Feinberg/Whitman Box 34 Folder 43 Literary File Prose "Shakespeare for America" (Sept 15, 1890). Poet-Lore. Printed copy.POET-LORE A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO Shake-Speare Browning AND THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF Literature Vol. II. September 15, 1890. No. 9. A RECENT RENASSIANCE. II.- THE "FELIBRIGE" Marie Lefferts Elmendorf 449 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, "W. H.," AND THE "DARK LADY." Charlotte C. Stopes 460 A STUDY OF RHYMES IN BROWNING. Elizabeth M. Clark 480 The Library. Leo, "Shakespeare Jahrbuch." Charlotte Porter. - Brooks, English Poetry and Poets 486 A Study Programme: English Life and Literature 489 Notes and News. The Quip Modest.- Shakespeare for America. Walt Whitman, - London Letter. W.G. Kingsland.- Etc. 492 Published by the Poet-lore Co., 1602 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION $250 SINGLE NUMBER 25c. DAMRELL & UPHAM: Boston. BRENTANO'S: New York, Chicago, Washington, Paris, London. PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA. Copyright, 1890, by THE POST-LORE CO. Entered at Philadelphia Post-Office as second-class mail matter. Notice the change of address to 1602 Chestnut Street. Poet-lore. Edited By Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. A Purely Literary Magazine working for Wider Appreciation of the Best Literature of All Times, and The Alliance of Special Study with the Study of Comparative Literature. Issued On the Fifteenth of Each Month. Yearly Subscription, $2.50. Single Numbers, 25 cents. Poet-Lore For 1889. Volume I., with Index by Mr. John H. Woods. Artistically bound, in cloth, with white backs and gilt lettering. Sent, post-paid, for $3.50. Subscribers may send their sets of Poet-Lore to us and we will bind them in same style as volume here advertised for 95 cents. Empty cases can be ordered for 55 cents each. Among the contents of the completed volume are articles on Shakespeare, by Dr. Howard Horace Furness, Dr. W. J. Rolfe, Frederic Gard Fleay, Nathan Haskell Dole, J. Parker Norris, W. H. Wyman, Dr. S. Korner, Theodore Child, L. M. Griffiths, John Phelps Fruit, etc. On Browning, by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, Helen A. Clarke, Dr. H. L. Wayland, Henry G. Spaulding, Alice Kent Robertson, Charles C. Shackford, Francis B. Hornbrooke, Dr. Edward Berdoe, Alice Groff, Harrison S. Morris, Henry Pancoast, etc. In the line of Comparative Literature, by Morton W. Easton, --"The Tendencies of English and French Literature in the Elizabethan Age; "Prof. W. T. Harris,--"Emerson's Brahma and The Bhagavad Gita;" " Goethe's World Spirit and the Vishnu of the Bhagavad Gita;" Vida D. Scudder,--"Womanhood in Modern Poetry," etc. Dramatic Criticisms by Otto Heller, Charlotte Porter, Charles Seymour, etc. Musical Settings to Poems of Shakespeare, Browning, and Tennyson, by Helen A. Clarke. Of especial value to the student are the reports of the work of Shakespeare and Browning Societies, and the Study Department, which contains studies by Dr. W. J. Rolfe on "Love's Labour's Lost," "A Midsummer Night's Dream." "Merchant of Venice," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," and "Blue Eyes and other in Shakespeare;" also, an Index to classical allusions in "Pauline," and a study of "Strafford," which gives a detailed comparison of the characters in Forster's "Lives" and Browning's treatment of them in the play. Poet-Lore for 1890. Among leading papers now issued in Volume II. are "Shakespeare as a Citizen," by J. S. Stuart Glennie; "German and English Literature in the Eighteenth Century" (two papers), by Prof. Oswald Seidensticker; "The Russian Drama," by Nathan Haskell Dole; "Personal Recollections of Browning," by Wm G. Kingsland; "The story of Shelley's Life in his 'Epipsychidion," by F. G. Fleay; "The New Poetic Form as Shown in Browning," by Dr. D. G. Brinton; "Shakespeare Commemorations," by George Morley; "An Arabic Version of Macbeth's Moving Wood," by Dr. Morris Jastrow, Jr.; "The Alkestis of Euripides and Browning," by C. A. Wurtzburg. 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Ten Cents Each. One Dollar a Year. The D. B. Canfield Co., Limited, Drexel Building. Philadelphia, Pa.SIDNEY H. MORSE, HAVING MODELLED STRIKING BUSTS OF Emerson and Carlyle, AND MEDALLIONS OF Robert Browning and George Eliot, Is prepared to sell copies of the busts at $7.50 and of the medallions in plaster at $10.00; the same in bronze at $25.00. Address : S. H. Morse, 374 E. Division St., Chicago, Ill. MR. OTTO HELLER'S Classes in German and German Literature Will recommence (Sixth Year) October 1, 1890, AT 1518 PINE ST., PHILADELPHIA. SUMMER ADDRESS, BURLINGTON, VT. THE WOMAN'S TRIBUNE. ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM. FIVE WEEKS FOR TEN CENTS. CLARA BEWICK COLBY, Editor and Publisher. Published in Washington D.C., and Beatrice, Nebraska. THE WOMAN'S TRIBUNE is indispensable to all who wish to be informed upon the progress and scope of the "Woman movement." Its publication in Washington, D.C., during the sessions of Congress, enables it to represent all State and National legislation which touches the domestic, industrial, educational, and political conditions of women. ESTABLISHED 1841. Hover Ink Makes a permanent Record used by U. S. Government, Banks, and R. R. Co - - - Factory, 145 N. Sixth St., PHILADELPHA. POET-LORE Vol. II. No. 9. - with thou not haply saie. Truth needs no collouse with his cullour fixt, Beautie no penfell, beauties truth to lay: But best is best if never intermixt. Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee, To make him much outliue a gilded tombe: And to be praised of ages yet to be. Then do thy office - A RECENT RENAISSANCE. II.- THE "FÉLIBRIGE." AT a floral fête held in the theatre of Foix in January, 1854, there one day appeared a pilgrim improvising for the great audience in the Gascon dialect. His songs, full of esprit and heart, were like the nature of the common people in all its fire and gentleness. He played little dramas picturing their uncontrolled joys and unrestrained sorrows. His sweet and careless strains, now burning, now pathetic, roused the poetic soul of the populace. His hearers were transported as only a Southern audience can be. They laughed and cried, and interrupted him with bravos and bravissimos, and, when he passed his box for offerings for the churches and schools of the poor, for whom he begged, besides the coins, rings and bracelets fell into it from the white hands which had added to the applause. After the fête was over, the strange visitor with the kindly face had gone, an old peasant addressed to him a few verses, simple, but showing that the spirit of song was waking. There has been made known to us, through our own Longfellow, one of the poems 32450 Poet-lore. of the singing pilgrim, "The Blind Girl of Castle Cuillé," for the humble traveller was none other than Jaques Jasmin, the coiffeur of Agen. Wandering thus from South to North, improvising in his native Gascon, he reached Paris. Though scarcely understood, he sang before the king in the Tuileries, and was crowned by the Academy. Wherever he went he was greeted with a rapture which was the prototype of that which later hailed the general movement. His is apparently a solitary figure, strayed from past centuries, yet a manifestation of the changeless soul of the Midi. We have not heard that the Gascon met others equally alive to the hidden beauties of the old Romance tongue. If he had, his simple heart would have glowed over the object of their mutual devotion. But he was too genuinely a troubadour to be either sufficiently philosophical or philological to enter upon its systematic revival. Such a plan was to be undertaken, however, and that by men with every requisite for its fulfilment. The fête at Foix was in January. On the 21st of May of the same year, 1854, in the little château of Fontségugne, which stands at the foot of a low range of castellated hills, there assembled a company of young men. There were seven of them, with Roumanille at thirty-six, ten years at least the senior of any of his companions. They were, most of them, of humble origin, hardly from the open-air toiling which had helped them to win their way to solid, scholarly attainments; Mistral, the son of a farm proprietor at Maillane, perhaps what is called the most favored of fortune, Anselme Matthieu , the fellow-student of Mistral, Jean Brunet, Alphonse Tavan, a farm boy, Paul Giéra, who owned the chateau, and Aubanel the printer. Never did knights more loyally espouse the cause of forlorn lady than did they the language of their forefathers, as they reviewed its desertion by scholars and the decadence of its literary forms. With all the chivalry of their natures they pledged themselves to rescue and revive it. As they sat round a table under the olive-trees they drank the glory of Provence, in Château Neuf des Papes. The name which they choose for themselves is first met with in a medieval poetical legend. In the tale some question arises, A Recent Renaissance. 451 which is referred to "Li set félibre de la léi," the seven doctors of the law. These may have been those "Seven Lords Conservators of the Gay Science" who controlled, after all else had died out, the floral games at Toulouse, the last vestiges of the old efflorescence of poetical demonstration. However, the seven young savants called themselves Félibres, and hence the title of the organization known as the Félibrige. At their first meeting they agreed to publish the "Armana provencau," Provençal Almanac. This was to receive and annually scatter the productions of the new school. Roumanille, shortly after corrector of the widely-known publishing house, Seguin, of Avignon, became its editor, and its first sheets fell from the press of Aubanel in November of the same year. The welcome given to that first number, as it was circulated through Provence, Languedoc, and Comtat d'Avignon, was in its enthusiasm -French. In no other country but in social France would gentle and simple have been able so to join in common congratulation over the reappearance of such an abstract form of national glory. The contents were all written in Provençal ; verses, wherein relieved the old spirit of song, varied here and there by narrative, as the troubadours used to vary their renderings with certain droll ventures in prose, since called Cascareleto. These latter were by Roumanille. The ponderous master is a true Gaul in his satirical perception of the incongruities of human nature. But then he is "Rouma," and "Rouma" is sweet and simple as a child, and, unless roused by too great provocation, aboundingly good-natured. In these overtures towards his cherished plan of an established prose literature, Provence could see itself in early manners and antique national dress, as the Tarasconais could see themselves mirrored by Daudet, only with the contrary effect of making them laugh and clap their hands. "What a reception !" says Roumanille, "and what a beautiful out-flowering of poetry !" It was again the spring-time of song on the banks of the Rhone. When Frédéric Mistral, then graduate of the college of Montpellier and of the law school of Aix, published his "Mirèio," with its accompanying French translation, it was plain that the movement was to be limited neither to a small space nor to a lowly452 Poet-lore. audience. In many ways the poem showed itself the work of a brother to Theocritus; one way being that it had the power to charm the cultured as well as the untaught. It was as great a delight to Parisians as to shepherds. The dedication of the poem contains its substance: "To Lamartine I dedicate 'Miréio;' it is my heart and soul, -- the flower of my existence, With all its green leaves, a pleasant brings thee a bunch of grapes from Crau." Mistral's parents owned a silk-worm farm in the Department of the Bouches-de-Rhone. Born neither to poverty nor wealth, he was among those who form the representative class. The freedom and simplicity of his life gave his joyous nature full room to expand. As only a country boy can, he gained a vivid knowledge of the birds, insects, and plants which were his fellow-natives. But with all his learning there were mingled strange traditions and romantic legends of the ruins from every historical period which crowd the country round the homestead. Plainly to be seen were old Magalouno's towers, the last vestiges of a Greek settlement. Near by was the great rock of Baux. The three faces cut upon it, in colossal cameo, they say are miracle-wrought and associated with the Marys. Occasionally the children of the family were taken in the wagoner's cart to some neighboring town to see the national sports. At Nismes, across the Rhone, in the Languedoc, it was perhaps under the shadow of the Roman Amphitheater, next in grandeur to Rome's own, that the acrobats tumbled or the runners held the race at Tarascon they saw the great dragon, La Tarasque, burnt in effigy in front of king René's chateau at the annual fete. On Sunday the children, dressed in their best, were taken to the Church of St. Agatha, and were taught to think of the "dear saints" as presiding at their happy feasts and fireside games. On week-days, out in the fields with the laborers, their ears were filled with strange superstitions of marvellous cures and blights wrought by witches, and of elfin beings who danced on the waves or flitted among the rocks and caverns. All this was no more for Frédéric Mistral than for others born in the Midi. But while we had a typical provencal nature, he had A Recent Renaissance. 