Shakespeare, from an American point of view;

Front matter

1 , i

BBISH

I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, # I

Preface

The following Essays were originally addressed to a public consisting for the most part of American readers : and it was the intention of the author to publish them firsts in a collected fornj, inthe United States. It, however^ having become apparent, in the course of his researches, that it would be advisable to consult the British libraries, he concluded to issue the work in London. This was the more desirable, because a judgment rendered from the fountain head of English criticism, on what may be deemed a conspicuously English subject, would be more authoritative and satisfactory than if given from any other source. The author, therefore, takes this opportunity to say that the most rigorous criticism will not be unwelcome ; not, indeed, from any vain confidence in his own views, but because they are put forward in good faith, and in order to elicit truth concerning a genius who is the richest inheritance of the intellectual world. Should, indeed, his views be controverted, the author must even in that event be a gainer in common with the other admirers of Shakespeare ; for it can never be a true source of mortification to relinquish opinions in favour of those which are shown to be better.

Presenting these pages, therefore, rather as a series of inquiries than as dogmatic doctrine, the author strives to support them by only such an amount of controversy as is legitimately due from one who invites the public to a new discussion.

G. W.

Contents

GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES,

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL.

Chapter I. Page

The Eesponsibilities of Genius 1

CHAPTEE II.

Shakespbaee's Eaelt Life . . 6

CHAPTEE III.

LoED Bacon 13

CHAPTEE IV.

William Shakespeaee 18

CHAPTEE V.

Shakespeaee's Pbesonal Chaeacteeistics 28

CHAPTEE VI.

The Eeligion op the Shakespeaee Pamilt . . . . , 34

CHAPTEE VII.

Evening Mass .... 46 vi Contents.

CHAPTEE VIII.

PAGE

Shakespeaee's Contempt por Peotestants 62

CHAPTER IX.

Legal Acquieements of Shakespeaee 71

THE TESTIMONY OF THE PLAYS.

CHAPTEE X.

" The Tempest " 81

" Two Gentlemen of Veeona " 84

CHAPTEE XI.

" The Meeet Wives of Windsoe " .93

" Measuee poe Measuee " 95

CHAPTEE XII.

" Comedy of Eeeoes " 106

CHAPTER XIII.

" The Meechant of Venice " 114

CHAPTEE XIV.

" The Meechant of Venice " (continued) 126

CHAPTEE XV.

" MtJCH Ado about Nothing " 136

" As You Like It " 139

Contents. vii

CHAPTER XVI.

PAGE

" The Taming of the Sheew " 145

" Love's Laboue's Lost " 147

CHAPTER XVII.

" All's Well that Ends Well " 151

CHAPTER XVIII.

" Twelfth Night ; or, What You Will " 160

" The Winter's Tale " 164

CHAPTER XIX.

The Histoeical Plats 1' 1

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXL

"HeneyIV."— PaetI '196

" Heney IV."— Paet II 199

CHAPTER XXII.

« Heney V." • -207

CHAPTER XXIII.

" King Heney VI."— Paet 1 220

CHAPTER XXIV.

« King HenIby VI."— Paet II. . . 227

The Rebellion of Wat Tylee • • • 228

' The Rebellion of Cade 232

CHAPTER XXV.

" King Henry VI."— Paet II.— Rebellion of Cade (continued) . 240 vili Contents.

CHAPTEE XXVI.

PAGE

" King Heney VI."— Part III 255

" RiCHAED III." . .260

CHAPTER XXVII.

" King Henet VIII." 267

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

" Timon of Athens " 288

CHAPTER XXX.

"COEIOIANUS" 292

CHAPTER XXXI.

" TiTTJS Andeonicus " .' . . . 313

" Peeicles, Peince of Tyee " 322

CHAPTER XXXII.

" Macbeth " 327

" Cymbeline " 331

" Romeo and Juliet " 338

CHAPTER XXXIII.

" Julius CiESAE " 345

" Antony AND Cleopatea " .'359

CHAPTER XXXIV.

" Othello " 363

CHAPTER XXXV.

" King Leae " 377

^ Contetits. ix

CHAPTER XXXVI.

PAGE

THE MUSICAL OH EUPHONIC TEST.

SHAKESPEAllE AND BACON^S HESPECTIVE SENSE OF MELODY^ OE EAR EOU MUSIC.

