to fight no one but orangoutangs? Our airmen fight as
well as any one, in this world or above it, has ever fought; and we owe
them a great debt of thanks for maintaining, and, by their example,
actually teaching the Germans to maintain, a high standard of decency.

This War has shown, what we might have gathered from our history, that
we fight best up hill. From our history also we may learn that it does
not relax our sinews to be told that our enemy has some good qualities.
We should like him better as an enemy if he had more. We know what we
have believed; and we are not going to fail in resolve or perseverance
because we find that our task is difficult, and that we have not a
monopoly of all the virtues.

Most of us will not live to see it, for our recovery from this disease
will be long and troublesome, but the War will do great things for us.
It will make a reality of the British Commonwealth, which until now has
been only an aspiration and a dream. It will lay the sure foundation of
a League of Nations in the affection and understanding which it has
promoted among all English-speaking peoples, and in the relations of
mutual respect and mutual service which it has established between the
English-speaking peoples and the Latin races. Our united Rolls of Honour
make the most magnificent list of benefactors that the world has ever
seen. In the end, the War may perhaps even save the soul of the main
criminal, awaken him from his bloody dream, and lead him back by degrees
to the possibility of innocence and goodwill.

SHAKESPEARE AND ENGLAND

_Annual Shakespeare Lecture of the British Academy, delivered July 4,
1918_

There is nothing new and important to be said of Shakespeare. In recent
years antiquaries have made some additions to our knowledge of the facts
of his life. These additions are all tantalizing and comparatively
insignificant. The history of the publication of his works has also
become clearer and more intelligible, especially by the labours of Mr.
Pollard; but the whole question of quartos and folios remains thorny and
difficult, so that no one can reach any definite conclusion in this
matter without a liberal use of conjecture.

I propose to return to the old catholic doctrine which has been
illuminated by so many disciples of Shakespeare, and to speak of him as
our great national poet. He embodies and exemplifies all the virtues,
and most of the faults, of England. Any one who reads and un