secrets of the human heart is also the expounder of the very highest and noblest philosophy. Books of no inconsiderable size have been made out of his mere moral axioms. To those who are familiar with Shakspere's writings there is scarcely a situation of human affairs which will not suggest a recollection of something that may be applied to it for instruction out of what he has written. Many of the habitual sayings, that enter into the minds even of the uninstructed as something to which they have become familiar without books, are Shakspere's. If two men of average education converse together for half an hour on general subjects, there can be little doubt that, without actual quotation, the genial wit of Shakspere will be found to have given point, and his universal poetry elevation, to their discourse. The mode in which the mind of Shakspere is penetrating through all other lands exhibits the stages in the progress of his universality in our own land. He first becomes the property of the highest and the most educated minds. They have acknowledged his influence at first timidly and suspiciously; but the result is invariable: the greatest intellects become prostrate before this master intellect. Under false systems of criticism, both in our own and in other countries, the merits of Shakspere as a whole have been misunderstood; and he has been held as a violator of certain conventional principles of art, upon which poetry was to be built as churches were built in the same age,—with nothing irregular, nothing projecting, a good solid cube, with one window exactly like another, and a doorway in the middle. The architects of our fine old gothic cathedrals and Shakspere were equally held to be out of the pale of regular art. They were wild and irregular geniuses, more to be wondered at than imitated. But, with all this, there never was a period, however low its standard of taste, when many a votary did not feel a breathless awe as he entered such cathedrals as York and Lincoln, and had his devotion raised and refined by the matchless beauty and sublimity of the temple in which he prayed. And, in the same way, there never was a period since Shakspere's plays were first acted in a mean theatre, without scenery or decorarations, up to the present time when they are the common

possession of Europe, and are known amongst millions of men who inhabit mighty continents and islands where the English tongue was almost or wholly unspoken when he lived; there never was a period when the love and reverence which England now bears him were not most ardently cherished in the hearts of the best and the most influential of the people those who thought for themselves. Even those who scoffed at his art, never doubted his power. They would criticise him, they would attempt to mend him,—but he was always "the incomparable." They held, too, that he was unlearned; but they also held that he knew everything without learning. Nature did for him, they said, what study did for other men. Thus they endeavoured to raise him in the mass, and degrade him in the detail; and by dint of their absurd general admiration, and their equally absurd depreciation of minute parts of his writings, they laboured to propagate an opinion which would have been fatal to one less really great-that he was a person, not exactly inspired, but producing higher efforts of imagination, and displaying the most varied and accurate knowledge, without the education and the labour by which very inferior productions of literature were ordinarily produced. These were the critics of our own country, from the days of the Restoration almost up to the end of the reign of George III. But, in the meanwhile, after the hateful taste was put down that we imported from France, with all the vices of the court of Charles II., Shakspere again became the unquestionably best property of the English stage. There never was a period in which he was not diligently read. Four folio editions of his works were printed in 62 years-1623 to 1685, a time most unfavourable to literature. It is in this way-by the multitude of readers-that Shakspere has become universal. If books were now to perish, if "letters should not be known," the influence of Shakspere could not be eradicated from amongst those who speak his tongue; the moral and intellectual influence would remain after the works which had produced it had perished. But they could not perish wholly: some fragments of the knowledge of which he is full-some consecutive words of the exquisite diction in which he abounds, some dim abbreviation of the wonder

ful characters with which he has peopled the earth-would start up in remote places, as the flowers of past centuries again make their appearance when the forests of more recent times have been swept away. This is a consummation which cannot happen. Shakspere, through the invention of printing, is, in the limited use of the word, eternal.

Having laboured for many years in producing a body of Commentary on Shakspere, that was, out of the necessity of its plan, compelled not to miss any point or slur over any difficulty, I am not the less fitted, I presume to think, for the preparation of an edition which is not intended to satisfy the verbal critic. I desire "The Stratford Shakspere" to be "The People's Shakspere."

By "The People," using the term with reference to literature, I understand, chiefly, that vast aggregate of persons who have become readers of books during the last quarter of a century. For this great class, who are sometimes called "The Million," books must be provided that will not only economise Money but economise Time. The greater number of this host of readers have little leisure to explore the by-places of criticism. They need help —for the proper understanding of a writer who, although the most universal of his time, or of any time, is often obscure, has allusions which are not obvious, and employs phrases and words that are in some degree obsolete. They need help to unravel the difficulties of a Plot, to penetrate the subtlety of a Character, to see the principle upon which the artist has worked. They need help to seize the all-comprehensive spirit of the greatest moral teacher of the world-of the deepest sympathiser with his fellow-men in every attribute of humanity and every condition of life. But they do not need any elaborate exhibition of the processes by which a Text has been formed, an obscurity explained, or a critical principle established. They ask for results.

What, then, is the Shakspere which such an intelligent and inquiring reader now desires; and which, if I thought he could get it elsewhere, I would not endeavour to supply by a new labour, of a different character from what I have already accomplished? I think he desires

I. THE TEXT, founded upon the best Authorities, well printed in a large type.

My intention is to print the text of each Play without Note or Reference; so that, without interruption, the reader may yield himself up to the spirit of the Poet, and afterwards consider his difficulties.

II. A COMMENTARY AND GLOSSARY, to accompany each Play, for after-reading or for instant reference.

My intention is to arrange this portion of my work somewhat as follows:

1. VARIOUS READINGS, really important.

2. A GLOSSARY OR DICTIONARY of

Words and Phrases.

Manners and Customs.
Scenery and Costume.
Characters of History.

Geographical and Historical References.
Facts of Science and Natural History.

3. AN ANALYTICAL VIEW OF THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS.

The principle which has determined me to print the Text without note or reference, and subsequently to offer a Commentary upon each play, has been asserted by Dr. Johnson in his celebrated Preface:

"Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakspere, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald or of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption;

let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read the commentators."

It is scarcely necessary to offer any explanation of the distinctive title here assumed. Washington Irving has truly said of Stratford-upon-Avon, "The mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not connected with Shakspere. This idea pervades the place."

The Plays and Poems of Shakspere are especially suggestive of Stratford-its pastoral scenery, its simple manners. I believe that here the boy-poet received his first inspirations that through his life, even to its end, his best works were produced in the quiet of his native fields.

CHARLES KNIGHT.