CHAPTER XXXYII.

The Euphonic Test . 423

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The Euphonic Test (continued) . . . . . . . 437

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Recapitulation and Conclusion 455

POSTSCKIPT . . r t . . 462 part h GENEKAL CIECUMSTANCES,

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL.

SHAKE SPEAEE,

FROM AlSr AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW.

CHAPTER I.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF GENIUS.

The C|jicstion as to the authorship of what arc known to the world as Shakespeare^s plays^ first raised in 185G, and projected in favour of Sir Prancis Bacon, did not attract much attention until some time after it was propounded. Indeed, I had not heard that the Shakespearian authorship of these plays ever had been doubted until the year 1867, when in the course of a conversation with General B. P. Butler, he asked me whether I had read *^The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded," by Delia Bacon— remarking-, at the same time, he thought her arguments to be of great force, and that he favourably regarded the Baconian theory.

The judgment of so keen a critic for a moment staggered me, but the proposition was so utterly at variance with the settled convictions of my mind, that the influence of his opinion soon yielded to my prepossession^, and I readily attributed the General's Baconian inclination to a professional predilection in favour of one of his own craft. The question, therefore, when it was afterward raised by others, failed to engage my serious attention, until it was again broached to me, in Bacon's favour, by an American cavalry officer, during an afternoon lounge near Richmond, on the Thames, in the latter part of the summer of 1874. Just about that time, there had appeared in the August

2 Shakespeare, frotn an American Point of View.

number of Fraser's Magazine an exceedingly ingenious article, written by a young American, under the title of " Who wrote Shakespeare ? '' and singularly enough my West Point friend and I accidentally met the author of this very article three nights afterwards, at a dinner party in London, which included a number of English and American literary men.

On the following morning, I sought, at the bookstands, the magazine alluded to, but the edition having been exhausted, I was obliged to have recourse to the politeness of the author, who kindly furnished me with one of six supplementary proofs he had procured to be stricken off for his own use, before the forms had been distributed.

Soon afterward, stimulated doubtless by this publication, the controversy as to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays spread to the United States, and, under the manipulation of the American Press, elicited a flood of multifarious opinion. Amid this ocean of expression, the article in Fraser was by far the most notable for plausibility and force ; but what surprised me most in running through the views of all these writers was, that not one of them touched a fact which had long puzzled me concerning Shakespeare, and which had led me, several years before, to read his plays with laborious scrutiny, under the idea of writing an essay upon his character and principles, from an American point of view. Though not a blind worshipper of Shakespeare, I had always been among the warmest admirers of his genius, but I never had been able to comprehend why it was, that, unlike all the great geniuses of the world who had come before or after him, and who seem, as such, to have been deputized with the creative faculty of God, he should be the only one so deficient in that beneficent tenderness toward his race, so vacant of those sympathies which usually accompany intellectual power, as never to have been betrayed into one generous aspiration in favour of popular liberty. Nay, worse than this, worse than his servility to royalty and rank, we never find him speaking of the poor with respect, or alluding to the Avorking classes without detestation or contempt. We can understand these tendencies as existing in Lord Bacon, born as he was to privilege, and holding ofiice from a queen; but they seem utterly at variance with the natural instincts of a man who had sprung from the body of the people, and who, through the very pursuits of his father, and likewise

The Responsibilities of Genius. 3

from Lis own beginning, may be regarded as one of the working classes himself.

Bacon, through his aristocratic training, and influenced by the monarchical system under which he served, may barely be forgiven, by even his most extreme defenders, for his barrenness of that beneficence, which genius is delegated, as it were, to bring to us from Heaven ; but the son of plain John Shakespeare has no such excuse. Dickens, who wrote mainly for the lowly; Byron, who, though a noble, fought for human liberty ; Cervantes, Junius, Eugene Sue, Le Sage, De Foe, Walter Scott, Victor Hugo, Oliver Goldsmith, and Sheherezade — the never-to-beforgotten Sheherezade, who talked to a Prince for a thousand and one nights in such sentiments as have made the literature of Arabia a hymn — never forgot the hopes and joys and distresses of the poor. Shakespeare alone of these elevated souls prefers to be the parasite of the rich and noble, and seldom, if ever, permits the humble to escape him without a derisive jest or sneer.