453 also the mind of a Greek. He bore beauty's divining-rod, and every vivid impression lent itself towards the conception of one ideal form, upon which he bestowed a passionate love. Mistral's contact with Roumanille made this ideal definite to himself. Through all his studies he was faithful to it. Erudition only helped him to view the far-away causes, by whose influences he had been surrounded, as having worked distinctly for and towards its formation. Each factor was of use only as it contributed to form one concrete whole. The figure thus mentally shaped was that of his native land, Provence. King René had said, in dying, "France, take thy sister by the hand;" to Mistral it again bore a fair and beautiful identity. This form he embodied in "Miréio." The construction of the poem is worthy of its conception. It has the symmetry and polish of a Greek statue in which breathes the simplicity of Provencal living and glows the ardor of Provencal loving. Yet they are genuine flesh and blood, this daughter of Lotus farm and the Valabrégan basket-weaver. Is not the tale of poverty and homely trade keeping happiness away from two as old as that of the Cyclops and Galatea? We have seen them, though they seemed covered with a radiant mist; we know them, since "everywhere they love." One prose and two metrical translations have given the lovely idyl to English readers, that by Miss Harriet Preston holding most of the fascination of the original. The figure of the little Miréio in her Arlesian dress flying, in the agony of her heart, over the desert, whose stones are said by Æschylus to have been showered by Jupiter, is one of the most dramatic in the field of modern literature. The poem is the genius of a people reliving, and uttering itself with its natural freedom controlled by the art which it is its instinct to acquire. The work is faithful to human nature, but, as the characteristics of a people distinct from others are shown upon a background in which a seperate history as well as religion, literature, and all that constitutes a country are interwoven, Mistral's first great work revealed itself as a national epic. In it the entire Midi knew herself. In the joy of self-recognition a thousand poets and would-be poets came forward.454 Poet-lore. to join the Brotherhood of Félibres and to avail themselves of all that the Society of the Félibrige could give them in the use of the language. All France and Germany knew how Lamartine hated the materialistic thoughts of his times. He believed the truth to have been struggling through the fantasy and exaggeration of the romance of the Middle Ages. He, therefore, received Mistral's offering as if he suddenly come-on the blind and wandering spirit of Homeric song. In addition to the éclat which he gave to "Miréio," the Academy awarded its author one of its choicest crowns and three thousand francs. The poem was set in opera by Gounod, and the young girl of Arles appeared in marble and on canvas till she was as well known by her French name, "Mireille," as by her Southern one. Mistral was soon courted by princes and statesmen, -always serene and graceful, always simple and radiant, he was as much at home in the society of Paris, by which he found himself embraced, as in the fields by the Rhone. The object of the Félibrige has been distinctly set forth as being to inculcate in the people of the South pride of their race and all that has been in all times theirs, and to raise up the genius of a people by presenting old customs and retiring their natural language. The wise and learned of France have set themselves to philosophize and make up their minds on the subject. Those in its favor congratulate the nation on having produced within its bounds works which are the purest utterance of the old Gallo-Romanic genius. They point out that after Nice was Annexed to France, it kept its Italian spirit only until the citizens had forgotten their own language in speaking the modification of the Provençal called the Nicard. They reflect that Avignon is perfectly French, though ruled so long by the Popes, because it had its dearly-loved dialect. Above all, there is the historical fact of the tenacious refusal of the Southern language to accept Teutonic mixture. Since the Franco- Prussian war this had gained a deeper meaning. "There are many barbarians in Europe," they say; "they always live in the great forests of Germany. They are always ready to bombard out libraries and museums." While in all Latin tongues the Langue A Recent Renaissance 455 d'oc has kindred poetic idioms, its revival would tend to attract what was related to it, and to strengthen the prowess of the French nation. The most serious obstacle which the movement has had is the cry of "International!" "Federalism!" "Separatism!" raised by prominent politicians. This caused a temporary failure of the effort to carry the motion before the municipal council of Marseilles to establish a chair of Provençal at the University. This charge is stoutly repudiated by the Félibrige. Their reply is that, "notwithstanding there is more than one language in France, there is but one heart, and, when the necessity comes, Bretons, Basques, Flemings, and our always-lamented Alsatians, Corsicans who speak Italian, Roussillonais who speak Catalonian, all cry, 'Vive la France!' And we Auvergne, of Périgord, or Quercy, of Languedoc, of Provence, did we not understand when the cry was raised, 'Pour la Patrie, en avant!'" Jules Simon says; "It is not the French language, but a French language, since it is spoken only in France. Among the common people, those who know Victor Hugo best are those read Mistral." "Let one," he adds, "leave the society of his academician and go, like Roumanille, Mistral, or Aubanel, among the laborers or Arles. Let him take his seat at the great slab table where the laborers eat, in the shadow of the lotus-trees, or go into the solitary cabins of the keepers of the horses of Camargue, or into the round hut which serves as a shelter of the vine- dressers of Languedoc, and hear him ask the brave, 'Are you Separatists? 'Separatists? Qu'es act?' (What is that?). Perhaps a new species of Tarasque. I should not advise him to explain that a Separatist is one who wishes to leave France to become Spanish, Italian, or Turk: down there blood is quick and there are plenty of stones." The plan of the seven original Félibres, who met thirty-six years ago, was like the conception of a beautiful fancy: it has taken hard work to carry it out. All have been passionately faithful, and the results have been greater, perhaps, than even they dreamed. With the exception of Paul Giéra, who died leaving a few scattered songs, each of the seven has issued collections. With Roumanille, who456 Poet-love. reproduces in the Renaissance the Gaulish features, and Frederic Mistral the Greek, Aubanel stands as an exponent of the Latin period. They have called the printer of the papal city the modern Petrarch, and elected him to preside over the great celebration held on the five hundredth anniversary of the death of the sonnetist of Vaucluse. For Aubanel too had an unfortunate glimpse of loveliness, and then seven cloistered years of sorrow, which were revealed in verses cast exquisitely wrought in the language which both Petrarch and Dante, under similar circumstances, decided would not do. Aubanel married, drank in the sunshine for himself, and was a radiance in the lives of all who knew him. Yet he has never been called a sentimentalist. His unrestrained, passionate, even turbulent emanations were too evidently the outcome of a central force, deep and powerful. Aubanel lived more than he wrote, there being a lapse of twenty-five years between the publication of "Grenada Ajar," his first volume, and "The Daughters of Avignon," his second. The intensity of his personality and the constant giving out of himself wore out his body, and he died of paralysis, in October, 1886. He was buried at Avignon, not like Petrarch in scarlet satin, but in his penitent's robe of white. In the great procession was carried the banner of the Fèlibrige, sown with seven golden stars. Pre-eminently a lover of God, of beauty, of his own friends, country, province, city, perhaps it is as well that when the work of his fine genius is spoken of, they say, "But, ah, you should have known our Aubanel." These three are the most illustrious of the modern poets of Southern France. Then comes Felix Gras, the laborer, with his great skill in rhymes and metres; then Tavan, and Anselme Matthieu, with his translations of Horace and Catullus, Roumieux, Paul Arène, and their many compeers. These all use the tongue of Provence, which is now reduced to a well-defined and available form. Mistral spent years over his dictionary, "the very antithesis pf poetry, apparently, but the carrying out of a poetical idea." Since its completion, the language has been granted by the government freedom from extra taxation in telegraphic despatches, and A Recent Renaissance. 457 is again used in the pulpits of the village churches, to which services the peasantry flock. There are fewer writers in the less pliable Langue d'ocienne, but still they are numerous; among them Arnaveille, eager for the Roman Catholic faith, Fesquet, the Protestant pastor, and August Fourès; while from the Catalonian districts, far west of the Pyrenees, to the High Engadine in Switzerland, Neo-Latin dialects are being revived by the people and made ready for use by scholars. In all of these innumerable small productions are appearing. They are the findings of troubadours on their own soil, yet curiously colored as if from far lands. Set in the old gay forms of chanson and tenson, aubade and serenade, they form a polished Roman mosaic. The modern Langue d'oc has an extensive bibliography, in one year seventy-five treatises upon the movement having appeared in various languages. It has numerous schools and libraries. It has given a great stimulus to the study of national folk-lore, and its effects are shown by the choice of subjects in all the art exhibitions of France. The growth of the Fèlibrige has been rapid, even for France. Mistral is President of the organization, which has a Grand Consistoire or Committee called La Sainte Estelle, consisting of fifty poets, who inspect and pass judgment upon literary efforts. It is needless to say that, in the whole movement, there is not lacking a due appreciation of feminine talent. Let a lady write verses, never so simple, in the old tongue, and every Fèlibre takes it as a personal favor, and there is the title of "Fèlibresse" in waiting. So there are women, also, on the honorary committee of masters in the Gay Science. The four main divisions of the Fèlibrige, corresponding to the natural linguistic divisions, are those of Provence, Languedoc, Aquitaine (Gascony), and Catalonia, each with its Syndic and Secretary. Besides these departments, there is a society of over two thousand Parisian Fèlibres, calling themselves Grasshoppers ("Les Cigaliers"). Even in New York City, two hundred patriots, in 1886, took the name of the "Bee," and chose Roumanille for their President of honor. In France, during the flowery months the society has its great458 Poet-lore. annual convocations, which are attended by thousands. La Sainte Estelle holds poetical assizes, where great scholars discourse in the Romance tongues, and some beautiful queen bestows the palms upon the winners of prizes. Far and wide small companies of Felibres hold floral games, which in many points call to mind the old Courts of Love. Prizes are awarded for works of the imagination, translations, dialect dictionaries, and grammars; also for pictures or sculpture illustrating local history or tradition, and for the adaptation of songs to melody. They adorn the now numerous statues of their poets with olive. Clasping hands, they dance the old farandole; airs are rendered to the accompaniment of the Provencal tambourine and on the Catalonian mandolin, and perhaps some beautiful girl gives a dramatic recitation, dressed in Arlesian costume. Then come the banquets. What serving of traditional dishes! What singing of ballads and chansons! Even the sirvente is again in play against the Teuton enemy, past and present. It would be useless to try in cold Saxon to tell how the people of the South enjoy these festivities; how, as emotions reflect inward and outward, in the way supposed to be peculiar to the French people, they ecstasy themselves (s'extasient) and excite themselves (s'embrasent) and each other, until they reach an acme of delight. Without regard to party or position, from the prince to the humblest artisan of the Republic, all is equality, fraternity. It is at this season of the year that the beautiful flocks of Arles and Camargue are driven from the valleys to the fresh mountain pastures. Alluding to this, Mistral, at one of the meetings of La Sainte Estelle, exclaimed, "god grant us also so to do, the people of to-day! We who live in an epoch of fatigue, tired of the sheep- fold, where we turn one upon another; tired of divisions, of impure joys, of bitter scepticism, of empty words. God be pleased to help us to remount towards the salubrious sources of our origin, towards the heights of our glory, towards the Pontificate of our dear France; to find again the force, the energy of our fathers; to find once more joy and hope; to renew and vivify the blood in freshness and light." The inquiry is, how far will they succeed in reclimbing? With all their imagination and love of the old and tenacious adherence A Recent Renaissance. 459 to type, will they bring their present selves into the past, as they have brought the past into the present? It is not a new experiment. This year's child, since the world began, has been putting himself into the games so dear, because the sport of last year's child, and finding them strangely hollow. As might be expected among poets, there is a perfect freedom of religious opinion in the Society of the Felibrige. Above all, they are characteristically reverent, and believers, -- of whom there is not a superabundance in France. But as has been said in the Nouvelle Revue, it is impossible to help noticing the great number of Romanist clergy who find the attempt to compose verses in the new Provencal a fascinating employment. Also the number of ministers plenipotentiary who have joined the society; William Bonaparte Wyse, a grandson of Lucien Bonaparte, and Alecsandri of Roumania, being among those who hold prominent positions. If sometime it should be deemed expedient to turn out the brawling soldiery from their barracks in the Provencal Vatican, and the Pope should again look out upon that smiling landscape with the silvery Rhone, half-spanned by St. Benazet's broken bridge, would the "days of benediction" really return? Would not the Avignonais themselves, behind their battlemented walls, be obliged to put their shoulders to the pushing of that strange and utilitarian concern called progress? How much better for the Provencaux to be among the advance guard of France, and with their rare quality of intuition, spiritually lit, to go beyond the intellectual point reached by the Albigenses in the recognition of the divinely revealed personality of Jesus Christ as the source of Truth and Beauty. With a free Provencal Bible, what might they not become, these people of the South, with their hearts of flame and their skill in the arts and sciences? France might then save for her own use in human advancement material similar to that which she scattered upon the world at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Maria Lefferts Elmendorf.460 Poet-lore. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, " W. H.," AND THE " DARK LADY." The late edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets has made us all look back to our authorities to see if we can prove, disprove, or supplement any of Mr. Tyler's theories. I bring forward the few facts that I have gleaned, regardless whether they tell for or against my feelings or his, believing that truth can only be gained by careful comparison of of all points and possibilities. Some of these facts I have already noted in the Weimar " Shakespeare Jahrbuch," but they may also be interesting to those who do not live so near the British Museum as I do, and who cannot therefore follow out the research so fully as they would wish. I have not yet learned enough to make an original theory of the Sonnets for myself, though none of those proposed as yet quite satisfy me. BORN HEIR to a noble family, son of a beautiful and talented mother, there is no doubt that at eighteen years of age William Herbert was charming enough to merit a poet's praise ; especially the praise of such a one as Shakespeare,--loving, sensitive, and ambitious. [*See Wood's "Fasti Oxoniensis."