shows the kindred of all
mankind--that they slight familiar merit and prefer trivial novelty. The
next lines to those quoted above are:

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds.
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More sand than gilt oe'rdusted.

The meaning is too manifest to need or indeed to admit a word of
comment, and it is brought out by this emphasis: "_One_ touch of nature
makes the _whole world kin_"--that one touch of their common failing
being an uneasy love of novelty. Was ever poet's or sage's meaning so
perverted, so reversed! And yet it is hopeless to think of bringing
about a change in the general use of this line and a cessation of its
perversion to sentimental purposes, not to say an application of it as
the scourge for which it was wrought; just as it is hopeless to think of
changing by any demonstration of unfitness and unmeaningness a phrase in
general use--the reason being that the mass of the users are utterly
thoughtless and careless of the right or the wrong, the fitness or the
unfitness, of the words that come from their mouths, except that they
serve their purpose for the moment. That done, what care they? And what
can we expect, when even the "Globe" edition of Shakespeare's works has
upon its very title-page and its cover a globe with a band around it, on
which is written this line in its perverted sense, that sense being
illustrated, enforced, and deepened into the general mind by the union
of the band-ends by clasped hands. I absolve, of course, the Cambridge
editors of the guilt of this twaddling misuse of Shakespeare's line; it
was a mere publisher's contrivance; but I am somewhat surprised that
they should have even allowed it such sanction as it has from its
appearance on the same title-page with their names.

The undramatic character of "Troilus and Cressida," which has been
already mentioned, appears in its structure, its personages, and its
purpose. We are little interested in the fate of its personages, not
merely because we know what is to become of them, for that we know in
almost any play which has an historical subject; but the play is
constructed upon such a slight plot that it really has neither dramatic
motive nor dramatic movement. The loves of "Troilus and Cressida" are of
a kind which are interesting only to the persons directly involved in
t