William Shakespeare nevertheless possessed a larger share of the divine creative faculty than any other mortal ; and let it not be said that too much is claimed for this poetic attribute. If the characters produced by mortal imaginations have not souls for divine judgment, they certainly have forms and shapes for human comprehension and for penal criticism. They are as much of the world as the world is of us. Othello, Manfred, Aladdin, Quasimodo, Fleur de Marie, Gil Bias, Robinson Crusoe, Rasselas, Micawber, Don Quixote, the Vicar of Wakefield, and Ivanhoe, are as actual to our appreciations as the real Mahomet, Csesar, Zenghis Khan, Napoleon, or Martin Luther ; as real, in fact, as are Vesuvius and ^Etna to those who have never seen them. And the manner, consequently, in which these fictitious characters are developed to the reader, imposes as great responsibilities upon their authors, in the way of morals, as do the just presentation of the truths of history.

The singular oversight of so salient a point as Shakespeare^'s aristocratic tendencies, by the Baconians, may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that their theory is still quite new, the ground having first been broken by Delia Bacon, of Boston, as late as 1856, and only languidly followed since by a few American lawyers and aristocratic Englishmen, severally stimulated by

4 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Viezv.

pride of profession, or conceit of cfiste. To tlie masses of the English people it is really a matter of no great importance whether one Englishman or another was the author of the Shakespearian dramas ; for the dust of two centuries has fallen so evenly on both of those who are now under our consideration, that all minor preferences are levelled out. With Americans, however, the question is somewhat different.

The pamphlet of the American lady, who had been inspired to the Baconian theory doubtless by a mere pride of name, began to attract favourable attention from the English aristocracy in 1858, and some of its leaders brought themselves to the opinion, that it would be a good thing for the jpresilge of their order if the world could be made to believe that the great writer, who had dwarfed them all for over two hundred years, was a scion of their caste. It has always been the tendency of patrician politics, when the merit of the lowly-born cannot be underrated, to mask its origin by artfully recruiting it into its own ranks, so that talented poverty may file thereafter down the aisles of the future under the aspect of a lord. This policy has been so conspicuous during the last hundred years, that there can hardly be a doubt that had the author of Othello lived a few generations later he would have figured upon the title-page of his immortal works as Lord Shakespeare, or Sir Williain at the least. The British nobility would have thus been spared the desire of adopting the American woman^s theory in transferring the glory of William Shakespeare to Sir Francis Bacon.

Conspicuous among the noblemen who favoured the Baconian theory in England was (as we are informed by the article in Fraser) " Lord Palmerston, who maintained that the plays of Shakespeare were written by Lord Verulam (Sir Francis Bacon), who had passed them off under the name of an actor for fear of compromising his professional prospects and philosophic gravity .^^ On being opposed in this declaration (says the author of the article in Fraser) by the positive testimony of Ben Jonson as to Shakespeare's authorship, Palmerston replied, '' Oh, those fellows always stand up for one another, or perhaps Jonson '' (added his Lordship) " may have been deceived like the rest."

Here was the weighty authority of two prominent statesmen and lawyers, Palmerston and Butler, relatively of England and America, fencing the very threshold of my inquiry; and it

The Responsibilities of Genius. 5

consequently behoved me to advance with wary footsteps into the shades of the enig-ma, and prove^ at the very outset^ if I desired to controvert them, that the author of the Shakespeare plays could not have been (like Bacon) either a statesman or a lawyer — a proof that must, of necessity, be sought from internal evidence furnished by the plays themselves, since all contemporary testimony had left these points unsettled. The only means remaining, therefore, after the lapse of two hundred years, was to question the soids of the departed Titans, as they still live and breathe, within their respective imperishable pages.

CHAPTER II. Shakespeare's early life

One of the objects of tin's inquiry will be an attempt to establish the degree of difference, if any, in which the Shakespearian volume should be regarded, relatively, in England and America, as a family text-book ; and whether, as a household teacher, it should, among Americans, as with Englishmen, divide domestic reverence and authority almost with the Bible. And this inquiry will logically extend itself so as to comprehend the social and religious, as well as the political inculcations of the Shakespearian volume.

