, will grudge a 
 subscription, which, being spread over several 
 years, will give a return, in the shape of an un- 
 equalled Memorial of the Tercentenary Commemo- 
 ration of our Poet, one portable, personal, and at 
 all times accessible. Let due calculations be made 
 for something magnificent, if you please ; then add 
 margin enough to help or originate other purposes. 
 
 3. For instance, we cannot but fear that the
 
 78 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 attempt to provide a monument out of the common 
 line of such memorials may fail from many causes. 
 A statue of Shakespeare must represent Shakes- 
 peare, and nothing more. He is too familiar to us 
 as himself to be idealized, attitudinized, or thrown 
 into raptures. The noble, well-known face must 
 be before us ; and there must be no startling, or 
 allegorical, still less mythological, accompaniments. 
 All this reduces a sculptured monument to a small 
 compass. If erected in a vast open space, you 
 must either make it colossal, or it will dwindle 
 down to disproportion. Let the Achilles, in the 
 Park, be a warning to us not to attempt the 
 gigantic. 
 
 It has struck us that the most suitable site for 
 a statue of Shakespeare should combine several 
 conditions easily attainable. It should be in a 
 central position, among his people, and daily visi- 
 ble without effort, especially by those whose very 
 occupation is to honour him. and recognize his 
 merits. It should be amidst buildings that can 
 give it right proportions even to unpractised eyes, 
 which have no scale of dimensions without the fa- 
 miliar measures of ordinary objects. It should be 
 placed where these objects would be in natural 
 correlation with him whom it represents.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 79 
 
 Such a site, it appears to us, is to be found in 
 the area in front of the British Museum, our 
 only and noble temple of our literature and of 
 ancient art. A statue in bronze, of large propor- 
 tions, placed on a noble pedestal, adorned with two 
 inscriptions in English and in Latin, and two 
 relievos representing in some way the character of 
 his unrivalled genius, would, if placed there, be 
 visible all day and every day, to every passer-by, 
 without jealous guardianship ; would be saluted by 
 every student as he passed on to pursue his own 
 studies, and by the tens of thousands who yearly 
 visit the Galleries, and would be, where it should 
 be, at the very gate of that realm over which the 
 memory of Shakespeare reigns supreme. 
 
 4. Indeed, it would show the way to that real 
 Memorial of himself, which the Poet has raised, 
 and which, in its most perfect and precious form, 
 would be preserved within. 
 
 For we would finally suggest that two copies of 
 the proposed edition of Shakespeare's works should 
 be printed on vellum. 
 
 One should have incorporated in it all the 
 original drawings, plain or coloured, furnished by 
 the artists of every class for its embellishment. 
 Thus posterity would be able to see, not in trans-
 
 80 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 cripts, however accurate, but in the very pencil- 
 strokes of the artist, the character arid perfection 
 of his work. 
 
 The second copy the committee would naturally 
 offer as a worthy tribute to the Sovereign whose 
 reign has been especially graced by the occurrence 
 in, we may hope, its yet long duration, of the 
 Tercentenary Commemoration of England's first 
 literary Son. 
 
 N. CARD. WISEMAN. 
 
 London, March 22nd, 1864. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BT MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 
 NEW WORKS IN PREPARATION. 
 
 MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT COMBERMERE, G.C.B., &c. 
 From his Family Papers. 2 vols. 8vo, with Portraits and other 
 Illustrations. 
 
 THE LIFE OF HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL 
 
 WISEMAN. Any Persons possessing Manuscripts, Letters, &c., 
 or having the knowledge of any facts of importance connected 
 with the Life of His Eminence, are requested to communicate by 
 letter with the Right Rev. H. E. MANNING, D.D., care of Messrs. 
 HURST & BLACKETT, 13, Great Marlborough Street. 
 
 HISTORIC PICTURES. By A. BAILLIE COCH- 
 
 RANE, M.P. 2 vols. 21s. (Now Ready.) 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT, Author of " The Life of the Rev. Edward 
 Irving." 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 YACHTING ROUND THE WEST OF ENG- 
 
 LAND. By the Rev. A. G. L'ESTRANGE. 1 vol. 8vo, Illustrated. 
 
