Shakespeare's Self. By W. Teignmauth Shore. (Philip Allan 5s. net.)---This
is a concise but very readable biography, telling all of importance that is known about Shakespeare's life, and discriminating carefully between ascertained facts, tra- dition more or less authentic, and the various conjectures that have been put forward to supply the gaps left by deficiencies in the evidence. The narrative portions of the book are ex- cellent ; and if we cannot think so highly of the critical sections, we.can at least say of Mx. Shore's remarks what Macaulay said of Johnson's, that at their worst " they always mean some- thing." If they do not always display the highest literary acumen, they are never devoid of sound common-senae, and they are made with a modesty as attractive as it is rare. The suggestion that some of the sonnets may have been addressed to Shakespeare's wife is, to us, novel and deserving of con- sideration by the commentators ; it is at least as plausible as many of the solutions that have been propounded, and much more worthy and wholesome than some of them. The volume as a whole may be heartily recommended to any one whose Shakespearean studies have hitherto been confined to the text of the plays and poems, and who desires to know more of the author than is told in the Prefaces to the ordinary popular editions ; but the reader should be warned that Mr. Shore's judgments on the comparative dramatic and artistic values of the plays are not invariably to be accepted without question.
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