And following the inquiry still further, we shall endeavour to ascertain what difference, if any, in " musical ear," or sense of music, is exhibited relatively in the Plays and Essays ; so as to enable us to determine, with almost absolute certainty, whether one and the same man could have been the author of both. In this latter branch of my inquiry I shall be obliged to depend largely upon the musical experts.

Dealing with almost any other poet than the author of Shakespeare's Plays, it would be a matter of comparative indifference what his ideas were as to the separation of the classes, or upon the science of government ; but if we are to install a monitor within our homes as a domestic god, or adopt a writer as a political instructor, it is of some importance that we should know how much credit to concede to such an author's conscience and principles. It will readily be seen, therefore, that Shakespeare is a character of much more consequence to Englishmen, and especially to the ruling classes of Great Britain, than he can ever be to the republican citizens of the United States. With us, he is but the poet, mighty beyond all comparison; but to

Shakespeare s Early Life. 7

the ruling classes of Great Britain he is not only the Poet, but the Patron of their order, and also the tireless inculeator of those forms of popular obsequiousness, which long have been the marvel of the civilized world, under the almost purely personal form of English patriotism. The author of the Shakespeare plays has been, in this way, the unseen source, the incessant fountain, the constant domineering influence, which has done more to continue the worship of the English people for royalty and rank, than all other agencies combined. Well may the nobility of England be jealous of his pre-eminence, and defend him as the greatest genius ever given to the world. They have an interest in his popular supremacy, which they cannot afford to surrender, and he has been worth to them, during the last two hundred years, millions of men and billions upon billions of money. He deserves at their hands a monument more lofty than the Pyramids ; while it is very questionable, on the other hand, if the English masses owe him anything beyond their involuntary admiration for his mind. It suggests itself to me at this point, therefore, that it would perhaps be a better policy for the British aristocracy, to leave this mighty Voice to continue to speak from among The People, rather than as one of the aristocratic masters of The People.

But we must not be beaten back by the awe of generations. We must demand boldly who and what this mighty genius was, — what were his principles, his character, his faith, his motive in writing as he did, and what manner of man he was in his familiar way of life. And all this ig necessary in order, first, to decide the question as between Shakespeare and Bacon, and then to assign to the actual writer of the Shakespeare plays the position, as a poet, inoralist, and public teacher, to which he may be entitled among the English-speaking race of both sides of the Atlantic.

The first objection to the authorship of William Shakespeare, which the Baconians raise, is that no man of such humble origin, deficient scholarship, and loose, easy-going way of life as Shakespeare, could have been possessed of such profound knowledge as be exhibited, and be capable of such transcendant imagery as these plays develope, nay, that no common play-writer could have possessed such a familiarity with court etiquette and with the language of nobles, and of kings and queens, as he. But the force of these objections is seriously damaged by the fact that none of the disciples of the Baconian theory who have sprung- up since 1856, ever had the advantage of studying the manners or the '^set phrase of courts/'' themselves. And here I may be allowed to add that it may be considered certain that the writer of the Shakespeare plays himself spoke much better English than any prince or noble of Elizabeth's court.

As to the character and morals of William Shakespeare, he certainly suffers nothing from a comparison with Sir Erancis Bacon. Shakespeare commenced life as a deer-stealer and a drunkard/ had a child born to him in less than six months after

1 This latter seems to be a harsli declaration, but I find my autbonty for it in pages 8 and 9 of tbe Memoir of Shakespeare by the Eev. William Harkness, M.A., in Cooledge and Brother's New York edition of Scott, Webster, and Geary's London edition of the Works of Shakespeare. I need not say to Shakespearian scholars that the authority of Mr. Harkness is entitled to the highest respect.

"The gaiety of his (Shakespeare's) disposition," says Mr. Harkness, " naturally inclined him to society ; and the thoughtlessness of youth prevented his being sufficiently scrupulous about the conduct and the character of his associates. ' He had, by a misfortune, common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company,' says Eowe ; and the excesses into which they seduced him, were by no means consistent with that seriousness of deportment and behaviour which is expected to accompany the occupation that he had adopted. The following anecdote of these days of his riot is still current at Stratford, and the neighbouring village of Bidford. I give it in the words of the author from whom it is taken. Speaking of Bidford, he says, ' There were anciently two societies of village yeomanry in this place, who frequently met under the appellation of Bidford topers. It was a custom of these heroes to challenge any of their neighbours, famed for the love of good ale, to a drunken combat; among others, the people of Stratford were called out to a trial of strength, and in the number of their champions, as the traditional story runs, our Shakespeare, who foreswore all thin potations, and addicted himself to ale as lustily as FalstafF to his sack, is said to have entered the lists. In confirmation of this tradition, we find an epigram written by Sir Aston Cockany, and published in his poems in 1858 ; it runs thus : —

««T0 MR. CLEMENT EISHER, OF WINCOT.

