lessness as to the publication and presentation of his dramas, written apparently for the time only, and with no reference to fame. Never has a poet written with less idea of literary repute. Indeed, Shakespeare wrote and acted, as Jonson, Marlowe, and others of his contemporaries, for monetary ends. He went from Stratford to London in 1585, as other young men went to London, to seek and find a lucrative mission, preferring to find it in the composition and rendering of plays and as a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theater. Having accomplished this practical end, we do not find him continuing his residence in London and writing dramatic verse from the love of it. He returned to Stratford in 1610 with a competence, and for the enjoyment of a well-earned leisure, though it lasted but six years. Moreover, in Stratford, as late as 1600, plays were officially prohibited. Dramatists themselves did not hold their professions in high repute, and we cannot wonder that Shakespeare aimed at financial ends only. It has, in fact, been reserved for later eras to ascertain how gifted a genius Shakespeare was. So capricious is earthly renown.

4. As to how to account for the tardy recognition of Shakespeare and his work. We are not

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dealing with an author whose literary product is inferior or undeserving, but instinct with genius. In the Elizabethan Age he was but one among numerous dramatists; and if, here and there, there seemed to be the acknowledgment of his superiority, there was, also, an occasional thrust by way of satire against the attribution to him of any special gift. Even Dryden, a century later, wrote that his idiom was a little out of use.' Later still, Dr. Johnson, the critical authority of his day, omits his name in his "Lives of the English Poets," discussing rather the work of Cowley, Denham, Waller, and Rowe. From Elizabeth he received some notice, indeed, but quite too little, and more for the sake of the court than out of regard for the genius of the dramatist. In 1707, "King Lear" was spoken of as "an obscure piece," while Voltaire was not the only critic who classed him with the inferior poetasters of the nation, stating that "he wrote a number of farces called tragedies."

In seeking reasons for such neglect we note: The prevalence of foreign tastes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the dominance of euphuism as a false conception of literature; the civil wars and commotions of the early Stuart

Dynasty; and the excesses of the Puritans in the days of Cromwell. All of these, in connection with the low status of the stage and dramatic art, would largely account for the comparative indifference of the age to its greatest author. The fact is, Shakespeare did not know himself in the fullness of his power, neither had the age come to the knowledge of itself what it was as the first of the modern periods, and what it possessed in its more eminent authors. It was not till the eighteenth century, and partly through the influence of Germany, that English literature knew what it had in Shakespeare and began in earnest to defend and diffuse his fame.

The place of Shakespeare in English letters is now conceded by acclamation. "Milton and Shakespeare," says Walpole, "are the only two mortals who ventured beyond the visible and preserved their intellects." A genius, in every wellunderstood sense of the word, looking higher and deeper than other men, revealing man to himself and the world, writing for all men and all time, he justifies the eulogium of Milton,

"Dear son of memory, great heir of fame."

When Coleridge, in his "Table Talk," tells us

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that Shakespeare has no manner," he simply means that he is universal," a poet of man and nature, one of God's ordained priests to minister at the altar of truth, and one of his ordained prophets to interpret the mind of God to men.

The main occasion, after all is said, of the socalled Baconian Theory of the Plays is seen in the fact that it is one of many attempts to account for such a genius on any known laws of human history and character. The English world has practically ceased to account for him, but accepts him as he is in his unique personality and work.

II

SHAKESPEAREANA

By this term are meant all those facts and incidents pertaining to Shakespeare's life and writings and influence, of less or greater interest, expressed in written form or current in the shape of oral tradition, which may serve to throw any light on this unique and supreme author, or in any way increase the interest of the student in the examination of his works. The number and character of these fugitive data are such that entire libraries may be said to be made up therewith, as, also, separate lectureships have been established to collect, arrange, and interpret them. These collections and courses may be found in almost every university center, so that Goethe's suggestive phrase, “Shakespeare und kein Ende," is fully illustrated in Germany and throughout Europe. "Shakespeare Once More " is found as an essay among Lowell's literary papers, and yet once more, and yet again, will this imperial man be studied. Ben Jonson speaks of his respect for him as "something this side idola