hich was first, that the defendant
did not take the kettle; next that he returned it; and finally that the
plaintiff never had any kettle. First these sentiments are not put
forth as those of the writer of the play, but as those of the
personages who figured in the historical incidents therein dramatized;
next it is undeniable that such were the feelings which noblemen and
gentlemen of Henry VI.'s time, and of the time when this play was
written, had and expressed toward peasants; and finally, whether or no
it makes no difference as to Shakespeare's sentiments in regard to his
humbler fellow men; for _Shakespeare did not write this play_. No
editor or competent critic of Shakespeare believes that Shakespeare
wrote one single scene of the first part of "King Henry VI." True the
same feeling is expressed by noblemen and gentlemen in plays which
Shakespeare did write; and we notice this particular passage chiefly
because of its evidence that Mr. Wilkes, although an intelligent and
careful reader of Shakespeare, is not sufficiently acquainted with the
history and the literature of his time, or with dramatic literature
generally, to undertake to pass judgment upon Shakespeare from the
higher points of view, however he may be so to judge him from "an
American point of view." For the assertion that Shakespeare was in this
respect "unlike all the great geniuses of the world" is absolutely
untrue. If Mr. Wilkes will carefully examine the works of the
playwrights contemporary with Shakespeare, he will find their _dramatis
personae_ equally made up of "lords, lords, lords," and he will find the
lords speaking in just such a way of the common people. If they did not
do so, the portraiture would be unfaithful; it would not "hold the
mirror up to nature." And if he will look through the plays of Moliere,
who stands next to Shakespeare as a dramatist, and who was like him a
player and a man of the people, he will find all the lords and
gentlemen who ruffle through his delightful pages speaking with
contempt and ridicule of the lower classes. Moreover, it is absolutely
untrue that Shakespeare was even thus indirectly a sycophant to kings
and nobles, and a maintainer of their essential superiority. On fitting
occasions he puts into their own mouths satires against themselves,
their rank, and their pretensions; and he shows, when opportunity
offers, a warm sympathy with and tenderness for the lowly and the
oppressed. Whoever chooses to do