Shahespeare, your Wincot ale hath much renown' d. That fox'd a beggar so (by chance was found Sleeping) that there needed not many a word To make him to believe he was a lord : But you affirm (and in it seem most eager) , 'Twill make a lord as drunk as any beggar.

Shakespeare s Early Life. 9

marriage/ and lived in London during all liis theatrical career without his wife. He was so mean as to sue one man for a debt of £6, and another for £1 19^. 10^./ when he had an income of

Bid Norton brew such ale as Shakespeare fancies

Did put Kit Sly into such lordly trances :

And let us meet there (for a fit of gladness),

And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness. " ' When the Stratford lads went over to Bidford, they found the topers were gone to Eversham fair, but were told, if they wished to try their strength with the sippers, they were ready for the contest. This being acceded to, our bard and his companions were staggered at the first outset, when they thought it advisable to sound a retreat, while the means of retreat were practicable, and then had scarce marched half a mile before they were all forced to lay down more than their arms, and encamp in a very disorderly and unmilitary form, under no better covering than a large crab-tree, and there they rested till morning.

" ' This tree is yet standing by the side of the road. If, as it has been observed by the late Mr. T. Wharton, the meanest hovel to which Shakespeare has an allusion interests curiosity and acquires an importance, surely the tree which has spread its shade over him, and sheltered him from the dews of the night, has a claim to our attention.

" ' In the morning, when the company awakened our bard,' the story says, ' they entreated him to return to Bidford and renew the charge, but this he declined, and looking round upon the adjoining villages, exclaimed, " No ! I have had enough, I have drunk with

" ' Of the truth of this story I have very little doubt. It is certain that the crab-tree is known all round the country by the name of Shakespeare's crab, and that the villages to which the allusion is made all bear the epithets here given them : the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor : Hillborough is now called Haunted Hillborough, and Grafton is notorious for the poverty of its soil.' "

The above relation, if it be true, presents us with a most unfavourable picture of the manners and morals prevalent among the youth of Warwickshire in the early years of Shakespeare, and it fills us with regret to find our immortal poet, with faculties so exalted, competing the bad pre-eminence in such abominable contests. It is some relief to know that, though he erred in uniting himself with such gross associations, he was the first to retreat from them in disgust.

2 Knight's "Shakespeare," Appleton and Co.'s American edition, p. 244 ; E. Grant White, p. 145.

3 Knight, vol. i. p. 158.

lo Shakespeare, from an American Point of View.

lOOOi?. a year, and died, at the age of fifty-two, from the effect of too much drink at dinner.^ Sir Francis Bacon, on the other hand, was all his life a clamorous office-seeker, a time-server, and a corrupt judge. He was condemned to the Tower, when Lord Chancellor, for having sold his judicial opinions for money, and, worse still, confessed the crime in order to mitigate his sentence. On a review of his whole character. Pope, the poet, stingingly characterized him as

" The wisest, brightest, meatiest of mankind."

So, between William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon, in a moral point of view, there was no great gulf. Indeed, if there were any disparagement of degradation, it was against Sir Francis.

Most of the Shakespearian biographers and critics make it a matter of regret that so little being known of the history of the great poet, it is exceedingly difficult to form a true estimate of his personal character; but the difficulty which I find in that respect is, that these biographers and commentators nearly all start from the one point, of endeavouring to conceal, or at least to palliate, those follies and defects which might impair Shakespeare's influence or credit with the people. They set out, consequently, with the desire to describe Shakespeare as they would like to have him. His robbing of a gentleman's park, a very high crime at any time in England, is patronized gently as a youthful escapade, and the premature appearance of the first child of his marriage has been justified by the presumed privileges of a Warwickshire betrothal.