 VIOLET OSBORNE. By the LADY EMILY PON- 
 
 SONBY, Author of " The Discipline of Life." 3 vols. (Now Ready.) 
 
 BRIGAND LIFE IN ITALY. By COUNT MAPFEI. 
 
 2 vols. (Now Ready.) 
 
 ADVENTURES AMONGST THE DYAKS OF 
 
 BORNEO. By FREDERICK BOYLE, Esq. 1 vol. 8vo, with Illustrations. 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF LIFE AT HOME AND 
 
 ABROAD. By Lord EUSTACE CECIL, Lieut.-Colonel Coldstream 
 Guards. 8vo. 
 
 ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN. By GEORGE 
 
 MAC DONALD, M.A., Author of " David Elginbrod," &c. 3 vols. 
 
 MY LIFE AND RECOLLECTIONS. By the 
 
 Hon. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY. Vols. 3 and 4, completing the Work. 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN FLORENCE. By COUNT 
 
 CHARLES ARRIVABENE, Author of " Italy under Victor Emmanuel." 
 2 vols. 
 
 SPORT AND SPORTSMEN: A BOOK OF 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. By CHARLES STRETTON, Esq. 2 vols. 
 
 AGNES. By MRS. OLIPHANT. 3 vols. 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. By CARDINAL 
 
 WISEMAN. 1 vol. 8vo, 5s. (Now Ready.)
 
 13, GREAT MARYBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 
 LIST OF NEW WORKS. 
 
 A JOURNEY FROM LONDON TO PERSE- 
 
 POLIS; including WANDERINGS IN DAGHESTAN, GEORGIA, 
 ARMENIA, KURDISTAN, MESOPOTAMIA, AND PERSIA. 
 By J. USSHER, Esq., F.R.G.S. Royal 8vo, with numerous beautiful 
 Coloured Illustrations. 42s. Elegantly bound. 
 
 " This work does not yield to any recent book of travels in extent and variety of 
 interest Its title, ' From London to Pereepolis,' is well chosen and highly sugges- 
 tive. A wonderful chain of association is suspended from these two points, and the 
 traveller goes along its line, gathering link after link into his hand, each gemmed 
 with thought, knowledge, speculation, and adventure. The reader will feel that 
 in closing this memorable book he takes leave of a treasury of knowledga The 
 whole book is interesting, and its unaffected style and quick spirit of observation 
 lend an unfailing freshness to its pages. The illustrations are beautiful, and have 
 been executed with admirable taste and judgment" Pott. 
 
 " This work is hi every way creditable .to the author, who has produced a mass 
 of pleasant reading, both entertaining and instructive. Mr. Ussher's journey may 
 be defined as a complete oriental grand tour of the Asiatic west-central district 
 He started down the Danube, making for Odessa. Thence, having duly ' done ' the 
 Crimea, he coasted the Circassian shore in a steamer to Poti, and from that to 
 Tiflis. This was the height of summer, and, the season being favourable, he crossed 
 the Dariel Pass northwards, turned to the east, and visited the mountain fastnesses 
 of Shamil's country, recently conquered by the Russians. Thence he returned to 
 Tiflis by the old Persian province of Shirvan, along the Caspian, by Derbend and 
 the famous fire-springs of Baku. From Tiflis he went to Gumri, and over the 
 frontier to Kars, and the splendid ruins of Ani, and through the Enssian territory 
 to the Turkish frontier fortress of Bayazid, stopping by the way at Erivan and the 
 great monastery of Etchmiadzin. From Bayazid he went to Van, and saw all the 
 chief points of interest on the lake of that name ; thence to Bitlis and Diarbekir. 
 From Diarbekir he went to Mosul by the upper road, visited Nineveh, paid his 
 respects to the winged bulls and all our old friends there, and floated on his raft of 
 inflated skins down the Tigris to Baghdad. From Mosul he made an excursion to 
 the devil-worshipping country, and another from Baghdad to Hilleh and the Birs 
 Nimrud, or so-called Tower of BabeL After resting hi the city of the Caliphs, he 
 followed the track of his illustrious predecessor, Sindbad, to Bassora, only on board 
 of a different craft, having got a passage hi the steamer Comet ; and the English 
 monthly sailing packet took him from Bassora across the gulf to Bnshire. From 
 thence he went to Tehran over the ' broad dominions of the king of kings,' stopping 
 at all the interesting places, particularly at Persepolis ; and from Tehran returned 
 home through Armenia by Trebisonde and the Black Sea." Saturday Review. 
 
