question of Shakespeare's literary merits, which since the eighteenth century had either been left alone or languidly acquiesced in, and goes over every detail from beginning to end, bringing forward a few new arguments and a good many old ones. He does not fail to recognize the poet's genius, with regard to the creation of characters, but he criticises his art and accuses him of not having sufficiently matured the conception or condensed the plot of his plays, and of having too often borrowed the canvas just as he found it in the old tales and chronicles which fell into his hands, "satisfied with adorning it with flashes of wit and wisdom, deep thoughts and brilliant metaphors, as one fastens little wax-tapers on to a Christmas-tree."

It is evident, therefore, that the last word has not yet been said by æsthetic criticism on this subject, that nothing is fixed or definite, and consequently its interest is still new and full of life. Not only do individual opinions vary, but a change takes place in the general point of view; and criticism, swayed by wide oscillations, swings back to its former position. I know of nothing analogous to this constant renewal, this ebb and flow, in the course of the literary reputation of any other prince of modern poetry. There is none that has been discussed, commented on, deified and called into question again as Shakespeare has been. Schlegel, it is true, attacked Molière, but his criticism, dictated by national prejudice, was of little æsthetic value and awoke no echo. The verdict already passed on nearly every matter affecting the greatest literary genius of France is sufficiently established to render it difficult when speaking of him to say anything but commonplaces. Molière is no longer on his trial, and all that remains to be done is to develop the judgment held by all the world concerning him. But with Shakespeare no such disadvantage-or resource—exists, and there being no universally accepted

opinion, it becomes absolutely necessary to exercise the right of private judgment and to choose a side of one's own. How, for instance, are we to reconcile opinions so flatly contradictory as M. Taine's admiration for Shakespeare's impassioned imagination freed from the shackles of reason and morality, and that of M. Mézière, who, like Ulrici and Gervinus, is more and more struck by the reason and moral significance of Shakespeare's plays as his knowledge of them increases, and finally that of M. Philarète Chasles, who defines him as a sceptic, akin to Montaigne, a calm and often cruel observer?

When desirous of studying Molière we have only to take up his works and read them—nothing could be simpler, -merely being careful, if we happen to be gifted with taste, to choose a good edition with a clear pleasant type, and unobscured by any explanatory footnotes. But with respect to Shakespeare it is far from being such an easy matter, and the labour acknowledged on all sides to be requisite for the task shows that even in England it is no ordinary enterprise. Hallam, complaining of the extreme obscurity of Shakespeare's diction, says

"His style is full of new words and new senses, it is impossible to deny that innumerable lines were not more intelligible in his time than they are at present. . . . Can we justify the very numerous passages which yield to no interpretation, knots which are never unloosed, which conjecture does but cut, or even those which, if they may at last be understood, keep the attention in perplexity till the first emotion has passed away? We learn Shakespeare, in fact, as we learn a language, or as we read a difficult passage in Greek with the eye glancing on the commentary."

Mr. Furnivall, the founder of the New Shakspere Society, in a prospectus written in 1874, has carefully drawn up a list of books useful and profitable to the student of Shakespeare. At the end of these bibliographical notices, he gives the following charming and genial piece of advice: "Get up a party of ten or twelve men and four or six women to read the plays in succession

at one another's houses, or elsewhere, once a fortnight, and discuss each for half an hour after each reading." Round this cosy little arrangement with its prescribed numbers there floats a delicate mystical aroma which seems to suggest a sort of meeting of the faithful for the worship of Shakespeare.

There is no danger of making a religion of Shakespeare in France. We shall approach the work of the greatest poet of England and of modern Europe with deep respect, but without holding him to be infallible, and if we see some breach in his genius or blemish in his art, we shall not necessarily think like Coleridge that our sight deceives us, and that the apparent imperfection must perforce conceal a hidden excellence. The limits we have chosen have this advantage-that as they do not attempt to embrace every side of his immense genius, we are the better enabled to give a definite character to our study, more instructive than the vague generalities of a universal and superficial admiration. But before beginning our investigation of Greek and Latin antiquity as found in Shakespeare's works, a few words must be said about the Renaissance of letters in England.

CHAPTER I.

CLASSICAL ANTECEDENTS AND EXAMPLES.

WARTON, the historian of English poetry, tells us that it was about the year 1490 that the classics began to be read in England. In the reign of Henry VIII., in 1520, a play by Plautus was acted before the court, and there is reason to believe that the representation was in Latin, as it was given in honour of four French hostages left in England for the performance of the treaty relating to the surrender of Tournay, and no English translation of so early a date is known of any of the plays of Plautus. Before 1530 mention is made of a translation intended for representation of Terence's "Andria."

"In the latter end of the same king's raigne" (Henry VIII.), writes Puttenham, an author of the sixteenth century, "sprog vp a new companie of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyat, the elder, and Henry, Earle of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who, having trauelled into Italie, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile of the Italian Poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schooles of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly pollished our rude and homely mañer of vulgar Poesie from that it had bene before, and for that cause may iustly be sayd the first reformers of our English meetre and stile."

The literary movement was, however, interrupted for a time by the political and religious dissensions which

* See Payne Collier's "Hist. Dram. Eng. Poetry," Vol. I.

troubled the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary Tudor; less rapid and vigorous than on the continent, the Renaissance only again resumed its course under Elizabeth, and hardly completed itself until the end of her reign. The dramatic poetry of the Middle Ages had a longer life in England than on the other side of the Channel; miracle-plays continued to be acted until the year 1598, and the first year of the seventeenth century saw the Queen present at a representation of a morality, entitled, "The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality," in which, under the features of Liberality, Elizabeth might recognize her own portrait. This little fact deserves to be noted for the significance of its teaching; Elizabeth made profession of a wise eclecticism in literature, and while she was friendly to the classical renaissance, she also consented to patronize with her presence the representation of a play belonging to the gothic art of medieval times. She had the tactso rare in royal lovers of literature-not to side with either of the different schools that divided the camp of letters, presenting a marked contrast in this respect to the despotic spirit in which Richelieu bestowed his protection upon literature.

Let us picture to ourselves for a moment the learned court of Elizabeth, beginning with the Queen who was one of the best educated persons of her time. And here it is not enough to repeat the words of Roger Ascham, that the Queen read " more Greek in a day than some prebendary of the Church doth read Latin in a whole week," this praise being not only vague but equivocal, for a prebendary has all sorts of occupations which may prevent him from devoting many hours a week to reading Latin, and we must endeavour to fathom the depth of Elizabeth's knowledge with greater precision. Nathan Drake tells us that she wrote a commentary on Plato, translated two orations of Isocrates,