could be set up.
Shakespeare owes them nothing; and we have received from them little
more than some maundering mystification and much ponderous platitude.
Like the western diver, they go down deeper and stay down longer than
other critics, but like him too they come up muddier. Above all of them,
avoid Ulrici and Gervinus. The first is a mad mystic, the second a very
literary Dogberry, endeavoring to comprehend all vagrom men, and
bestowing his tediousness upon the world with a generosity that
surpasses that of his prototype. Both of them thrust themselves and
their "fanned and winnowed opinions" upon him in such an obtrusive way
that if he could come upon the earth again and take his pen in his hand,
I would not willingly be in the shoes of either. He would hand them down
to posterity the laughing stock of men for ever.

Not Shakespeare only has suffered from this sort of criticism. The great
musicians fare ill at their hands. One of them, Schlueter, writing of
Mozart, says of his E flat, G minor, C (Jupiter) symphonies:

It is evident that these three magnificent works--produced
consecutively and at short intervals--are the embodiment of
_one_ train of thought pursued with increasing ardor; so that
taken as a whole they form a grand _trilogy_.... These three
grandest of Mozart's symphonies (the first lyrical, the second
tragic-pathetic, and the third of ethical import) correspond to
his three greatest operas, "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Die
Zauberfloete."

Now, I venture to say, that there is no such consecutive train of
thought, and no such correspondence. Ethical import in the Jupiter and
in the "Zauberfloete," and correspondence between them! Mozart did not
evolve musical elephants out of his moral consciousness. But a German
professor of _esthetik_ is not happy until he has discovered a trilogy
and an inner life. Those found, he goes off with ponderous serenity into
the _ewigkeit_.

I have been asked, apropos of these articles, to give some advice as to
the formation of Shakespeare clubs. The best thing that can be done
about that matter is to let it alone entirely. According to my
observation, Shakespeare clubs do not afford their members any
opportunities of study or even of enjoyment of his works which are not
attainable otherwise. And how should they do so except by the formation
of libraries for the use of their members? In this respect they may be
of some use,