There has been some dispute among Shakespeare's biographers about his religious faith, a few having presented evidences tending to show that he was a Roman Catholic; but the great majority, being of Protestant politics, discourage that idea. Bacon we know to have been a Protestant of an extreme type, and from this difference springs an interesting point of our inquiry. The question presents itself at once as to which religious faith is most manifested in the plays. If they were the production of a Roman Catholic, Bacon could not have been their author,

4 Eichard Grant White, pp. 46, 55.

Shakespeare s Early Life. ii

What we have first upon our hands, however, is the sing-ular anomaly presented by the sj)ectacle of a g-enius of the life-giving order, wlio was born in comparative humbleness, never betraying one emotion for, or exhibiting a single sympathy with the down-trodden classes, wliose degradations and miseries must have constantly intruded upon his subtle comprehension. But the mist lifts before the light of facts. "We have abundant evidence that Shakespeare was, in his personal way of life, though of a cheerful, amiable disposition, a calculating, money-making', money-saving man, and the conclusion from the circvimstances of his business in London and at Stratford must be, that he suppressed his natural sentiments to a convenience of association and a sense of interest. His first patron, when he was a theatrical manager, was the Earl of Southampton, a prodigal young nobleman of enormous wealth, who, together with the Earls of Essex and of Rutland, were constant visitors at his theatre.^

So. thoroughly had Shakespeare established himself under the patronage of Southampton, that he dedicated to him his " Venus and Adonis,'''' and in the following year also his ^^Lucrece." By way of showing, moreover, the extent to which the dramatist had advanced himself into his lordship's favour, Richard Grant White states (p. 97), that Shakespeare took this liberty in the matter of " Venus and Adonis '' without, " as the dedication shows,'' asking his lordship's permission j a very unusual responsibility, says the same commentator, to assume with the name of any man, much less a nobleman, unless he had felt himself secure in his lordship's good graces. Southampton was at this time under twenty years of age, and Essex (subsequently the favourite of Queen Elizabeth) was but four years older. In speaking of these young noblemen and their associates, who it may be as well to state were Catholics, Judge Holmes in his essay in favour of the Baconian theory says, that Southampton, Rutland, and the rest of Essex's jovial crew " pass their time in London in merely going to plays every day." , It was about this time, says Rowe, that " my lord Southampton at one time gave Shakespeare 1000^?. to enable him to go through a purchase he had a mind to." This princely gift is, of course, ascribed to Southampton's estimation of the muse of Shakespeare, * The " Authorship of Shakespeare," Nathaniel Holmes, p. 95.

but inasmuch as Southampton never exhibited any appreciation of literature beyond having the run of Shakespeare's theatre^ we are justified in attributing the earFs attachment to the manager to considerations which frequently operate with young men of means and fashion down to the present day. It is true that, in Shakespeare's time, there were no actresses attached to theatrical companies, the female parts being performed by boys, but it was the custom of ladies of quality to sit upon the stage during theatrical entertainments, and there are several anecdotes of intrigues having taken place between them and young gallants, under such circumstances. * And this theory of personal familiarity between Shakespeare and a coroneted gallant of nineteen is all the more likely, than the one which ascribes Southampton's liberality to his patronage of literature, since that nobleman lived till he was fifty-four without having given any other evidence of a love of letters, or, indeed, without having made any mark beyond getting himself into the Tower for taking part in Essex's foolish Irish- Jesuit expedition, which cost the latter unhappy nobleman his life.

Considerations such as the foregoing would as satisfactorily account for the absence in Shakespeare of liberal sentiments, as the natural tendencies of Bacon's rank would account for the latter's aristocratic coldness of heart.

Let not the rapt worshippers of Avon's bard, whose sacred ecstasy is thus rudely broken in upon, suppose I take pleasure in these hard statistics. Nothing can reduce Shakespeare from the supreme elevation which he holds in the United States as the poet of the English-speaking race ; but we in America take no interest in him as a politician, nor yet as a moralist; and, surely it is wiser for us, who are not involved in any tangles of allegiance, to disenchant ourselves of the spells fumed up by loyalty and doctrine, and treat this mighty mortal as a man. Perhaps the most curious and interesting problem which can thus be brought to our comprehension is — what amount of dirt may mix with, and be instrumental in, the production of a flaming gem. And Eacon is as subject to this criticism as Shakespeare.