The Seen and the Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon. By W. D
Howells. (Harper and Brothers. 5s. net.)—Whilst para- doxical people argue, on what they are pleased to call critical grounds, whether Shakespeare or Bacou wrote Hamlet, Mr. Howells has had the luck to hear the whole question discussed by Shakespeare and Bacon themselves. On a recent visit to Stratford he was clear-sighted enough to recognize the ghosts of these two eminent persons revisiting the glimpses of the theatre, and wise enough to take a full note of their con- versation. We judge from it that as good Americans are said to go to Paris when they die, good Englishmen go to Boston, and stay there long enough to acquire the local idiom. It is satisfactory to know that Bacon did not write Hamlet, but less satisfactory to learn that be strongly disapproved of the Gravedigger, and even of Falstaff.
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