*] He had been sent to New College, Oxford, in 1592, and probably remained there four or five years. It is more than likely the dulness felt by him on resuming a permanent residence in the " Mannour of Wilton," with his parents, induced him to urge his invalid father to allow him to go to London (even without his paternal care) in the spring of 1597. The anxious father postponed his son's plunge into life, at least until April, 1598, when he would be eighteen years old, and was anxious to have him married before then, and also that he Shakespeare's Sonnets, " W.H.," and the " Dark Lady." 461 should have some foreign travel before appearing in court. The summer and autumn of 1597 were spent in negotiations with the Earl of Oxford for his daughter. These evidently were broken off ; but I think it more likely that the youth stuck to the project for foreign travel, as being a change and occupation ; in which some grave and reverend tutor or governor would accompany him and bring him back to London for the spring and summer season there. Had he been in London late in 1597, he would not likely have met Shakespeare then, who was on a long tour, [*See Halliwell-Phillipps's " Tours of Shakespeare's Companies."*] being at Dover, Faversham, Bath, Bristol in September, and in Marlborough 13th December, 1597. It seems, indeed, on several bases, more than possible the friendship began early in 1598. Probably, on Herbert's coming to town, masters of polite accomplishments would be secured for the brilliant young lord ; and Shakespeare may well have been chosen to teach acting, elocution, versifying, and have been given the hint of his ailing father's and anxious mother's desires to see him happily married : hence the early Sonnets. As Francis Meres would lately have been Lord Herbert's professor in Oxford, it was more than likely he would meet his former student in London, and see these Sonnets, not then kept privately, and perhaps meet the writer of them in Herbert's house in friendship. At least, he saw some ere he published his book. If the introduction took place in 1598, the unequal acquaintance ripened rapidly, from similarity of tastes and from mutual admiration for each other's gifts. Baynard's castle, the London home of Pembrokes, was not far from Blackfriars ; opportunities of meeting were doubtless abundant, in theatres or friendly homes. With some natures affection becomes an absorbing passion, little differing from love, even between friends of the same sex, [*Pointed out by Prof. Rolfe.*] as Jeremy Taylor said,-- "Some live under the Line, and the beams of friendship in that position are imminent and perpendicular ; ... some are the Courtiers of the Sun, and wait upon him in his Chambers of the East." This friendship ripened thus, and there is no reason to be surprised at the strong language used in poetically expressing it. "Love,"462 Poet-lore. "lover," and other phrases now limited to the opposite sex, were then quite appropriately used between friends of the same sex. Lord Herbert was evidently received cordially by his royal godmother and her subservient court, though he was considered by many to use but indifferently his opportunities, and to get the character of "a melancholy young man." This may have been the reflected effect of Shakespeare's brooding with him upon all things in heaven and earth. The overflowing affection of the early friendship became troubled with anxieties, saddening the Sonnets. The absorptions of Lord Herbert during 1599 may well account for these.* In August he was to have two hundred horse sent up by his father, to attend Her Majesty's person. His own horse would not stand fire or martial music, and he had to borrow "Bayleigh," from the stud of his uncle, Sir Robert Sydney, then abroad, governor of Flushing.* He would be "away from court a week at a time, swaggering it amongst the men of warre, and viewing the manner of the musters." In September "he was a continuall courtier, but too cold in a matter of such greatness."* By the 12th, his father fell ill, and he hurried to the country, "leaving others to observe the suitors for the many places he holds under her majesty;" and he was again blamed for coldness and melancholy. His uncle's secretary, meanwhile, proposed a match between him and the Lord Admiral's niece. "fortunately, Earle Pembroke recovered, or strange and cunning courses would have been held with the young Lord." He was sent for by the Queen on Michaelmas Day, but his father refused his attendance, on account of expenses, and probably on account of his own health; but he was back by 6th October, and "much bound to the Queen by her gratious favour." Essex was in disgrace, and the world waited, watching for the new favorite. Herbert had a good chance; Southampton, a friend of Essex, was "spending his time going to plays every day;' but Herbert was sent on an embassy to Denmark, where he was well received; and well received on his return also, though "he brought no certain answer in the business he went for," 4th Novem- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *See the letters written to Sir Robert Sydney when governor at Flushing, by his secretary, Rowland Whyte. Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H.," and the "Dark Lady." 463 ber, 1599. He was anxious for the return of his uncle, Sir Robert Sydney, whose advice and presence would help him. At the end of November, he went to see his father at Ramsbury; and the Queen honored him greatly, giving him an hour's private audience before his departure. Another marriage was suggested to him, but he "needed a male relative at court" to arrange these and other matters for him. Instead of a short absence it proved a long one; an attack of ague, a relapse and consequent weakness, also the charms of the race-course established by his father, kept him with his parents until Easter eve, the 22d of march, 1599 (or, with us, 1600).* Then, on his return, Lord Herbert begged the Queen to excuse his father, on account of his health, and promised to do what he could in his place. It was probably at this time, when sympathy with his sufferings and joy at his return made every heart open to him, that he became more intimate with Mary Fitton; an intimacy that reached its climax in the festivities in connection with Mrs. Anne Russel's marriage to "the other Lord Herbert," son of the Earl of Worcester. There he and she shone foremost in the favor of the Queen and the beholders. "The young lord was in less inclination than ever to marry."* During the year he was anxious to train for the tournament, and practised tilting at Greenwich, for the Coronation Day, 24th October, 1600. In January of the following year his father died, and he became the Earl of Pembroke; and a dark time came over the youth. At the summer festivities he had begun clandestine relations with Mrs. Mary Fitton that ended, in March, for her with bitter shame and disappointed love and ambition, and for him, first in the Fleet, then in more honorable custody elsewhere; afterwards, in banishment from the Queen's presence, refusal of permission to travel, heavy charges for his wardship on attaining his majority, in April, 1601, and an exile to country-life in Wilton. It is not clear whether the Queen wished him to marry Mary or not, but certainly the lady and her friends did; yet he was not inclined to matrimony When he did marry afterwards, in 164, Mary, daughter of Earl ------------------------------------------------------ *See Sydney Papers. 464 Poet-lore. Shrewsbury, probably it was only a mariage de convenance, for it was not a happy one. His life harmonizes well with the suggestions of the Sonnets. The desire of the parents that he should marry young was made more evident by their plans regarding his younger brother Philip. At an even earlier age they suggested a marriage between him and a neighboring heiress of St. Gillians, of the family name, who, however, married Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. In April, 1600, Philip was at court for a week, and made the most of his opportunities, being "the forwardest young courtier" Whyte had ever seen; and in May, Earl Pembroke offered the Queen five thousand pounds if she would allow her ward, daughter of Sir Arthur Gorge, to marry his second son; but it was not arranged. Afterwards, he married, in 1603, Lady Susan Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, sister of the Bridget whom William previously had refused to wed; so that it is very evident early marriages were the wish of the parents. That, therefore, accounts for the youth of the person Shakespeare urges to marry. His addressing him as his "Muse" and inspiration is not altogether unnatural. Herbert had come of a poetic family; his uncle, "Philip Sydney," was a chief name in literature; his mother, though more retiring, had produced translations, poems, tragedies even. She had inspired Daniel; her son now inspired Shakespeare. His patronage of literature is a matter of history; his poems, though not well known, are mentioned in Wood's "Fasti Oxoniensis," and were published, with some by Ruddier, in 1660, from manuscripts preserved by Christian Bruce, Countess of Devonshire, the lady of royal descent who raised the glory of the Cavendishes. She was a lady not connected by blood or marriage with Pembroke; her character was far above the breath of any scandal in connection with him; and it is probable she had these verses in one of those manuscript copies sent round among friends in those days. In the dedication, the editor says, "This monument your Ladyship hath erected to his memory will outlast the calculations of all Astrologers, who, though they could foretell the time that he should leave us, would set no date to the fame that he should leave behind him." Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H.," and the "Dark Lady." 465 The horoscope of William Lord Herbert was well known to the world, and anxiously watched by his friends, some allusion to which seems clear in the reading of the Sonnets. (See Sonnets 14, 25, etc.) The poems of Pembroke, however, do not add much to his fame, if those we have are all he wrote; nevertheless, comparing them to lines in Shakespeare, there are many points of interest in them, beyond the undoubtedly finest one, quoted by Mr. Tyler, -- "Soul's joy, when I am gone," -- which seems almost as if written to Shakespeare himself. Another sonnet begins, -- "Can you suspect a change in me And value your own constancy?" Another on the same subject ends, -- "Short love liking may find jarres, The love that's lasting, knows no warres." In this little volume there are also strange parallels between the poems evidently addressed to ladies. For instance, -- "Others are fair if not compared to thee, Compared to them, thy beauty doth exceed. So lesser stars give light, and shine, we see Till glorious Phoebus lifteth up his head, And then as things ashamed of their might; They hide themselves, and with themselves the light. "Since nature's skill hath given you your right, Do not kind nature and yourself such wrong You are as fair as any earthly wight." (See Sonnet 21.) "You wrong yourself if you correct my tongue Though you deny Her and yourself your due, Yet Duty bids me fair entitle you." (page 27.) He has a poem "TO HIS MISTRESS, ON HIS FRIEND'S OPINION OF HER. "One with admiration told me He did wonder much and marvel (As by chance he did behold ye) How I could become so servile To thy Beauty." . . . (page 90.) finding fault with her rolling eyes, wanton expression, and tall 33466 Poet-lore stature. There is another on "Venus and Adonis" (page 99), and one, specially interesting in the parallel with Sonnet 127: ON BLACK HAIR AND EYES. ". . . Why should you think (rare Creature) that you lack Perfection, cause your hair and eyes are black: . . . Nor was it fit that nature should have made So bright a sun to shine without some shade." (page 61.) IN REGARD to Mistress Mary Fitton being "the dark lady" of the Sonnets, I am not yet satisfied. The connection supposed to be established between her and Shakespeare's Company by the dedication of "Kempe's Nine Days' Dance to Norwich," I think too slight to be used, even if we accept the name "Anne" as intended for "Mary." (Earwaker's "History of Cheshire" gives both sisters as maids of honor.) The dedication proves no personal acquaintance. From all accounts in the Sydney Papers and elsewhere, Mary Fitton seems to have been the best dancer at the court. In the "Masque of the Eight Muses seeking the Ninth," at the marriage of the "other Lord Herbert" to Mrs. Anne Russel, "Mrs. Fitton led," and "went to the Queen, and wooed her to dawnce, her Majestie asked her what she was; 'Affection,' she said. 'Affection,' said the Queen, 'Affection is false,' yet her Majestie rose and dawnced." 23rd June 1600.* Now, I believe she ought to have said "Terpsichore," which explains at once the reason of the Queen's remark, and of Kempe's dedication. Probably he had been brought to court at times, to design and teach the dances in the masques; and finding her the most affable in manner, the most liberal in purse, he had dedicated his little book to her as a compliment, not without a view, doubtless, to future liberality. But there is nothing against her character in this, as Mr. Tyler would suggest. Neither does he notice a short address in the middle of the work (p. 18), in which Kempe says, "faire Madame, to whom I too presumptuously dedicate my idle pages." This, taken with the allusion to the "Blackamore" in the dedication, certainly suggests that even IF Mary ---------------------------------------------- *See Sydney Papers. Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H., and the "Dark Lady." 467 Fitton had black eyes and hair (of which we have no testimony to support the witness of the tombstone, which is not very clear in itself), she was not so "coloured ill," or so unlovely, that a lover might say he lied when he called her fair, as in Sonnet 152. Mrs. Mary Fitton was certainly not abhorred by others (Sonnet 150), as was proved by the friendship of the Queen, the affection of her great-uncle, the love of her father, her second fault, and after marriage with two husbands. She was not plain; even the representation on her tombstone (not likely to be flattering, from the character of the art of the period) gives her an oval face, arched eyebrows, moon-shaped forehead, delicately-outlined cheeks, and lips like the arch of Cupid's bow, all points greatly admired in these days. We know Elizabeth liked good-looking women, as well as handsome men, to be near her. Her life gives no trace of her ever having in any way been connected with Shakespeare; nor do I think she could have sat for the portrait of "the lady of the Sonnets" in her character, any more than in her face. It was a very different thing for a woman , in the lax moral opinion of the time, to risk a fault with the handsomest and highest youth of England, with a view to matrimony, and any other person so dangerous as a married play-actor. There is no doubt of Mary's relations with Earl Pembroke. One suggestive little point Mr. Tyler does not mention: when, in November, 1599, Herbert went to see his father, and was detained in the country by his own illness, we find in the Sydney Papers, under date of January 12, 1599-1600, "Mrs. Fitton is sicke and gone from the court to her father's;" and again, "Lady Sydney visited Mrs. Fitton that hath long been here sicke in London," February 21, 1599-1600. I read this as a sign of a genuine attachment, and believe that Mary was too much in love with Lord Herbert ( or his prospects) to have been in the habit of flirting with any one else. Even from her father's letters we can see she expected to have married Herbert; and there was no real bar of circumstances. Mary had been born in 1578, and was then twenty-two years old; Herbert had been born in 1580, and was very nearly twenty-one years old. Mary's family was good; and Elizabeth could have made it equal to the Pembrokes, then a comparatively new creation. She468 Poet-lore. was distinctly one of the Queen's favorites, as he was ; and what more natural - we may imagine she thought - than that they two should marry? Only he did not see this. I think that Elizabeth did ; on account of the severe punishment she meted out to him for their detected fault. He was a royal ward ; the Queen was also his godmother, and she was not inclined to bear the sins of her god- children on this account. He was straitly examined, confessed the fact, renounced all matrimony, was sent to the Fleet, then to more honorable custody elsewhere, banished from court, confined to his own house in Wilton, forbidden to travel abroad, as he requested, a heavy sum exacted for his wardship, and he remained in disgrace during the life of the Queen. Now it seems to me all this severity was a sign that Elizabeth held Sir Edward Fitton's view of the case, --that "he had beguiled her," that is, with a promise of matrimony. Her father's letter to Lord Cecil says,- "I can say nothing of the Erle, but my daughter is confident in her chance before God, and wisheth my Lord and she might but meet before in different scenes---But for myselfe, I expect no good from hym who all this tyme hath not shewed any kindness. I count my daughter as good a gentlewoman as my Lord is, though the dignitie of honour be greater onelye in him which hath begiled her, I ffeare, except my Lord's honesty bee the greater vertues." (May 16, 1601. See Mr. Tyler's "Sonnets," etc.) If Elizabeth, who had evidently loved Mary, believed her story, we should not be surprised if, after the Banishment of Herbert, she should be restored somewhat to favor. I think it possible she was ; because in the same part of Rowland Whyte's letters to Sir Herbert Sydney---generally devoted to Lord Herbert and gossip about him,---on December 28, 1602, he writes, without comment,--- " Mrs. Mary, upon St. Stevens Day, in the afternoone dawnced before the Queen two galliards, with one Mr. Palmer, the admirablest dawncer of this time ; both were much commended of her Majesty, then she danced a corante." If we suppose Mary's name too well known to both writer and reader to require a surname, and that no near connection was secured Mary, it seems quite likely it meant "Mary Fitton," who Shakespeare's Sonnets, " W. H.," and the " Dark Lady." 469 had been so much connected with Sydney's nephew. Her life up to this time gave no trace of being associated improperly with Shakespeare, or with any one else. It is true that Mr. Tyler points out that Mary afterwards had two daughters, by Sir Richard Leveson ; and that she afterwards married two husbands of lower degree. But in such cases we cannot argue from events after that date to events before it. Mary's heart may have been wounded and her pride crushed by the events in March, April, May, 1600-1601, and the whole course of her future life turned out of its natural course. I certainly refuse to believe this bright girl to be the "evil angel," the "despair," the "woman coloured ill" of the Sonnets. She must have been some other dame, older, more practised in deceit, and, above all, she must have been a married woman. We know Clarendon says that "Earl Pembroke was the most universally beloved of any man in his time, but he was much given to women." It is more than possible young Pembroke had a second string to his bow even then. No one could have wondered at his attraction to a court-favorite like Mary Fitton ; no one would have thought him disgraced by marrying her ; no one could have termed her ambitious love "foul pride," least of all Shakespeare ; and to read the Sonnets through her life can only lead to false conclusions. If they had been real letters addressed to her, they would have belonged to her, and we cannot imagine that in 1609 she would have permitted a publication recalling the blazoned story of her youthful shame, just when she was settling down quietly into married life with Captain Polwhele, to whom her great-uncle left his best sword and best horse to show "his love for him and his now wife." Nor would Shakespeare, on the other hand, had he ever felt them to her, have been so unmanly and ungenerous as to have permitted them to be so published. I believe the Lady of the Sonnets is yet to be found, and the real meaning of most of them. Yet that there is more autobiography than is to be found elsewhere, no one can deny. Let us take it for granted that the early sonnets are addressed to Earl Pembroke, who "living had prose-470 Poet-lore. cuted him with much favour," as said the Preface to the 1623 edition of his works. In regard to William Shakespeare himself, there is one point that Mr. Tyler has not alluded to ; that just in 1597 he had lost his only and dearly beloved son, and, with his heart sore from his loss, had bought the fine house in Stratford he had hoped to lodge him in. The loss would predispose him not only to melancholy, but to love of such a youth, who might forever have suggested to him the " might-have-beens" in his own saddened home-life. (See Sonnet 35.) The " Theatre War," so connected with the " vulgar scandal," whose deep " impression" was filled by the love of his friend (Sonnet 112), lasted through this period of three years; and in it Shakespeare was not only in the right (Sonnet 121) but had the might to conquer, as proved in the " Returne from Pernassus," Part II., " written by a university pen in 1601." Jonson was the chief leader of the attack, but it seemed to have moved the whole " Profession," and all their followers, and galled the soul of the poet, till he cried, " 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed" (Sonnet 121). Yet here and there sounds the pæan of conquest not only over foes, but over self. Mr. Tyler treats the Sonnets as all poetical epistles written by Shakespeare in his own character, either to Herbert or the lady connected with both. I think there are some grounds for believing that, though all were by Shakespeare, they were not all directly addressed to Herbert, and that a few were even Shakespeare's voice for Herbert's feelings ; but a paper such as this does not give room to discuss this question exhaustively enough to work out my reasons for this opinion. Another point Mr. Tyler seems sure of is that the order of the Sonnets is practically the true order. But if his theory is correct that they were all addressed to Herbert and the lady, it is clear that the consecution cannot be correct ; as the addresses to the lady must be sandwiched between the later addresses to the youth at least, thus altering the context. I think a rearrangement might probably elucidate many difficulties ; and it is certain that many Shakespeare's Sonnets, " W. H.," and the " Dark Lady." 471 of the unimportant sonnets have been transposed ; for instance, it is clear that Sonnet 22 should precede 19, and 24 should follow 21. We know, indeed, that a rearrangement of a few took place in the 1640 edition, for some reason or other sufficient to interfere with the simpler repetition of the order of the 1609 publication. It is very probably some are lost, of those that Meres spoke of "among his private friends ;"-perhaps " the Amours * by J. D. and certain other sonnets by W. S." were some of these, and Professor Minto believes that the sonnet by Phaeton to his friend in Florio's " Second Fruits," is by Shakespeare. For Chapman, as the rival poet, Mr. Tyler-basing his views on those brought forward by Prof. Minto-makes out a very strong case. " The proud full sail of his great verse," "his compeers by night," and " affable familiar ghost" (see 86th Sonnet) seem very likely suggested by Chapman's " Shadow of Night," 1594; and " The first seaven bookes of the Iliade," published in 1598, and noticed by Meres. We might also imagine that a small poem entitled " Euthemiæ Raptus, or The Teares of Peace," published in 1609, had been handed about in manuscript among his friends. Because there " The Shade of Homer" appears to him, addressing him in lines concluding thus : " And I invisible went prompting thee To those faire greenes where thou didst english me." ** " The Blinde Beggar of Alexandria," 1598 Chapman had written a " Pastoral Tragedy" in 1599, now lost (see Henslowe's Diary) ; as well as other plays (see Meres). He had published " Hero and Leander" in sestiads in 1600, and he was known to devote himself enthusiastically to poetry. But on the other hand, there was no trace of any connection, at any time, between him and Pembroke. He gave him no honor in his works, he dedicated none to him ; but to the Earl of Essex, Prince * " Third January, 1600, in Stationers' Registers, Eleazar Edgar entered for his copye, under the hands of the Wardens, a book called Amours by J. D. with certeyn other sonnettes by W. S." Yet in 1599, we know that " Venus and Adonis" was spoken of as "certain amorous sonnets ;" and the word was then loosely used in relation to verse forms. ** At the conclusion of the 24th book of the Iliad, he also speaks of " that most assistful and unspeakable spirit" of Homer, 1616.472 Poet-lore. Henry, and Carr, Earl of Somerset. He was unfortunate in his patrons and his praise. In 1614 the twelve books of the "Odyssey" were dedicated to Carr with the touching lines,— "Twelve labors of your Thespian Hercules I now present your Lordship; do but please To lend life means, till th' other twelve receive Equal achievement." In 1616 a reprint of the whole of Homer's works was issued; the "Odyssey" completed and dedicated to Carr, though out of favor, the "Iliad" still dedicated to Prince Henry, who had died in 1612. But in addition to the dedication was prefixed a print of a tombstone and mourning verses, concluding,— "Yet welth of souls is poore And so 'tis kep; not thy thrice sacred will Signed with thy deathe, moves any to fulfill Thy just bequests to me. Thou dead, then I Live dead, for giving thee Eternitie: Ad Famam To all Tyme's future, this Tyme's march extend, Homer, no patron found; nor Chapman friend. Ignotus nimbus omnibus Sat notus, moritur sibi." The poverty in which he died seemed also proved by a poem in the Ashmole papers, inscribed "The Genius of the Stage deploring the Death of Ben Jonson." "There are no more by sad affliction hurled, And Friends' neglect, from this inconstant world. Chapman alone went so; he that's now gone Commands him tomb; HE scarce a grave or stone." Had Pembroke at any time been a patron, he would not have left his poet to suffer "these slings and arrows," for, as we said, kindness and constancy were noted traits in him. It is true that, as the close of the "Iliad," Chapman addresses him in one of a group of sonnets, probably to those great people to whom he meant to send presentation copies, generally very liberally paid in coin. But those sonnets are : first, to the Duke of Lennox ; second, to the Lord Chancellor; third, to Earl Salisbury ; fourth, Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H.," and the "Dark Lady." 473 to the most honored Earl Suffolk ; fifth, Earl Northampton ; sixth, to Earl Arundel l; seventh, to Earl Pembroke; eighth, to Earl Montgomery ; ninth, to Lord Lisle ; tenth, to Countess Montgomerie ; eleventh, to Lady Wrothe ; twelfth, Countess Bedford ; thirteenth, Earl Southampton, etc. Now, each sonnet implies that the person addressed is the greatest in some way, so we need not wonder there are compliments in this, the only poem we know to have been "Bound for the prize of all too precious you." (Sonnet 86.) Besides, this was very much after the date of the Shakespeare Sonnets, and gives no clue to them. "To the learned and most noble patrone of learning, the Earle of Pembroke, Above all others may your honor shine, As, past all others, your ingenuous blames Exhale into your grace the forme divine Of godlike learning, whose exiled streames Runne to your succour, charged with all the wracke Of sacred virtue. Now the barbarous witch (Foule Ignorance) sits charming of them backe To their first fountaine, in the great and rich ; Though our great sovereigne counter-check her charmes, (Who in all learning reigns so past example) Yet (with her) Turkish policie puts on armes To raze all knowledge in man's Christian Temple, (You following yet our King) your guard redouble ; Pure are those streames that these rimes cannot trouble." At the end of the group of sonnets Chapman signs himself "ever most humbly devoted to you and all the rare patrones of divine Homer, George Chapman." But he thanks none. Samuel Daniel, on the other hand, was connected with the Pembroke family much through life. He studied at Wilton, "was taught," or at least encouraged, by the Countess of Pembroke—no mean poetess herself—to write verses, dedicated many works to her, and promised her immortality through his verse and the 1601 edition of his "Defence of Rime," to "his patron," Earl Pembroke. His first volume of poems came out in 1592 ; and several editions in the same year. An edition in 1594 included "Cleopatra ;" and "First foure books of the Civil Wars" appeared in 1595. In 1599 "poetical essays" were published, and he was made poet-laureate that474 Poet-lore. year, on the death of Spenser, groom of the Queen's Chamber, and Master of the Queen's Revels. His wife was Justina, sister of John Florio. and Southampton also patronized him. Fitzgeffrey, in his Epigrams, says of him,- "For, in my judgment, if the god of verse In English would heroic deeds rehearse, No language so expressive he would choose As that of English Daniel's lofty muse." The edition of "The Civil Warres," published in 1609, was dedicated to the "Right Noble Lady the Ladie Marie, Countesse Dowager of Pembroke. After the many editions I send it forthe againe by your goodness, to whome, and to whose noble family I hold myselfe ever bound, and will labour to doo you all the honour and service I can." Perhaps there was, after all, a second rival poet to whom Pembroke thus may be said to have given countenance. Daniel's "Mask of the Twelve Goddesses" also introduces Night and Sleep; and he too had had visions and dreamed of spirits, from Dr. Dee downwards, Daniel's "Delia" sonnets are no doubt the nearest approach to Shakespeare's in style, theme, and quality. I do not put him forward as "the rival poet," * but as a proof that, had any real rivalry been applicable to Chapman, he would have fared better at the Pembrokes' hands. Daniel was appointed tutor to the noted Anne Clifford, born in 1589, afterwards Countess of Dorset, who, marrying Philip, Earl Montgomery, succeeded to the title of Countess of Pembroke ; and thus again, in her, the same family honored him in his age, and raised a splendid tombstone to his memory and hers on his death, in 1619. But the point on which I differ most from Mr. Tyler is his translation of "W.H." in the dedication. Of course this form of addressing a nobleman by a printer was possible, but it was very improbable. Such an example is to be found nowhere else in the history of printing, and certainly not in any future relations between T. Thorpe and the Earl of Pembroke. And we have fortunately an *Daniel was at least said to have supplanted Shakespeare in the coveted post of Master of the Revels. Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H.," and the " Dark Lady." 475 example of how he would really address him, discovered by Mr. Hazlitt in a dedication of nine years later : "'Epictetus Manuall, Cebes Table & "Theophrastus Characters' "by Jo. Headley. London. Printed by " George Purslowe for Edward Blount. 1616. " To the Right Honourable, william, Earle of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlaine to his Majestie, one of his most Honourable Privie Counsell, and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter. etc... "Right Honourable "It may worthily seem strange unto your Lordship, our of what frenzy one of my meannesse hath presumed to commit this Sacriledge, in the straightnesse of your Lordship's leisure, to present a peace, for matter and model so unworth, and in this scribbling age, wherein persons are so pestered daily with Dedications. All I can alledge in extenuation of so many incongruities, is the bequest of a deceased man ; who (in his life-time) having offered some translations of his unto your Lordship, ever wisht, if these ensuing were published, they might onely bee addressed unto your Lordship, as the last Testimony of his dutifull affection (to use his own termes :) The true and reall upholder of learned endeavours. This therefore being left unto me, as a Legacie unto your Lordship : pardon my presumption, Great Lord, from so meane a man, to so great a person : I could not without some impiety present it to any other ; such a sad priviledge have the bequests of the dead, and so obligatory they are, more than the requests of the living : In the hope of this honourable pardon and acceptance I will ever rest your Lordship's "Humble devoted "T. TH." No one could honestly consider these cringing tones a dedication from the same publisher to the same patron. Of course Mr. Tyler might suggest that Earl Pembroke had been so indignant with the Sonnets dedication that Thorpe might have vowed never to offend again. But I cannot think the verbosity, the awe, the respect to titles, could have so accumulated in Thorpe's mind in nine years. At the date of the publication of the Sonnets, W. Herbert had been the Earl of Pembroke for eight years, his father dying in 1601 ; he had been Knight of the Garter in 1603 ; and honors were continually raining on him, as he was the "most universally beloved and476 Poet-lore. honoured of all men in this reign."* Furthermore, he, being the eldest-born son of a great earl, had never at any time borne the title of "Mr. W. H." : he had always been Lord Herbert, even in the register of his birth and baptism, which was carved in great letters over the south entrance of St. Mary's Church (a rectory held in the gift of the Pembrokes from the time of Henry VIII.), at Wilton. It ran thus: "Be it remembered, that at the 8th day of Aprill, 1580, on Friday, before 12 o'clock at night of the same day, was born William Lord Herbert, of Cardiffe, first child of the noble Henry Herbert, Erle of Pembroke, by his most dere wyfe Mary, daughter to the right Honble Sir Henry Sidney, Knight of the most noble order &c & the Lady Mary, daughter to the famous, John Duke of Northumberland, and was Xt'ned the 28th day of the same month, in the mannour of Wilton. The Godmother, ye mighty and most excellent Princess Elizabethe, by the grace of God Queen of England, by her deputye the most virtuous Lady Anne, Countice of Warwick ; and the godfathers were the noble and famous Erle Ambrose, Erle of Warwick, and Robert, Erle of Lycester, both great uncles to the infant by the mother's side, Warwick in person, and Lycester by his deputy, Phillip Sydney Esq. uncle by the mother's side, to the forenamed young Lord Herbert of Cardiff, whom the Almighty and most gracious God blesse, with his mother above-named, with prosperous life in all happiness, in the name of God. Amen." (Hoare's "History of Wiltshire," p. 119. Above this inscription are the arms of Herbert Earl Pembroke, with quarterings and impalements.) I thought this important to the present question, as showing that the use of his title began at once ; and the Sydney papers and other letters show that it was never disused. Such a dedication could have been dared only by one in collusion with the Earl Pembroke himself ; and had it been Thomas Thorpe, who had been once so honored, he would not have been so afraid to address his lordship in 1616, as constancy to his friends and dependents was a prominent trait in Earl Pembroke's character. I am perfectly well aware that it is easier to deny that it was Earl Pembroke than to assert who "W. H." was. I am aware that many attempts to make a theory round the names of others have failed. Dr. *See Charendon's "History of the Rebellion" and Sydney Papers. Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H.," and the "Dark Lady." 477 Drake thought "W. H." should be "H. W.," for Henry Wriothesley, Earl Southhampton. Tyrwhit thought it William Hughes : "A man in hue, all hues in his controlling." B. Heywood Bright (1819) first suggested William Herbert ; James Boaden (1832) and C. A. Brown thought the same. The analogy of the use of Mr. to Sackville (after he was Lord Buckhurst), in quoting from his poems, has been shown by Prof. Minto. Ellis and Hazlitt thought it might have been a William Hammond, an early patron of Middleton's "Witch." I have been unable to find a dedication to this person ; the earliest copy I can find being dedicated to "Thomas Holmes," by Thomas Middleton, in "The Ancient British Drama," which professes to reprint exactly the edition of 1603. I bring forward no theory, but I make another suggestion. Karl Elze says that in 1873, Charles Edwards found at Lamport Hall a copy of an unknown work of Southwell's to which were added four poems, "brought together" by W. H. and by him put to press, and printed by G. Eld, 1606, the printer three years later of "Shakespeare's Sonnets." This fits into a possibility that had crossed my mind. In the "Paradise of Dainty Devices, by M. Edwardes, the rest by sundry learned gentlemen, both of honour and worship," published in 1596 ; out of 102, there are 16 poems signed by a Mr. W. H. or Mr. William Hunnis. These are- "The Introduction, a translation of the Blessed St. Barnarde's verses containing the unstable felicities of this wavering world." W. Hunnis. 12. "No pleasure without pain." W. Hunnis. 51. "If thou desire to live in quiet reste." W. Hunnis. 60. "Finding no joy, he desireth death." W. Hunnis. 61. "Hope well and have well." W. Hunnis. 63. "He complaineth his mishap." W. Hunnis. 64. "No foe to a flatterer." W. Hunnis. 68. "He assureth constancie." W. Hunnis. 71. "He repenteth his follie." W. Hunnis. 73. "The fruit of fained friends." W. H. 84. "That love is requited by disdaine." W. Hunnis. 85. "Of a contented estate." W. Hunnis. 87. "Of a meane estate." W. Hunnis. 93. "Being in trouble, he writeth thus." W. Hunnis.478 Poet-lore. George Gascoigne writes: A "Brief Rehearsal or rather true copie of as much as was presented before her Majestie at Kenilworth, during her last abode there as followeth: Her Majesty came there, as I remember, on Saturday, the ninth of July last past. On which day there met her on the way, somewhat neere the Castle, Sybills, who prophecied unto her Highness the prosperous raigne she should continue, in verses. This device was invented and the verses also written by Mr. Hunneys, Master of her Majestie's Chappell." This was published on 26th March, 1576, of the doings in the summer of 1575; and bring Mr. Hunneys both near Stratford, and near stage-writing and designs of the kind. I find this William Hunnis also the author of many semi-religious poems. The first notice of him appears in the middle of the century.* "The Psalmes of Davide," translated into English metre by Sternhold, Wyat, and William Hunnis, 1551; "A Hive full of Hony," 1578 (notice the pun); "Seven sobbes of a sorrowful soul for sinne," 1585; "Recreations &c, Adam's Banishment, Christ's Crib, the Lost Sheep, and an old man's complaint," 1588; " Rules or Weapons concerning the spiritual battle," translated by W. H., printed for John Dalderne, 1589, As this Hunnis was master of Children of the Queen's Chapell in 1585, it is more than probable he is the W. H. of the poems in Southwell's volume, from the similarity of feeling. It is quite possible that Shakespeare, attracted by Sacred Music, might have made friends with him; might have been advised by him to try the then new-fashion sonnet-form. It is quite possible also, that, knowing this, the publishers might have traced, in the "Paradise of Dainty Devices," some clue to those sonnets that began to appear among Shakespeare's private friends so shortly after the publication of this work. While not comparing these verses to Shakespeare's as poetry, the subjects and treatment are sometimes apparently similar, as for instance poem 68, - "With painted speech, I list not prove, my cunning for to trye, Nor yet will use to fill my pen, with guileful flatterie... And sure Dame Nature hath you decked with gifts above the rest." Compare Sonnets 24 and 21 and others. *Ames's "Typographical Antiquities." Shakespeare's Sonnets, "W.H.," and the "Dark Lady". 479 Of course this Mr. "W.H." could not have been much under seventy-nine at the period of the dedication of the Sonnets by Thomas Thorpe; but the friendliness was quite permissible. Thorpe might have believed him to be the only suggester; and "that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet, "may be retranslated. I am not about to make a case of this, nor do I attempt to explain everything; I only bring it forward as "material;" for no sound theory can be built up without comparing and considering even rejected material. Another supposition I may also mention, as one more likely on some considerations. Though I cannot believe Thorpe ever addressed Earl Pembroke as "Mr. W.H.," there were several men of the same name at the same time, - some of the same family even. Is it not possible that some retainer or secretary, guardian or friend, might have conveyed the Countess of Pembroke's wishes regarding her son to Shakespeare, and, willing to glorify the family, might have handed them on to Thorpe, who, in grateful return, might call him the only begetter, and wish him all happiness and a share in the family "eternity." There was at least one such William Herbert in the family, who attended, as gentleman usher, the funeral of Pembroke's grandfather, the first earl, from Hampton Court to St. Paul's Cathedral, following, with Henry Morgan, the chief mourner Henry, second Earl Pembroke, in 1570. He may very well have been sent as a sort of guide, guardian, or chaperone with the young lord when he came to London in 1598. And there were others nearer himself in years. William Earl Pembroke and his brother were made Masters of Arts of New College, Oxford, August 30, 1605, the king being then at Oxford, at the time Prince Henry matriculated (see Wood's "Athenae Oxoniensis," vol. ii. p. 483). At the same date was made M.A. a William Herbert, knight; and Wood says, in connection with Earl Pembroke: "There are others if both his names that have been writers." Now, in a little volume of verses published in memory of Elizabeth, I find some by "another of both his name:" "Oxoniensis Academiae Funebre Officium in Memoriam Honoratissimam480 Poet-lore Serenissmæ et beatissmæ Elizabethæ Nuper Angliæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ Reginæ Oxoniæ excudebat Josephus Barnesinus. Almæ Academiæ Typographus 1603" written in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. On page 156 appears: "Luna facit solis defectus, terra labores Lunæ neutra Angli solis eclipsus erit, Luna laboravit, lux occidit orbis Elisa Unde igitur nostri solis eclipsis erit? Cynthia deseruit solium, tria regna reliquit His inuxit quartum, qui dedit illa, Deus. Guliel. Herbertus, Coll. Jesus. Gen." Though I do not on this fact either build a theory, I think it right to note it. The value of fragments is great. Others may possess fragments that seem unmeaning, but when all are fitted together, it may be they may form a mosaic of clear design and noble pattern, with mottoes and meanings enscrolled, on which we may read the truth. And hence, it seems right to me that all connected facts should be brought forward; and some day the artist may come who can piece them together, and let all the world read the inner meaning of Shakespeare's sonnets. Charlotte C. Stopes. --- A STUDY OF RHYMES IN BROWNING So much has been said in adverse criticism of Browning's rhymes that many people, especially those already inclined towards poetry, feel in duty bound to look askance at even the covers of his works, supposing that these contain within themselves unpardonable sins, in the form of deliberate transgressions of the canons of literary art. On the other hand, some admirers of the poet have said that his imperfect rhymes, though poor and forced, are nevertheless proportionately few, and A Study of Rhymes in Browning. 