Sometimes the greatest of our poets seems about to dis-
appear behind the obfuscation of his myriad commentators. But the votive candles lit by Mr. W. J. Lawrence in Shake- speare's Workshop (Basil Blackwell, 5s.) are vivid enough to provide true illumination for the immortal plays. All his conjectures are persuasive, and some entirely con- vincing. We hardly agree that English critics have been steadily apologetic concerning the Elizabethan drama ; but Mr. Lawrence's admiration of the defeat of Senecan prescrip- tions by the cardinal demands of the intelligent audience, " half-satyr, half-god," and the limitations of the number and the properties of the actors, is remarkably well expressed. (Incidentally, a " spoilt tag " is not invariably an anti- climax, perhaps. The quiet phrase muting the sharp epigram often has its peculiar aesthetic effect.) The reaction of the playwright to the boy-players who mimed his girls, the Court passion for masques and dances frequently intruding on a Play already complete, the relation of the musical gifts of the " Children " and their theettre intime to the dates of some dramas, a very sensible insistence on a visible Ghost for Hamlet—these are but a few of the themes deftly mani- Pulated by this quick-witted scholar. The little study on Shakespeare's " lost characters " is peculiarly fascinating. These quiet assassinations off-stage by the play-patchers
may indeed have impoverished us. When we realize how seldom a manuscript reached the printers before its author's full intention had been crudely altered to suit the changing needs of the players, we are disinclined to talk much of Shakespeare's carelessness of construction. This is a most valuable little book, compelling its readers to realize Macbeth and Hamlet as glowing pieces of the whole tissue of Elizabethan life.
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