portraiture of the idea then current of a Patagonian or

Caribbean savage, and that Cymbeline, though mainly based on a story of Boccaccio, perhaps—although Sir Sidney Lee thinks to a " very slender " extent—owed its origin to an English work published in 1603 and bearing the amazing and amusing title of " Westward for Smelts, or the Waterman's Fare of Mad Merry Western Wenches, whose tongues albeit, like Bell- clappers, they never leave ringing, yet their. Tales are sweet, and will much content you : Written by kinde Kitt of Kingstone."

The question of the extent to which Shakespeare borrowed the thoughts and expressions of his predecessors in other countries is not, in itself, of much importance, all the less so because, even if he be supposed to have borrowed, he almost invariably improved greatly on the original model. All poets must either plagiarize, or at all events have the appearance of plagiarizing. The emotions, which are constant since Time was, form the raw material of poetry, which must necessarily, in Aristotelian language, be " an imitation of the Universal." Juvenal was not far wrong when he said : Expedes cadent a summo minimopte poets. Nevertheless, as a curiosity of literature, there is some- thing rather attractive in comparing the language in which the poets of different ages have clothed ideas common to all of them. That plagiarisms, or apparent plagiarisms, from Greek are more common than from any other language is comprehensible enough when it is remembered that, on the emotions and the relations between man and man, the Greeks said almost all there is worth saying. When Gray, for instance, wrote that " Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," he was, perhaps unconsciously, paraphrasing a fragment of

Euripides preserved by Stobaeus— Kip8os ie KaKois iryvwcria. That Shakespeare was much indebted to his predecessors, especially to Ovid, is certain. His exquisite verses on the

familiar Epicurean theme of Carps diem, beginning " What is love ? 'Tis not hereafter," is almost a translation from some lines of Lorenzo de Medici :- " Quant' e belle giovinezza Che si fugge tuttavia! Chi vuol esser lieto, sia ; Di doman non c' e certezza."

Sir Sidney Lee, of course, touches on the oft-discussed question of the extent of Shakespeare's acquaintance with Greek. That he knew something of the language is certain. Otherwise, Jenson would not have said that he knew less Greek than Latin. Sir Sidney gives some examples of parallelisms between Shakespeare and the Greek tragedians. Numerous other instances might be quoted. Lady Macbeth's famous soliloquy is very Aeschylean (Choeph. 70-73). The touching speech of Constance in King John, in which she says that " Grief fills the room up of my absent child," may be compared to the description given in the Agamemnon (405-15) of the desolation of the deserted husband Menelaus. There is a great resemblance between Jocasta's speech to Eteocles (Phoenissat 33) and Wolsey's denunciation of ambition in Henry VIII., which is certainly the genuine work of Shakespeare, although Fletcher co-operated in writing the play. Also when, in the Orestes of Euripides (395), Menelaus says

ri xPitta ircicrxen ; cir6XXvolvv&ros ; the reply forcibly reminds us of " Conscience doth make cowards of us all "-9l cdvevu, f!frt elcroact ado eiryao-idvos. But all this is by no means conclusive evidence. It may be that Shakespeare had read the Greek

tragedians ; or, again, it may be, as Sheridan would have put it, that Euripides, for instance, and Shakespeare had the same idea, only Euripides had it first. It is impossible on this point to get beyond conjecture.

Perhaps, however, the most interesting portion of Sir Sidney Lee's work is that in which he deals with the sonnets. Words- worth thought that in these Shakespeare had " unlocked his heart." Sir Sidney Lee is of a different opinion. He holds that " the collection of sonnets has no reasonable title to be regarded as a personal or autobiographical narrative." It is certain that the " dark lady," of whom such frequent mention is made, cannot have been Mary Fitton, for portraits of that lady, which are still extant, show very clearly that she was not dark, but fair. It is not at all improbable that many of the apparent objects of Shakespeare's adoration were wholly

imaginary. " A man," Dr. Giles Fletcher very truly wrote in 1593, " may write of love and not be in love, as well as of husbandry and not go to the plough." Many of the writers of amatory poetry in the Greek Anthology were, as Professor Mahaffy has pointed out, thinking much more of turning a

graceful epigram than of gaining the smiles of some fair lady. Dr. Johnson said that Prior's Chloe probably never existed, for that the woman to whom he was attached was " a despicable drab of the lowest species." Much that is strange in the language of the sonnets is explained by remembering that in Eliza- bethan English the words "lover" and "love" were synonyms for " friend " and " friendship." As regards Shakespeare's relations with Lord Southampton, the only inference to be drawn from the sonnets is, in Sir Sidney Lee's opinion, that Shakespeare flattered his munificent young patron. Posterity, it may be incidentally remarked, has perhaps scarcely done justice to the early patrons of English literature. They did not, and could not, create genius, but they gave it an opportunity of asserting itself when it might otherwise have languished from sheer inability to live. There is, or at all events there was, at least a half-truth in Martial's satirical verse : Sint Maecenates.

non (twin!, Fleece, Marones.

Similarly, Sir Sidney Lee discards the idea, which has been countenanced by Professor Courthope and others, that the tragedies, which were composed in the later years of Shake- speare's life, were written under the influence of some tragic events in his own life. " It was contrary to Shakespeare's dramatic aim to label or catalogue in drama his private sympathies or antipathies." He appears, indeed, to have been a poet and a dramatist pure and simple. The records of his private life, which are not so scanty as is often supposed, point to the conclusion that it was uneventful even to the verge of being commonplace. His personal ideals were homely and his aims in life were distinguished for their extreme sobriety. He was himself scarcely aware of the extent to which, by virtue of his prodigious genius, he towered over all competitors.

As to Shakespeare's opinions, Mr. Madden remarks : " In vain you will look to Shakespeare for any light upon the great religious, social, and philosophical questions of his day." If

he had any distinct political opinions, it is certain that he was at great pains to conceal them. The absence in King John of any allusion to the signing of Magna Carta is, in itself, significant. All that can be said with certainty is that, naturally enough, Shakespeare disliked. the Puritans. They were the sworn enemies of his craft. Further, he had apparently no great

sympathy for democracy. Mr. Bagehot acutely remarks that

when Shakespeare brings a " citizen" on the stage, the latter almost invariably " does or says something absurd."

Sir Sidney Lee very appropriately introduces his volume by some remarks made by Carlyle tending to show how the love of Shakespeare has knit together the whold Anglo-Saxon race. Some fine lines of the poet Dobell addressed to the people of America express the same noble idea

" Speak with a living and creative flood

This universal English, and do stand Its breathing book ; live worthy of that grand Heroic utterance—parted, yet a whole, Far, yet unsevered--ehildren bravo and free Of the great mother-tongue, and yo shall be Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul, Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme, And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream."

But Shakespeare's influence has not been confined to the English-speaking race. Not only have the Germans characteristi- cally shown their predatory instincts by seeking to claim him— as also, I believe, Dante—as their own, but the whole or part of his works have been translated into almost all the languages and dialects of the world. In character, opinions, and temperament Shakespeare was a typical sixteenth-century Englishman, but the works which his transcendent genius produced have become the birthright of the whole human