481 that all the talk about imperfection in this line has been occasioned by a dozen or twenty rhymes, such as "dab brick" and "fabric," "syntax" and "tin tacks." Evidently both of these opinions as they stand cannot be true: somewhere between the extremities, or in some way by the happy combination of the important points of the conflicting ideas, must the truth be found. And the truth is worth finding. It would seem at first sight as if the matter were not of sufficient importance to warrant thorough investigation; for those who like Browning like him in spite of these "deliberate transgressions," and those who do not now enjoy his writings, probably would not were he able and willing to revise every forced rhyme out of his poetry. But a knowledge of truth is worth having, even at the expense of victory, and there are certain facts which, if taken in connection with one another, may throw a little light on the subject. At the outset one is confronted by the difficulty felt by all students of Browning,-that of remaining absolutely impartial, unprejudiced either for or against the favorable side of the question at issue; and it might as well be said here that, in the figures to come, no one need discount the work as presumably that of an admirer of Browning, and therefore tinged by the personal equation. An admirer of Browning I certainly am, but for this very reason have been especially careful to be exact and consistent in the division of rhymes. That is a matter which, except in the most obvious cases, must be settled by feeling, by instinct, by a certain indefinable, though no less real, sense of that which is beautiful and poetic: the question does not admit of the application of a fixed set of test rules. It seems almost needless to say that such a study as this should be carried on as far as possible with the eyes blindfolded, and that not until the end should one see the results, the probable conclusion. But a suggestion may be needed to remind us that we study to find the truth, not to establish some stated and imaginary theory, and that for this reason we must deal altogether with facts, having nothing to do with theories and as little as possible with interpretations. 34482 Poet-lore The first question must be with regard to the amount of work produced by Browning and the proportion of pages of rhymed to unrhymed verse, for we assuredly cannot give him credit for having no false rhymes in "The Ring and the Book," or in "King Victor and King Charles." Taking the last edition of the Riverside Press as our standard, we find that in the seven volumes -- allowing for a few blank pages -- there are 2668 pages in all, bearing the relation of 1096 of rhymed to 1572 of unrhymed verse, or, approximately, the proportion of two to three. With the three-fifths we have nothing to do: our study is to be within the limits of the 1096 pages of rhymed verse; and in these we find a total of 34,746 rhymes. The whole matter at issue now resolves itself to the two following questions: First, In what does a bad rhyme consists? -- that is, what are its essential characteristics? Second, The first question being settled, what proportion of the 34,746 rhymes found in Browning's poetry are, according to our definition, poor? In answer to the first question, it seems fair to say that the word "bad" in this connection may involve two qualities, either one of which would be sufficient to warrant the term; that is, a bad rhyme may be an imperfect one, as "angered" and "vanguard," or a forced one, as "happen" and "clap pen," or "equals" and "weak walls." Surely we will allow Browning, as we have allowed poets and versifyers before him, to rhyme "dull" with "full," "lone" with "gone," and "saith" with "faith;" we must, for due honesty, give him his share of poetic license. Granting, then, that a bad rhyme may be both imperfect and forced, and must be one or the other, we find that out of the 34,746 rhymes, three hundred and twenty-two, or about one out of a hundred, come under the unfavorable heading. What this proportion means to us will depend somewhat upon our definition of poetry, somewhat upon our preconceived ideas as to Browning's transgressions in this particular department of literary art. However, granting the premise with regard to the essential characteristics of a poor rhyme, and allowing a little one way or the other for the differences of personal judgment, the result of the A Study of Rhymes in Browning. 483 proportion remains indisputable: it is no longer a theory; it is now a fact. But is this the only fact which can be gained from the figures? By a careful study of the poems in which the bad rhymes appear, and even more particularly of those in which they are most frequently found, it seems a not unfair inference to divide these poems, or part of poems, into three main heads. With few exceptions, it will be found that all the poems in which imperfect or forced rhymes occur, have in them rough, odd, uneducated, or unbalanced characters. This in itself is not saying much, but on investigation it will be noticed that about all of these criticised expressions occur in some of the following three cases: First, when, through the dramatic method, these rough, uneducated characters speak for themselves. Second, when Browning is speaking about or describing such characters. Third, when Browning is speaking in his own person, evidently or apparently for himself. In a recent number of POET-LORE [May, 1890] there is an article by Dr. Brinton, in which is given a somewhat different explanation of Browning's avowedly imperfect rhymes. He says: "On this point I would observe that not unfrequently Browning employs rhyme in such a manner that one must regard it merely as a means of heightening the effect of his secondary rhythm. The rhyming words are so far apart that we are aware only of a faint but melodious echo. The always artificial and somewhat mechanical effect of rhyme is thus avoided, while its rhythmic essence is retained," -- proceeding to illustrate by an example from "Pheidippides." The difference, however, is more superficial than central: the underlying principle is the same in each case, -- that Browning's apparent indifference and neglect, if viewed from the right stand-point, may be seen to be rather intentional than unavoidable or careless violations of the restrictive rules of poetic art. While neither one of the two theories includes the other, it seems not unfair to say that neither one excludes the other. A good example of Browning's use of imperfect rhymes when, through the dramatic method, some rough, uneducated character484 Poet-lore speaks for himself, is found in "The Flight of the Duchess." Take, for instance, the words of the old hunter, who says, -- "Blessed was he whose back arched with the jerkin His sire was wont to do forest-work in; Blessender he who nobly sunk 'ohs' And 'ahs' while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose; What signified hats if they had no rims on, Each slouching before and behind like a scallop, And able to serve at sea for a shallop, Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson? So that the deer, to make a short rhyme on't, What with our Venerers, Prickers, and Verderers, Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers, And, oh, the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't." Later on, he rhymes "instinct" with "quince-tinct," "eye-holes" with "viols," and "falcon eye" with "balcony." Now, contrast this with the words of the gypsy who, at the time of that exaltation which is almost inspiration, half says, half sings, -- "So, trial after trial past, Wilt thou fall at the very last Breathless, half in trance With the thrill of the great deliverance, Into our arms for evermore; And thou shalt know, those arms once curled About thee, what we knew before, How love is the only good in the world. Henceforth be loved as heart can love, Or brain devise, or heart approve." One would know instinctively that these two selections -- though two short to tell much -- were not meant to represent one and the same person. The second class is, as we would expect, by far the smallest of the three, and its examples are found entirely in the shorter poems, with the exception of a few extracts taken from the longer and more dramatic works. The longest illustration, and perhaps the best, is the description and story of Pacchiarotto. One can hardly help thinking that it would require less genius to write technically perfect poetry than to construct some of the rhymes in the following extract: A Study of Rhymes in Browning. 485 "At which last 'If' There flew at his throat like a mastiff One Spare Horse -- another and another! Such outbreak of tumult and pother, Horse-faces a-laughing and fleering, Horse-voices a-mocking and jeering, Horse-hands raised to collar the caitiff Whose impudence ventured the late 'If' -- That had not fear sent Pacchiarotto Off tramping, as fast as he could trot toe, Away from the scenes of discomfiture -- Had he stood there stock-still in a dumb fit -- sure Am I he had paid in his person Till his mother might fail to know her son, Though she gazed on him never so wistful, In the figure so tattered and tristful. Each mouth full of curses, each fist full Of cuffings -- behold, pacchiarotto, The past which thy project has got to, (The paraphrase -- which I much need -- is From Horace 'per ignes incedis')." But the third class, those poems which show us Browning apparently speaking in his own person and for himself, and which yet contain poor rhymes, are greater, both in numbers and in importance, than many of us would suppose. One well-known and striking example is the Prologue to "Ferishtah's Francies," in which Browning has out-rhymed himself. Granting the right to criticise adversely and freely the combination of "Italy" and "Spit ally," of "peptic's state" and "masticate," of "lesson, -- eh?" and "Gressoney," what shall be said for some of the longer poems, such as "Christmas Eve," and even "Old Pictures in Florence," which Browning certainly had more reason for writing than he had for the Prologue mentioned above? We are concerned just now with facts, not with theories nor with interpretations, so there is nothing for us to do with the fact -- if we believe we have sufficient reason for considering it that -- but to acknowledge it as such, leaving to others all questions of why and wherefore. If we find that out of the nineteen poems containing the large majority of Browning's poor rhymes, eighteen come under one of486 Poet-lore. the three heads already mentioned, surely taking this in connection with the proportion of good to bad rhymes, we can say that Browning's bad rhymes are rather striking than numerous, and that even the most noticeable are not necessarily proofs of carelessness. They may be, on the contrary, the proof of a great poet's idea of consistency, of the relation of expression to thought and to character." Elizabeth M. Clark. The Library. Leo, F. A.- "Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft." Edited by Leo. Twenty-fifth yearly issue. A. Huschke: Weimar, 1890. The surprise Dr. Leo had in store for us in this year-book, in his announcement of the discovery of veritable signatures of a Rosencrantz and a Guildenstern, of Denmark, in the sixteenth century, is already known to the readers of Poet-Lore from the extract given in the July number of his magazine. Another prominent chapter of "Jahrbuch xxv." is the paper on "Shakespeare's Sonnets," by Charlotte Stopes, which is in effect the same as her contribution to our present issue. Preceding Mrs. Stope's article in the "Jahrbuch " is a timely bibliographical paper by Dr. Sachs, in which he makes an exhaustive survey of the diverse theories held and the many commentaries written touching not only "The Sonnets," but also "Venus and Adonis," "Lucrece," and the various smaller poetical pieces called Shakespeare's. This thorough-going bibliographical summary is the best on the subject, unquestionably, and supplies the student with an indispensable tool. Miss Grace latham contributes a study on "Some of Shakespeare's Waiting-Women," finding peculiarly Shakespearian excellencies in the poet's treatment of minor as of major characters, and The Library. 487 a balance of values, essentially dramatic, in the offspring, for example, of the weak, indolent Olivia with witty, sprightly Maria; the anxious, shy Lucetta with passionate, capricious Julia; loyal and loving Juliet with her shifty, corruptible nurse, and so on. Especially rich is this volume of the "Jahrbuch" in matters bearing on the stage side of Shakespearian illustration. Dr. Eugene Kilian gives not only an account of Dahlberg's and other adaptations of "Timon of Athens," but Dahlberg's whole play as given at Mannheim in 1789; and Dr. Merschberger offers a full report on the introduction of Shakespeare to the Hamburg stage. "Hamlet" was first to be represented, September 20, 1776; and it was given during the year thirteen times. Brackmann was Hamlet, Fraulein Ackerman Ophelia, and Schroder the ghost. And during the next twenty-two years, "Othello," "The Merchant of Venice," "Measure for Measure," "King Lear," "Richard II.," "Henry IV.," "Macbeth," "Coriolanus," and "Much Ado about Nothing," followed in the order given, and were many times played. Dr. Merschberger holds, of course, that adaptations or distortions of the plays, with Shakespeare's name left out, such as the English dramatic pieces already so well shown by Dr. Cohn to have been early given in Germany, were known to the Hamburg stage; But concerning himself primarily with the stage recognition of Shakespeare as Shakespeare, he calls attention to Schroder's labors as the first that gave to the English dramatist his lasting value on the German boards. In 1682, Morhof first named Shakespeare's name in Germany; in 1708 Feind spoke of him as "the famous English tragic poet; and in 1726, Richey mentioned the first play under the poet's name. Wieland's version of "The Tempest" was brought out in Anspruch in 1761, and Schroder himself perceived the mighty influence "Hamlet" would exert "under other conditions," as Dr. Merschberger puts it, in 1776, at a representation in Prague. The early Vienna performances he speaks of as having no especial luck; and so, the remunerative career of Shakespeare in Germany begins on the Hamburg stage. The common prejudice against literary societies receives one more blow from Dr. Merschberger's story of facts, for it appears488 Poet-lore. that Schröder's early attraction to Shakespeare was fostered in the meetings of a little society which gathered to read Steinbruchel's "Theatre of Greeks," Wieland's Shakespeare, etc., and later, the works of Goethe and his school ; and from such consideration of dramatic masterpieces arose also this influence of a more enlightened criticism that was not without its part to play in the recognition of Shakespeare in Germany. Still another interesting paper is that of Dr. Daniel Jacoby on the effect of Shakespeare on Lessing's coterie, or, more especially, the influence of the Hamlet soliloquy in the writings of two of Lessing's friends, Mendelssohn and Kleist. The leading article of the volume is the address delivered in Freiburg on the anniversary of April, 1889, by B. Suphan, on Shakespeare in the beginning of the classic period in German literature. Shakespearian specialists already know that they cannot afford to leave the " Jahrbuch" unread ; the more general student of literature should realize that it will stead him also to have knowledge of its contents, because they touch at many points upon cosmopolitan literature. Charlotte Porter. BROOKS, SARAH WARNER. "English Poetry and Poets." Ester & Lauriat : Boston, 1890. WITHOUT leaving well-beaten paths, either in subject-matter or in criticism thereupon, and without any evidence whatsoever of the modern idea if tracking development, and penetrating towards the life which informs and enlivens literature, this compilation of Mrs. Brooks is yet likely to be found a much better manual for schools, and for many years outside of schools who want a general yet readable summary of English literature, than most books in use. Its good points are the wide range of periods of literature which it covers, the variousness of the elder authorities it freely quotes, and the easy, unforbidding style. A Study Programme : English Life and Literature. 