tion of his own inadvertence; but those
of us, and we are many, who have been blamed by northern patriots for
the misuse of the word English may claim Shakespeare as a brother in
misfortune.

Our critics, at home and abroad, accuse us of arrogance. I doubt if we
can prove them wrong; but they do not always understand the nature of
English arrogance. It does not commonly take the form of self-assertion.
Shakespeare's casual allusions to our national characteristics are
almost all of a kind; they are humorous and depreciatory. Here are some
of them. Every holiday fool in England, we learn from Trinculo in _The
Tempest_, would give a piece of silver to see a strange fish, though no
one will give a doit to relieve a lame beggar. The English are
quarrelsome, Master Slender testifies, at the game of bear-baiting. They
are great drinkers, says Iago, 'most potent in potting; your Dane, your
German, and your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your English'.
They are epicures, says Macbeth. They will eat like wolves and fight
like devils, says the Constable of France. An English nobleman,
according to the Lady of Belmont, can speak no language but his own. An
English tailor, according to the porter of Macbeth's castle, will steal
cloth where there is hardly any cloth to be stolen, out of a French
hose. The devil, says the clown in _All's Well_, has an English name; he
is called the Black Prince.

Nothing has been changed in this vein of humorous banter since
Shakespeare died. One of the best pieces of Shakespeare criticism ever
written is contained in four words of the present Poet Laureate's Ode
for the Tercentenary of Shakespeare, 'London's laughter is thine'. The
wit of our trenches in this war, especially perhaps among the Cockney
and South country regiments, is pure Shakespeare. Falstaff would find
himself at home there, and would recognize a brother in Old Bill.

The best known of Shakespeare's allusions to England are no doubt those
splendid outbursts of patriotism which occur in _King John_, and
_Richard II,_ and _Henry V_. And of these the dying speech of John of
Gaunt, in _Richard II_, is the deepest in feeling. It is a lament upon
the decay of England, 'this dear, dear land'. Since we began to be a
nation we have always lamented our decay. I am afraid that the Germans,
whose self-esteem takes another form, were deceived by this. To the
right English temper all bragging is a thing of evil omen. That temper
is well