with him and had received from him a correct copy of his
writings. More than this seems to me to verge upon impertinence. Upon
this point I find myself supported by William Aldis Wright,[11] who is
in my judgment the ablest of all the living editors of Shakespeare; who
brings to his task a union of scholarship, critical judgment, and common
sense, which is very rare in any department of literature, and
particularly in Shakespearian criticism, and whose labors in this
department of letters are small and light in comparison with the graver
studies in which he is constantly engaged. He, in the preface to his
lately published edition of "King Lear" in the Clarendon Press series,
says: "It has been objected to the editions of Shakespeare's plays in
the Clarendon Press series that the notes are too exclusively of a
verbal character, and that they do not deal with aesthetic, or as it is
called, the higher criticism. So far as I have had to do with them, I
frankly confess that aesthetic notes have been deliberately and
intentionally omitted, because one main object in these editions is to
induce those for whom they are especially designed to read and study
Shakespeare himself, and not to become familiar with opinions about him.
Perhaps, too, it is because I cannot help experiencing a certain feeling
of resentment when I read such notes, that I am unwilling to intrude
upon others what I should regard myself as impertinent. They are in
reality too personal and objective, and turn the commentator into a
showman. With such sign-post criticism I have no sympathy. Nor do I wish
to add to the awful amazement which must possess the soul of Shakespeare
when he knows of the manner in which his works have been tabulated, and
classified, and labelled with a purpose, after the most approved method,
like modern _tendenzschriften_. Such criticism applied to Shakespeare is
nothing less than gross anachronism."

Not a little of the Shakespearian criticism of this kind that exists is
the mere result of an effort to say something fine about what needs no
such gilding, no such prism-play of light to enhance or to bring out its
beauties. I will not except from these remarks much of what Coleridge
himself has written about Shakespeare. But the German critics whom he
emulated are worse than he is. Avoid them. The German pretence that
Germans have taught us folk of English blood and speech to understand
Shakespeare is the most absurd and arrogant that