489 A STUDY PROGRAMME : ENGLISH LIFE AND LITERATURE. --------- THE FOLLOWING programme covers a good deal of ground, and is not meant to serve any other purpose than that of a pleasant cursory general review of English Life and Letters. It has been used with success by a study club of less than twenty members in Philadelphia, and it here given by its framers because they suppose it may be a useful plan for either single students or a group of students to follow who want a working outline for a winter course of study reading. The plan provides for fourteen fortnightly sessions, beginning in November and ending in May. The editors of POET-LORE will be glad to hear from any who choose to follow this programme, or any part of it, to learn of any difficulties encountered, or to give any further information that may be needed. I. Reading.-Characters of the English Land and People. Paper.-Myths of Ancient Britain. Summary.-Roman Remains and Early Saxon Art. Reading.-Anglo-Saxon Poets : Selections,-Beowulf, Cædmon, Cynewulf. Paper.-Domestic Manners in England During the Anglo-Saxon Period. Reading.-Boadicea,-Tennyson, Cowper. Conversation.–Queen Boadicea. II. Paper.–Dress : Yeoman, Squire, and Dame. Summary.-Feudal Castle and Customs. Reading.-Selections from Thackeray’s Continuation of “ Ivanoe.” Paper.–Literary Beginnings in Middle English (with selections). Reading.-“ The Bard.”–Gary (with explanatory introduction). Conversation.–Three Influence Women : Queen Bertha, Saint Hilda, Emma of Normandy. III. Reading.-The Great Universities. Summary.-Wyclif and the Lollards. Reading.-The Heroes of the Crusades, and Effect of the Crusades on Civilization. Paper.-A Tour Through the Cathedral Towns of England. Reading.-Legend of Good Woman,-Chaucer (selection). Conversation.–England’s Warrior Queen : Margaret of Anjou.490 Poet-lore. IV. Reading. - The Renaissance in England. Reading.- William Caxton.- "Literature after Chaucer and Caxton's Translations." (Greene). Paper.- Selections from Contemporary Poems: Skelton's "Phyllip Sparowe," "Chevy-Chase." Paper.- The Philosopher's Stone and Elixir of Life. Conversation.- Juliana Berners and her " Booke of Englysshe Sportes." V. Paper.- A History of England's Possession of Calais. Summary.- Elizabeth's Connection with the Netherlands and Philip II. Reading.- Francis Bacon's Life and Work (with selections). Paper.- Sketch of the Development of the Drama. Reading.- "Imaginary Conversation between Ascham and Lady Jane Grey," -Landor. Conversation. -Lady Jane Grey. VI. Reading- Manufactures and Commerce in the Reign of Elizabeth. Summary.- Spenser and his Predecessors. Paper.- The Tower of London and its Illustrious Prisoners. Summary.- The Wits of the "Mermaid" (with lines from Keats and poems to Shakespeare, from First and Second Folios). Paper.- English Love of Travel and Modes of Travelling. Reading.- Imaginary Conversation between Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth, -Landor. Conversation.- Mary Stuart, Elizabeth Tudor. VII. Reading.- England's Empire in the New World. Paper.- The Cavalier Poets: Selections,-Suckling, Waller, Cowley. Summary.- Bunyan and the Popular Religious Movement (with selection from Hawthorne, -Railroad between City of Destruction and Beulah). Paper.- Cromwell's Policy. Summary.-Milton's Poetry and Politics. Conversation.-Mary Powel. VIII. Summary.- Establishment of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Science. Paper.- Adventures and Intrigues of Prince Charlie. Reading.- Loyalist Ballads. Paper.- The Theatre of the Restoration. Summary.- Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assize. Conversation.- The Duchess of Newcastle. IX. Paper.- Parliament and the Stuarts. Summary.- Art and Architecture after the Restoration. A Study Programme: English Life and Literature. 491 Paper.-Famous Actresses. Summary.- The English Novel: Smollett, Fielding, Richardson. Reading.- Dryden's "Alexander's Feast." Conversation.- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. X. Reading.- "The Four Georges,"- Thackeray (selection). Paper.- The Opium War. Summary.- The Lake Poets and the Transcendental Movement in English Literature. Paper.- Handel's Effect on English Music. Paper.- Inventions and Discoveries of the Georgian Era. Conversation.- Caroline Herschel, Mary Lamb, Dorothy Wordsworth. XI. Reading.- Decisive English Battles,- Creasy's "Decisive Battles of the World;" "The Musket as a Social Force,"- Popular Science Monthly, February, 1886. Reading.- Sir I. Newton. Summary.- Samuel Johnson, with Selections from Boswell. Paper.- Beginnings of Periodical Literature: Addison and Steele (with selections). Reading.- "She Stoops to Conquer,"- Goldsmith (selected scenes in character). Conversation.- Hannah More, Charlotte Lennox, Fanny Burney, Mrs. Barbauld. XII. Paper.- England's Military Heroes. Reading.- The Gordon Riots,- from "Barnaby Rudge." Summary.- Crimean War. Reading.-The East India Company: Lamb's "South-Sea House." Paper.- Berkeley and Locke. Reading.- Selections from Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronté." Conversation. - The Bronté Sisters. XIII. Paper. -The Birth of Modern Science: Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley. Summary.- The Eastern Question. Paper.- Tennyson and Browning (with selections). Summary.- The Royal Society of Artists and the Pre-Raphaelites. Paper.- Carlyle: Historian, Critic, Philosopher (with selection). Conversation.- Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Jameson, Harriet Martineau, Mary Somerville. XIV. Summary.- Great English Statesmen. Summary.- Dickens and Thackeray (with selections). Paper.- John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. Paper.- Women's Colleges in England. Reading.- "A College Breakfast Party."- George Eliot (selections). Conversation.- George Eliot. 492 Poet-lore. NOTES AND NEWS. ------------- If I sent him word again, it was not well-cut, he would send me word he cut it to please himself ; this is called the Quip modest. " - "As You Like It," iv., 76. OUR attention has been called of later to some vulgar attacks. founded on misstatements and apparently envious, which have been made on POET-LORE. In justice to ourselves we say here, once and for all, that such attacks we do not think it worth our while to repel. We ask attention to the work of POET-LORE on it merits only any from the discriminating alone. SHAKESPEARE FOR AMERICA. TO THE EDITORS OF POET-LORE. - Let me send you a supplementary work to that "view" of Shakespeare attributed to me, published in your July number, and so courteously worded by the reviewer (thanks! dear friend). But you have left out what, perhaps, is the main point, as follows: "Even the one what at who at present reigns unquestioned, - of Shakespeare, - for all he stands for so much in modern literature, he stands entirely for the mighty æthetic scepters of the past, not for the spiritual and democratic, the scepters of the future. " (See pp. 55-58 in "November Boughs, " and also some of my further notions on Shakespeare.) The Old World (Europe and Asia) is the region of the poetry of concrete and real things, - the past, the æthetic, palaces, etiquette, the literature of war and love, the mythological goods, and the myths anyhow. But the New World (America) is the region of the future, and its poetry must be spiritual and democratic. Evolution is not the rule in Nature, in Politics, and Inventions only, but in Verse. I know our age is greatly materialistic, but it is greatly spiritual, too, and the future will be, too. Even what we moderns have come to NOTES and NEWS. 493 means by spirituality (while including what the Hebraic utterers, and mainly perhaps all the Greek and other old typical poets, and also the later ones, meant) has so expanded and colored and vivified the comprehension of the term, that it is quite a different one from the past. Then science, the final critic of all, has the casting vote for future poetry. Walt Whitman. ---------------- LONDON LETTER. ONE of the notable "signs of the times" is the somewhat sudden popularity of, and interest in, the writings of Mr. George Meredith. A great artist in words, a profound thinker, and a humorist of no mean order. Mr. Meredith has been for long years producing work of the first rank, - but which, for the, most part, has hitherto only appealed to the few. It is not to be denied that some of these novels are head reading ; that in one or two of them especially the prologue will appear, to the uninitiated in Meredithian literature, somewhat prolix, and to have little bearing on the subsequent story ; while at times the style will be found as involved as some of the lines of his renowned contemporary, Robert Browning. Indeed, the curious in these matters will notice the striking similarity between poet and novelist, - the similarity not only in style, but in the fact that their best work had been long before the world before due recognition form the general reading public was awarded them. However, it would now seem that Mr. Meredith has gained the ear of the "general reader," for a cheap edition of his novels has recently been issued, and has provided most successful. There are those who deny the artistic faculty to Mr. Meredith, and to whom these brilliant novels appear void of form and sense, - a mere rhapsody of words and phrases. But those who know "Richard Feverel" and the wonderful chapter in which are narrated the loves of Lucy and Richard will certainly be forced to admit that, as an artist, George Meredith takes tank with the great masters of English fictions ; which for aphorism and depth of thought he undoubtedly excels all but the very greatest. "Diana of Crossways," again,494 Poet-lore. is a novel through which the most obtuse reader could easily find a pathway; though here undoubtedly the first chapter has repelled many a reader of novels from venturing farther into the unknown country. Yet that chapter is a brilliant piece of writing, -- full of that subtle humor which is one of the author's most striking characteristics, and replete with aphorisms which sparkle like gems upon the pages. "Beauchamp's Career," again, with its marvellous love scene between Renee and Beauchamp, -- certainly a hard spell of reading for the ordinary "three vol." novel reader; but then Mr. Meredith does not write for the ordinary novel reader. He evidently counts on a certain amount of intelligence on the part of the reader; and, as Mr. Browning expressed it, expects "that he will meet him half-way" by bringing that intelligence into play. Premising thus much, your readers will understand the interest that has arisen here concerning Mr. Meredith's new book, the title of which is to be, "One of the Conquerors," and which will, I believe, deal with social and religious questionings. The work is to be issued simultaneously in an American serial and an English magazine. Mr. Meredith has also another novel in progress, entitled "The Journalist;" while there are one or two other stories in a more or less advanced state, -- the novelist generally keeping more than one book going at a time. In October, Messrs. Longman propose to publish the two final volumes of Mr. Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," -- in which the chief subjects dealt with will be the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, the extension of Irish conspiracy and its relations with France, the rise and influence of the Orange Association, the rebellion of 1798, the Legislative Union, and the failure of the measures of Catholic relief which Pitt intended to be the immediate sequel of the Union. Several interesting items of literary interest are, I understand, likely to be forthcoming; chief among which is that we are to have some additional particulars concerning De Quincey. A couple of volumes of correspondence and many papers supposed to have been destroyed are now brought to light, and it is presumed will, in due time, be given to the public. The correspondence includes Notes and News. 495 letters from Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Charlotte Bronte. One of these letters is especially interesting; it is signed "Currer Bell," and accompanies a presentation copy of the poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, of which the poet humorously observes only two copies have been sold. What a quaint meditation Charles Lamb could have written as to the purchasers of those two copies! At last it seems we are to have a single-volume edition of the poems of Matthew Arnold. Better late than never, one may well say in regard to this announcement; for such an issue has long been wanted. Arnold's mind was essentially typical of a certain phase of thought of the Victorian age, and which finds expression in some of his best-known poems. His work in verse was but small compared with that of contemporary poets; and the reason is not perhaps far to seek, --" poetry does not pay." That he accomplished as much as he did of enduring work in verse, when one considers his educational and other mundane duties, is matter for congratulation; and it is perhaps a melancholy fact to know that, had he lived, he had "more to come." Some little time before his untimely death, Mr. Browning told me that Arnold had made up his mind to retire from his public engagements, and to write some more poems. "Fancy," said the old poet, with a touch of real pathos, "waiting till sixty years of age ere he can devote his life to poetry!" The late Mrs. Craik (Dinah Maria Muloch), the authoress of "John Halifax, Gentleman," had many warm and enthusiastic admirers in America, and these will be pleased to learn that a fitting memorial to her memory has now been placed in Tewkesbury Abbey. Soon after her death, in 1887, a scheme for the erection of such a memorial was started, -- the committee including the names of Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Mr. J. Russell