 " This is a book of travel of which no review can give an adequate idea. The 
 extent of country traversed, the number and beauty of the coloured illustrations, 
 and the good sense, humour, and information with which it abounds, all tend to 
 increase the author's just meed of praise, while they render the critic's task all the 
 harder. We must, after all, trust to our readers to explore for themselves the many 
 points of amusement, interest and beauty which the book contains. We can assure 
 them that they will not meet with a single page of dulnesa Mr. Ussher handles 
 such topics as Persepolis, Nineveh, and the cities of the Eastern world, with sin- 
 gular completeness, and leaves the ordinary reader nothing to desire. The coloured 
 illustrations are really perfect of their kind. Merely as a collection of spirited, well- 
 coloured engravings they are worth the cost of the whole volume." Herald. 
 
 "Mr. Ussher went by the Danube to Constantinople, crossed thence to Sebastopol, 
 and passed through the Crimea to Kertch, and so on to Poti From Poti he went 
 to Teflis, and made thence an excursion to Gunib and Baku on the Caspian. The 
 record of this journey is the most interesting part of the book. Having returned to 
 Teflis, Mr. Ussher visited Gnmri and Kars, and went thence to Lake Van, and so by 
 Diarbekr and Mosul to Baghdad. From Baghdad he went to Babylon and Kerbela, 
 and returning to Baghdad, descended the river to Basra, and crossed to Bushire. 
 Thence he went by Shiraz and Isfahan to Tehran, and returned to Europe by the 
 Tabreez and Trebisonde route. Tho reader will find the author of this pleasant 
 volume an agreeable companion. He is a good observer, and describes well what 
 he sees." Athtnxuin. 
 
 " A truly magnificent work, adorned with gorgeously-coloured illustrations. We 
 are lured over its pages with a pleasant fascination, and derive no little information 
 from so agreeable a cicerone as Mr. Ussher." Sun.
 
 13, GREAT MAKLBOHOUOH STREET. 
 
 MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 NEW WORKS Continued. 
 
 THE LIFE OF JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. From 
 
 his Private Correspondence and Family Papers, in the possession 
 of JOSEPH MATER, Esq., F.S.A., FRANCIS WEDGWOOD, Esq., C. DAR- 
 WIN, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., Miss WEDGWOOD, and other Original 
 Sources. With an Introductory Sketch of the Art of Pottery in 
 England. By ELIZA METEYARD. Dedicated, by permission, to the 
 Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Vol. 1 , 
 8vo, with Portraits and numerous Illustrations, price 21s. elegantly 
 bound, is now ready. The work will be completed in one more 
 volume. 
 
 COURT AND SOCIETY FROM ELIZABETH 
 
 TO ANNE, Edited from the Papers at Kimbolton, by the DUKE 
 OF MANCHESTER. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo, with Fine Portraits. 
 
 " The Duke of Manchester has done a welcome service to the lover of gossip and 
 secret histoiy by publishing these family papers. Persons who like to see greatness 
 without the plumes and mail in which history presents it, will accept these volumes 
 with hearty thanks to their noble editor. In them will be found something new 
 about many men and women in whom the reader can never cease to feel an inte- 
 rest much about the divorce of Henry the Eighth and Catherine of Arragon a 
 great deal about the love affairs of Queen Elizabeth something about Bacon, and 
 (indirectly) about Shakspeare more about Lord Essex and Lady Rich the very 
 strange story of Walter Montagu, poet, profligate, courtier, pervert, secret agent, abbot 
 many details of the Civil War and Cromwell's Government, andof the Restoration 
 much that is new about the Revolution and the Settlement, the exiled Court of St. 
 Germains, the wars of William of Orange, the campaigns of Maryborough, the in- 
 trigues of Duchess Sarah, and the town life of fine ladies and gentlemen during the 
 days of Anne. With all this is mingled a good deal of gossip about the loves of great 
 poets, the frailties of great beauties, the rivalries of great wits, the quarrels of great 
 peers. " A thenxum. 
 
