rward into the
auditorium, struck an attitude, declaimed the purple passage, and
returned, covered with applause, to continue the action of the play. This
was the theatrical convention; this the audience expected and understood;
for this Shakespeare wrote. Similarly, though the device must have been
wearing thin even in 1795-6, Burke cast a familiar epistle into language
proper to be addressed to Mr Speaker of the House of Commons. Shakespeare
wrote, as Burke wrote, for his audience; and their glory is that they
have outlasted the conditions they observed. Yet it was by observing them
that they gained the world's ear. Let us, who are less than they, beware
of scorning to belong to our own time.

For my part I have a great hankering to see English Literature feeling
back through these old modes to its origins. I think, for example, that
if we studied to write verse that could really be sung, or if we were
more studious to write prose that could be read aloud with pleasure to
the ear, we should be opening the pores to the ancient sap; since the
roots are always the roots, and we can only reinvigorate our growth
through them.

Unhappily, however, I cannot preach this just yet; for we are aiming at
practice, and at Cambridge (they tell me) while you speak well, you write
less expertly. A contributor to "The Cambridge Review," a fortnight ago,
lamented this at length: so you will not set the aspersion down to me,
nor blame me if these early lectures too officiously offer a kind of
'First Aid': that, while all the time eager to descant on the
_affinities_ of speech and writing, I dwell first on their _differences_;
or that, in speaking of Burke, an author I adore only 'on this side
idolatry,' I first present him in some aspects for your avoidance.
Similarly I adore the prose of Sir Thomas Browne, yet should no more
commend it to you for instant imitation than I could encourage you to
walk with a feather in your cap and a sword under your gown. Let us
observe proprieties.

To return to Burke.--At his most flagrant, in these "Letters on the
Regicide Peace," he boldly raids Shakespeare. You are all, I doubt not,
conversant with the Prologue to "Henry the Fifth":--

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars: and at