runners and contemporaries is not so abrupt in the historical plays as in the comedies and tragedies. Here they worked from common sources, the Chronicles; the materials were established facts of history. Hence they were not able to indulge in those monstrosities of passion and action to which they gave vent in their original pieces. Some of these historical plays are quite worthy of attention, and Shakespeare is brought into close relation with them through his Henry VI., whose First Part contains only small portions due to his own hand, while the Second and Third Parts are only revisions, as it were, of older plays, due either to Greene or to Marlowe; but on this point literary critics are not agreed. The most gifted of the younger poets who preceded Shakespeare died early in the bloom of their manhood and power soon after he began his poetical career, as though they had departed to make way for a greater than themselves. Even if they had lived, however, none of them would ever have been dangerous rivals. All the dramatic poetry of England before his seems like a dumb fingerpost leading us towards an unknown goal, through paths full of tangled brushwood and romantic wilderness, that cause us to long for the natural beauty we cannot find. Shakespeare came as the path-finder, and led us to a pleasant satisfactory destination. He far surpassed each one of his predecessors. He recognised that he could only learn negatively from these poets-that is to say, that he could see from their work how things should not be done. Very early did he perceive this, and in his first independent work he took an entirely opposite direction. These first efforts far surpassed the masterpieces of his forerunners. Now, having shown the bases on which Shakespeare developed, let us proceed to our attempt at explaining him. But first we must try and give a sketch of his life. CHAPTER III SHAKESPEARE's life N endeavouring to summarise the events of Shakespeare's life, we perceive that the sources of information regarding this man, whose name will last as long as civilisation itself, run scant indeed. The meagre, and still more, the confused and uncertain nature of the information regarding his life, youth, marriage, and other important circumstances of his career, is so great that legend has been woven around him, as though we had to do with one who lived in a far distant epoch of grey antiquity. It is not easy to assign the reasons for so remarkable a fact. In our examination, however, we shall attempt to discover its probable origin. First of all, we must note the difference between the learned and literary activity of his time and that of our own. Certainly there existed relatively no fewer nor less able scholars than at the present day. On the contrary, at that epoch of intellectual activity and movement there lived a remarkably large number of great minds, who strove to attain the highest summits of knowledge, and who by means of their bold speculations, discoveries, and inventions, marked an epoch in history, and aided the progress and aroused the astonishment of the world. But these men only worked on a grand scale. There were wanting those less brilliant but equally useful scholars and collectors who pay attention to small things, and it is just these details, these personal touches, which are precisely of the greatest importance in establishing the career of an eminent man. There were then no literary journals, indeed no newspapers, and all the innumerable aids which to-day help in preserving such details were wanting. To this negative cause, which hinders us from discovering any secure basis for literary biographies, there was added in the case of Shakespeare a positive cause, that contributed to this same result. It was an agitated era, which brought forth daily something new and unexpected. Incomparably great interests were at stake, great political events followed each other in unbroken succession. Although, as we have seen, a lively interest was taken by the higher and more cultivated classes, and even to some extent by the masses, in poetry and literature, and especially in the theatre, still this interest formed but a fraction of that activity which absorbed the general attention. Taken as a whole, far less interest was felt in intellectual matters than at the present day. It is true that politics and other public concerns still absorb much attention, but the principle of division of labour is extended. The activity of those who devote themselves to public affairs is now so subdivided, that while politics, war, statesmanship, legislation, social questions, parliamentarism, and many other matters, largely absorb the attention of the world, still there are enough persons outside these circles sufficiently occupied with literature, to prevent in the future any such uncertainty concerning the life of a great author or poet as prevails about Shakespeare. Everything to-day is collected and noted down, so that we are in a position to follow the lives of our modern intellectual heroes from year to year, from day to day, even from hour to hour. There is, in fact, sometimes too much of this research into details. At that time this beelike industry was lacking; hence an absence of material of certain knowledge. Another circumstance which contributed to an important extent in hindering the careful preservation of biographical details concerning a dramatic poet like Shakespeare is the course taken by English history not long after his advent. The great struggle |