 " These volumes are sure to excite curiosity. A great deal of interesting matter is 
 here collected, from sources which are not within everybody's reach." Times. 
 
 " The public are indebted to the noble author for contributing, from the archives 
 of his ancestral seat, many important documents otherwise inaccessible to the histo- 
 rical inquirer, as well as for the lively, picturesque, and piquant sketches of Court and 
 Society, which render his work powerfully attractive to the general reader. The 
 work contains varied information relating to secret Court intrigues, numerous nar- 
 ratives of an exciting nature, and valuable materials for authentic history. Scarcely 
 any personage whose name figured before the world during the long period embraced 
 by the volumes is passed over hi silence." Morning Post. 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING, 
 
 Minister of the National Scotch Church, London. Illustrated by 
 his Journal and Correspondence. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Fourth and 
 Cheaper Edition, Revised, in 1 vol., with Portrait, 5s., bound. 
 
 " We who read these memoirs must own to the nobility of Irving's character, the 
 grandeur of his amis, and the extent of his powers. His friend Carlyle bears this testi- 
 mony to his worth: 'I call him, on the whole, the best man I have ever, after trial 
 enough, found in tfhis world, or hope to find.' A character such as this is deserving of 
 study, and his life ought to be written. Mrs. Oliphant has undertaken the work and 
 has produced a biography of considerable merit The author fuUy understands her 
 hero, and sets forth the incidents of his career with the skill of a practised hand. The 
 book is a good book on a most interesting theme." Times. 
 
 " Mrs. Ohphant's ' Life of Edward Irving ' supplies a long-felt desideratum. It is 
 copious, earnest, and eloquent. On every page there is the impress of a large and 
 masterly comprehension, and of a bold, fluent, and poetic skill of portraiture. Irving 
 as a man and as a pastor is not only fully sketched, but exhibited with many broad, 
 powerful, and life-like touches, which leave a strong impression." Edinburgh Review. 
 
 "A truly interesting and most affecting memoir. Irving's life ought to have a niche 
 in every gallery of religious biography. There are few lives that will be fuller of 
 instruction, interest, and consolation." Saturday Jierivir.
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOBOUOH STREET. 
 
 MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 NEW WORKS Continued. 
 
 MY LIFE AND RECOLLECTIONS. By the 
 
 HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY. 2 vols. 8vo, with Portrait. 30s. 
 
 Among the other distinguished persons mentioned in this work are : Kings George 
 IIL and IV., and William IV. ; Qneens Charlotte, Caroline, and Victoria ; the 
 Prince of Wales; the Dukes of Kent, Cumberland, Sussex, Cambridge, d'Aumale, 
 Wellington, Norfolk, Richmond, Beaufort, Bedford, Devonshire, St Albans, 
 Manchester, Portland; the Marquises of Anglesea, Buckingham, Downshire, 
 Waterford, Tavistock, Londonderry, Clanricarde, Breadalbane, Worcester; 
 Lords Mulgrave, Conynham, Clanwilliam, Wynford, Palmerston, Bathurst, 
 Cantelnpe, Eoden, Eldon, Grey, Holland, Coleraine, Eokeby, Monster, Chelms- 
 ford, Ducie, Alvanley, Chesterfield, Sefton, Derby, Vane, Mexborough, George 
 Bentinck, Edward Somerset, Fitzclarence, Egremont, Count d'Orsay ; the Bishop 
 of Oxford, Cardinal Wiseman ; Sirs Lumley Skeffington, William Wynn, Percy 
 Shelley, Godfrey Webster, Samuel Romilly, Matthew Tierney, Francis Burdett ; 
 Messrs. Fox, Sheridan, Whitbread, Brummell, Byng, Townsend, Bernal, Maginn, 
 Cobden, Bright, O'Connell, Crockford, &c. ; the Duchesses of Devonshire, Gor- 
 don, Eutland, Argyle ; Ladies Clermont, Berkeley, Shelley, Guest, Fitzhardinge, 
 Bury, Blessington, Craven, Essex, Strangford, Paget; Mesdames Fitzherbert, 
 Contts, Jordan, BUUngton, Mardyn, Shelley, Misses Landon, Kemble, Paton, &c. 
 " A book unrivalled hi its position hi the range of modern literature." Times. 
 " There is ft large fund of amusement hi these volumes. The details of the au- 
 thor's life are replete with much that is interesting. A book so brimful of anecdote 
 cannot but be successful." Athen&um. 
 
 " This work contains a great deal of amusing matter ; and that it will create a 
 sensation no one can doubt Mr. Berkeley can write delightfully when he pleases. 
 His volumes will, of course, be extensively read, and, as a literary venture, may be 
 pronounced a success." Pott. 
 
 "A clever, freespoken man of the world, son of an earl with 70,000 a-year, who 
 has lived from boyhood the life of a club-man, sportsman, and man of fashion, has 
 thrown his best stories about himself and his friends into an anecdotic autobiogra- 
 phy. Of course it is eminently readable. Mr. Grantley Berkeley writes easily and well. 
 The book is full of pleasant stories, all told as easily and clearly as if they were 
 related at a club-window, and all with point of greater or less piquancy." Spectator. 
 
 HAUNTED LONDON. By WALTER THORNBURY. 
 
 1 vol. 8vo, with numerous Illustrations by F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. 
 21s., elegantly bound. 
 
 " Haunted London is a pleasant book." Athenaeum. 
 
 "Pleasant reading is Mr. Thornbury's ' Haunted London ' a gossiping, historical, 
 antiquarian, topographical volume, amusing both to the Londoner and the country 
 cousin." Star. 
 
 " Mr. Thornbnry points out to us the legendary houses, the great men's birth- 
 places and tombs, the haunts of poets, the scenes of martyrdom, the battle-fields of 
 old factions. The book overflows with anecdotical gossip". Mr. Fan-holt's drawings 
 add alike to its value and interest" iVbte? and Queries. 
 
 "As pleasant a book as well could be, forming a very handsome volume a vol- 
 ume worthy of being pronounced an acquisition either for the table or the book- 
 shelf. A capital title is ' Haunted London ' meaning by that not merely localities 
 like Cock Lane, but all London. For is it not haunted, this London of ours? Haunted 
 happily, by ghosts of memories that will not be laid. What footsteps have not 
 traversed these causeways, inhabited these dwel ing-houses, prayed hi these 
 churches, wept in these graveyards, laughed hi these theatres? And of all these 
 Mr. Thornbury discourses shrewdly, like an observant man of the world ; grace- 
 fully, like a skilled man of letters ; lovingly, like a sympathizing fellow-creature ; 
 courtier and playwright, student and actress, statesman and mountebank, he has 
 an eye for them all Saunter with him down any street he may seem fain to con- 
 duct yon through, and before you get to the end of it we wager you will be wiser 
 than at starting certainly, beyond any doubt of it, you will have been entertained." 
 Sun.
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUOH STREET. 
 
 MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 NEW WORKS Continued. 
 
 A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF THIRTEEN 
 
 YEARS' SERVICE AMONGST THE WILD TRIBES OF 
 KHONDISTAN, FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF HUMAN 
 SACRIFICE. By Major-General JOHN CAMPBELL, C.B. ] vol. 8vo, 
 with Illustrations. 
 
 " Major-General Campbell's book is one of thrilling interest, and must be pro- 
 nounced the most remarkable narrative of the present season." Athenxum. 
 
 THE DESTINY OF NATIONS, AS INDICATED 
 
 IN PROPHECY. By the Rev. JOHN CUMMING, D.D. 1 vol. 7s. 6d. 
 
 " Among the subjects expounded by Dr. Gumming in this interest : ng volume are 
 The Little Horn, or The Papacy ; The Waning Crescent, Turkey ; The Lost Ten 
 Tribes ; and the Future of the Jews and Judea, Africa, France, Russia, America, Great 
 Britain, &c." Observer. "One of the most able of Dr. Cummiug's works." Messenger. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF JANE CAMERON, FEMALE 
 
 CONVICT. By a Prison Matron, Author of "Female Life in 
 Prison." 2 vols. 21s. 
 
 " This narrative, as we can well believe, is truthful in every important particular 
 a faithful chronicle of a woman's fall and rescue. It is a book that ought to be widely 
 read." Examiner. " There can be no doubt as to the interest of the book, which, 
 moreover, is very well written." Atttenxum. 
 
 " Once or twice a-year one rises from reading a book with a sense of real gratitude 
 to the author, and this book is one of these. There are many ways in which it has 
 a rare value. The artistic touches in this book are worthy of De Foe." Reader. 
 
 TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF AN OFFI- 
 CER'S WIFE IN INDIA, CHINA, AND NEW ZEALAND. 
 By Mrs. MUTER, Wife of Lieut.-Colonel D. D. MUTER, 13th (Prince 
 Albert's) Light Infantry. 2 vols. 21s. 
 
 " Mrs. Muter's travels deserve to be recommended, as combining instruction and 
 amusement in a more than ordinary degree. The work has the interest of a romance 
 added to that of history." Atherueum, 
 
 TRAVELS ON HORSEBACK IN MANTCHU 
 
 TARTARY : being a Summer's Ride beyond the Great Wall of 
 China. By GEORGE FLEMING, Military Train. 1 vol. royal 8vo, 
 with Map and 50 Illustrations. 
 
 " Mr. Fleming's narrative is a most charming one. He has an untro-1 Jen region to 
 tell of, and he photographs it and its people and their ways. Life-like descriptions are 
 interspersed with personal anecdotes, local legends, and stories of adventure, some of 
 them revealing no common artistic power." Spectator. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE 
 
 ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE DISGRACE OF CHIEF 
 JUSTICE COKE. By SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 ADVENTURES AND RESEARCHES amoncr the 
 
 ANDAMAN ISLANDERS. By Dr. MOUAT, F.R.G.S., &c "l vol. 
 demy 8vo, with Illustrations. 
 
 " Dr. Mouat's book, whilst forming a most important and valuable contribution 
 to ethnology, will be read with interest by the general reader." At/iemetcn. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF QUEEN HORTENSE, MOTHER 
 
 OF NAPOLEON III. Cheaper Edition, in 1 vol. 6s. 
 
 " A biography of the beautiful and nnhappy Queen, more satisfactory than any we 
 have yet met with." Daily tfeics.
 
 13, GREAT MABLBOROCGH STREET. 
 
 MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 NEW WORKS Continued, 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE OPERA. By BEN- 
 
 JAWS LUMLEY, Twenty Years Director of Her Majesty's Theatre. 
 8vo, -with Portrait of the Author by Count D'Orsay. 16s. 
 
 " Mr. Lnmley's book, with all it sparkling episodes, is really a well-digested his- 
 tory of an institution of social importance in its time, interspersed with sound 
 opinions and shrewd and mature reflections." Times. 
 
 " As a repertory of anecdote, we have not for a long while met with anything at 
 all comparable to these unusually brilliant and most diversified Reminiscences. They 
 reveal the Twenty Years' Director of Her Majesty's Theatre to us in the thick and 
 throng of all his radiant associations. They take us luringly as it were, led by the 
 button-hole behind the scenes, in every sense of that decoying and profoundly 
 attractive phrase. They introduce us to all the stars now singly, now in very con- 
 stellations. They bring us rapidly, delightfully, and exhilaratingly to a knowledge 
 eo ultimate of what has really been doing there hi the Realm of Song, not only be- 
 hind the scenes and hi the green-room, but hi the reception-apartment of the Director 
 himself, that we are au courant with all the whims and oddities of the strange world 
 in which he fills so high and responsible a position. Reading Mr. Lumley, we now 
 know more than we have ever known before of such Queens of the Lyric stage as 
 Pasta, Catalini, Malibran, Grisi, Sontag, and Piccoloniini of such light-footed fairies 
 of the ballet as Taglionu Fanny Ellsler, and Cerito of such primi tenori as Rubini, 
 Mario, Gardoni, and Giuglini of such baritones as Ronconi and Tambnrini or of 
 such bassi profondi as the wondrous Staudigl and the mighty Lablache. Nay, Mr. 
 Lnmley takes us out of the glare of the footlights, away from the clang of the 
 orchestra, into the dream-haunted presence of the great composers of the age, bring- 
 ing us face to face, as it were, among others, with Rossini, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, 
 Verdi, Balfe, and Donizetti He lets us into the mysteries of his correspondence- 
 now with Count Cavour, now with Prince Metternich for, hi his doings, hi his 
 movements, in his negotiations, Sovereigns, Prime Ministers, Ambassadors, and 
 Governments are, turn by turn, not merely courteously, but directly and profoundly 
 interested ! Altogether, Mr. Lnmley's book is an enthralling one. It is written with 
 sparkling vivacity, and is delightfully interesting throughout" Sun. 
 
 " Everyone ought to read Mr. Lumley's very attractive ' Reminiscences of the 
 Opera.' In the fashionable, dramatic, and literary worlds its cordial welcome is 
 assured. It is a most entertaining volume. Anecdote succeeds to anecdote hi this 
 pleasant book with delightful fluency." Post. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. By VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Authorized English Translation. 1 vol. 8vo, 12s. 
 
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 M. Hugo sketches the life of Shakespeare, and makes of it a very effective picture. 
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 Shakespeare painted by a foreign hand. The biographical details are manipulated 
 by a master's hand, and consequently there is an agreeable air of novelty even 
 about the best known circumstances." Athenaeum. 
 
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 By ANNA D'A. 1 vol., with Illustrations. 
 
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 THE THIRTY-FOURTH EDITION FOrt 1865 IS NOW READY. 
 
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 occupies on the tables of Her Majesty and the Nobility. 
 
 LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS. 
 
 Historical View of the Peerage. 
 
 Parliamentary Koll of the House of Lords. 
 
 English, Scotch, and Irish Peers, in their 
 orders of Precedence. 
 
 Alphabetical List of Peers of Great Britain 
 and the United Kingdom, holding supe- 
 rior rank in the Scotch or Irish Peerage. 
 
 Alphabetical list of Scotch and Irish Peers, 
 holding superior titles in the Peerage of 
 Great Britain and the United Kingdom. 
 
 A Collective list of Peers, in their order of 
 Precedence. 
 
 Table of Precedency among Men. 
 
 Table of Precedency among Women. 
 
 The Queen and the Eoyal Family. 
 
 Peers of the Blood RoyaL 
 
 The Peerage, alphabetically arranged. 
 
 Families of such Extinct Peers as have left 
 Widows or Issue. 
 
 Alphabetical List of the Surnames of all the 
 Peers. 
 
 The Archbishops and Bishops of England, 
 Ireland, and the Colonies. 
 
 The Baronetage alphabetically arranged. 
 
 Alphabetical List of Surnames assumed by 
 members of Noble Familiea 
 
 Alphabetical List of the Second Titles of 
 Peers, usually borne by their Eldest 
 Sons. 
 
 Alphabetical Index to the Daughters of 
 Dukes, Marquises, and Earls, who, hav- 
 ing married Commoners, retain the title 
 of Lady before their own Christian and 
 their Husband's Surnames. 
 
 Alphabetical Index to the Daughters of 
 Viscounts and Barons, who, having 
 married Commoners, are styled Honour- 
 able Mrs. ; and, in case of the husband 
 being a Baronet or Knight, Honourable 
 Lady. 
 
 Mottoes alphabetically arranged and trans- 
 lated. 
 
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 is on a better plan ; and secondly, it is better executed. We can safely pronounce it to be 
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