Lowell, Mrs. Oliphant, etc., and it was by them decided that the memorial should take the form of a marble medallion in Tewkesbury Abbey, -- Tewkesbury being the home of John Halifax, and the last place visited by Mrs. Craik before her death. The memorial is the work of Mr. H. H. Armstead, R. A., and is designed to indicate the "noble aim of her work." Above the cornice is placed a group illustrative of Charity; while in the architectural member is a winged laurel496 Poet-lore. leaf, surmounted by an alto-relief containing the figures of Truth and Purity. A central shield bears the quotation from "John Halifax,"-" Each in his place is fulfilling his day, and passing away, just as that Sun is passing. Only we know now whither he passes; while whither we go we know, and the way we know,-the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." A medallion portrait is contained in a circular moulding, supported by Corinthian pilasters, on which are borne the maiden and married names of the author. The inscription on the frieze runs, "A tribute to work of noble aim and to a gracious life." It seems that the new edition of Mr. Ruskin's poems will be considerably larger than was at first anticipated ; the "unpublished poems" of the Art critic turning out to be so numerous that the work will make at least two volumes. These will be "complete,"- that is, they will contain all the poems that Mr. Ruskin deems worthy of publication. An "original edition" of Mr. Ruskin's poems was, I believe, sold some little time since for £45! It is likely, too, that a third volume may be added, containing some early prose pieces by Mr. Ruskin, hitherto unpublished. The volumes are under the editorial supervision of Mr. W. G. Collingwood, M.A. There are doubtless many worshippers of William Blake among your readers, and these may be interested in hearing that a full and minute account of his "Mystical System of Theories" is in preparation. The work will contain "commentaries on the whole of his extant prophetic books, printed and unprinted." An Herculean task this, one would imagine ! William G. Kingsland. LONDON, August 7, 1890. ______________________ - A BUST of Sidney Lanier will be unveiled in the Public Library at Macon, Georgia, October 17. William H. Hayne will read a poem in Lanier's honor, and Judge Bleckley, of the Supreme Court in Georgia, will deliver an address. - PRESIDENT CARNOT, of France, is a lover of English genius, and has translated into French "Macbeth," "Romeo and Juliet," and "The Winter's Tale." Notes and News. 497 - THE POETS AND BOTANY is the subject of some literary comparisons of great interest in a forgotten magazine of some ten years ago. We give the gist of the article, which was by J. Hutchison : Wordsworth, in the supplementary preface contained in the second volume of his works, asserts in the most emphatic way the deplorable ignorance of "the most obvious and importance phenomena" of nature which characterizes the poetical literature of the period intervening between the publication of "Paradise Lost" and the "Seasons." A very cursory examination of the productions of the poets who flourished during the seventy years referred to will suffice to show how little they were affected by the manifold beauty and grandeur of the visible universe everywhere around them. In this respect they contrast unfavorably, not only with their successors of the present century, which might have been expected, but with those of the two preceding centuries as well. The latter, whose works embrace a period dating back a hundred years from MIlton, display generally a much more accurate acquaintance with the appearance and phenomena of the natural world than the school of Dryden and Pope. It may be worth mentioning, as a pertinent illustration, that in the poem of "Windsor Forest," by the latter poet, with the exception of a semi-patriotic allusion to the oak in connection with ship-building, there is not a reference to a single forest-tree. Darwin is a well-known instance of the opposite defect,-of the absence of poetic fire rather than of a taste for the delights of the country. His "Botanic Garden" is a dreary, mechanical affair, several degrees worse and more unreadable than Cowley's "Plants," a century earlier. George Herbert might also be quoted here as a case of poetic talent of a very genuine kind, yet unaccompanied by much perception of natural beauty of picturesqueness. On the other hand, Keble, to whom he has been likened, is singularly alive to the sights and sounds of nature. It is unnecessary to enter into much detail in order to show how, much more truly than himself, Pope's predecessors, and especially those of the Elizabethan era, were entitled to the designation of poets of nature. Shakespeare, Spenser, the two Fletchers, Milton, and many others might be adduced in confirmation. With reference to botany, it is evident that the greatest of the tribe, in his universality of knowledge, flowing over into every region of human research, was well acquainted with the subject in its 35498 Poet-lore. twofold aspect,- trees and flowers. Many beautiful flora descriptions occur in the plays, and, although the arboricultural allusions are less frequent, the are sufficiently numerous to justify the belief that his knowledge was both extensive and accurate. Perhaps the most important passage of the kind is where Cranmer, "dilating on a wind of prophecy," portrays under the figure of a "mountain-cedar" the future glories of the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor. Milton has many striking and appropriate images borrowed from trees. His artistic us of the pine as a simile for Satan's spear and the comparison of the rebel host to blasted pines are fine examples. Still finer is the exquisite descriptions in "Lycidas" of the vernal flowers strewed on the hearse of his lamented friend. And, not to multiply quotations further, the vale of Vallombrosa has been immortalized forever by three lines in "Paradise Lost." The most distinguished names in the list of natural poets of the present century are undoubtedly Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. The allusions in the works of the latter, particularly that part of botany relating to trees, are more numerous and show more insight and acquaintance with the forms and processes and changes characteristic of the inhabitants of the forest than those of any other modern author. His verse, in this respect, differs from other descriptive poetry chiefly in this, that his notices are not general appellations or similitudes applicable equally to any or all trees, but are specific, exact, and true only in the particular case. Thomson, for example, in the "Seasons" is in general curiously vague in his descriptions. Such phrases as "sylvan glades," "vocal groves," "umbrageous shades," and the like, frequently occur, doing duty in place of more minute descriptions. Tennyson, on the other hand, pursues exactly the contrary method; his descriptions are nearly always pictures of particular places, instead of fancy sketches, and the distinguishing features are given incidentally in the course of the narrative. When, again, particular trees are referred to, it is almost a invariably with a phrase of an epithet clinching the description as precisely as a paragraph from Evelyn or Loudon. Slight, too, though in many cases they are, they indicate a deep appreciation of the results and tendencies of modern science. -We always say, "Everybody knows the Arber reprints, of course;" but of course the Arber reprints are not half widely enough known by the mass of the American public. There are many potential students of the development of our English literature, we believe, lying latent in the midst of our apparently most hopeless newspaper-reading American world. It is these potential Notes and News. 499 students who ought to know how cheap and attractive are the little reprints of early pieces covering all branches of writing, ranging fro 1186-1757, and clustering thickly in the Elizabethan period. It is a mean and detestable fact, however, that our students would have to add our disgraceful American duty to the cost of these excellent literary tools, but they are so cheap aside from the duty that they ought not to be barred out. We shall be glad to give information about them to any who do not know and who are interested in knowing. Concerning the Transcript of the Stationers' Register, London, 1554-1640, which appeals to a narrower public, Mr. Arber sends us an announcement explaining the delay necessary for the preparation of the final volume. He sends specimen pages, also covering three years, of the Bibliographical Summary of English Literature, 1553-1640, and announces his hope to issue the final Index volume early in 1891. -The Russian tactics which England- and now this so-called American Republic also- has assumed, to her shame, towards literatures of a foreign fashion or an antique mould served to cut short for a long time the cheap and admirable issue of old English plays, known as "The Mermaid Series," by the imprisonment of Mr. Vizetelly, the publisher. But now, happily for us and for Mr. Vizetelly, the series is resumed by the publication of a second volume of Middleton's plays (the first was published in 11887), which contains "The Roaring Girl," by Middleton and Dekker, accompanied by the portrait of Mary Frith as given in the first edition of 1611; "The Witch," especially interesting from its relation with Shakespeare's "Macbeth;" "A Fair Quarrel," in which Rowley probably had a hand also; "The Mayor of Queenborough" and "The Widow," both doubtful plays, though their present editor seems to settle both by condemning Middleton's claim to the first and vindicating it to the second. Sober and pure-minded students, who don't want their view of other times and minds to be falsified and dyed another than the true color, will wish no further interruption to this very good unexpurgated edition. -"A really important discover," as Mr. Walter Skeat calls it, has recently been made about "The Romance to the Rose," by Dr. Max Kaluza. The manuscript contains two distinct fragments; the first extends from the beginning to line 5813, the second from that line to the end, and these are considered to be by two different hands. Dr. Kaluza discovers that the first can be cut again into two500 Poet-lore. pieces; that the arguments against Chaucer's authorship hold against the second piece of the first fragment, lines 1705-5813, -- most of the poem, -- and that what remains is Chaucer's. "But this is going too fast," says Mr. Skeat, in a letter to The Academy. Although the second fragment is nearer to Chaucer than the second piece of the first fragment, Mr. Skeat thinks he can "prove, to utter demonstration, that Chaucer had no hand in it." As to the separable first piece of the first fragment, -- Dr. Kaluza's discovery, -- although there are difficulties, this may be claimed as Chaucer's very own, or rather, as Mr. Skeat puts it, "If there is any Chaucer in the poem at all, it is certainly in lines 1-1704 only, and nowhere else at all." ----Sappho appears to be not so mythical as modern critics would make her, and the fame of her writing more universal and lasting than they were ready to conclude, if we may accept some conclusions of a learned Latin treatise written recently by a Russian textual critic, Mr. John Luniak. He undertakes to investigate the sources of Ovid's "Sappho to Phaon," and to prove that Ovid's Sappho was founded on facts about her and on verses by her, neither of which have come down to us, as well as on extant verses; and of these he cites seventeen instances where Ovid's source of inspiration seems to him to have been Sappho as she still exists. ----The series of University extension manuals, to be edited by Prof. Knight, of St. Andrews, and published in London, by Murray, are as follows, so far as they relate to literature: "Outlines of English Literature," by Mr. William Renton; "The English Novel, from its Origin to Scott," by Professor Raleigh; "Shakespeare and his Predecessors," by Mr. F. S. Boas; "Jacobean Poets," by Mr. Edmund Gosse; "English Poets, from Blake to Tennyson," by the Rev. Stopford Brooke. The education of the populace in scholarly ways, when the populace really cares for such instruction and is not forced or wheedled into it by "upper class" philanthropy striking a new pose, doubtless means a great deal in the issue, as time shall show it. We venture to predict that it will mean not less enlarging of mind to the instructors than to the instructed, if in respect only to the warming and vitalizing of the monasticism that clings to college views of life and literature. Standard Books. We invite attention to our immense stock of Books in all departments of Literature, embracing the classic and standard authors, current Fiction, Belles-Lettres, and a complete collection of French Literature, Standard Spanish, Italian, and German writers. Bindings. Good Books ought to be in good bindings. We enlist the best skill of American, French, English, and German binders, and accordingly, our designs embrace the best productions of the leading workmen. 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"For the study of the play Mr. Furness's edition will henceforth be as invaluable as indispensable." -New York Tribune "It would be hard indeed to find a book whose survey would yield a Shakespeare student a deeper, more abiding pleasure than the last volume of the variorum edition. How any Shakespeare lover who bears a purse can refrain from owning this book we know not." -Shakespeariana. "Of all the editions of Shakespeare, there is none more scholarly, more exhaustive, or in every way more satisfactory than the variorum edition edited by Horace Howard Furness."- Boston Courier "To enjoy Shakespeare thoroughly, there is but one edition will suffice, and that is Dr. Furness's own. It is the result of a lifetime of study by the most eminent Shakespearian scholar in America." - Philadelphia Public Ledger. "One of the most notable contributions to Shakespeare literature in the present century."- Manchester (Eng.) Guardian. "Mr. Furness's noble work will be a lasting honor to American letters. Not only has he as large an acquaintance with Shakespearian critical literature as any other living commentator-probably larger than all, except Furnivall and Fleay, and certainly his judgment is clearer and fairer than Furnivall's- but he also is perfectly familiar with the best acting of Shakespearian plays."- New York Times. "Of all editions yet printed for the scholar and reader, the variorum is by far the most valuable. So far as its plan goes it is absolutely exhaustive. It is printed in beautifully clear type and with marvellous correctness."- Boston Transcript. *** For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent, free of expense, on receipt of the price. J.B. Lippincott Company, Publishers, 715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia.