and episodes, of his multifarious
underplots and minor groups, and ramifications of interest or intrigue. The
reply to this is not (as it might be, if any reply were not superfluous, in
the case of the Unity objection) a reply of demonstration. If any person
experienced in literature, and with an interest in it, experienced in life
and with an interest in that, asserts that Caliban and Trinculo interfere
with his enjoyment of Ferdinand and Miranda; that the almost tragedy of
Hero is marred for him by the comedy of Beatrice and the farce of Dogberry;
that he would have preferred _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ without the
tedious brief effort of Quince and his companions; that the solemnity and
passion of _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ cause in him a revulsion against the
porter and the gravedigger; that the Fool and Edgar are out of place in
_Lear_,--it is impossible to prove to him by the methods of any Euclid or
of any Aldrich that he is wrong. The thing is essentially, if not wholly, a
matter of taste. It is possible, indeed, to point out, as in the case of
the Unities, that the objectors, if they will maintain their objection,
must deny the position that the dramatic art holds up the mirror to Nature,
and that if they deny it, the burden--a burden never yet successfully taken
up by any one--of framing a new definition rests upon them. But this is
only a partial and somewhat inconclusive argument, and the person who
genuinely dislikes these peculiarities of Shakespere is like a man who
genuinely dislikes wine or pictures or human faces, that seem delightful
and beautiful to others. I am not aware of any method whereby I can prove
that the most perfect claret is better than zoedone in flavour, or that the
most exquisite creation of Botticelli or Leonardo is more beautiful than
the cuts on the sides of railway novels. Again, it is matter of taste.

It will be seen that I am not for my part afraid to avow myself a
thoroughgoing Shakesperian, who accepts the weak points of his master as
well as the strong. It is often forgotten (indeed I do not know where I
have seen it urged) that there is in Shakespere's case an excuse for the
thousand lines that good Ben Jonson would have liked him to blot,--an
excuse which avails for no one else. No one else has his excuse of
universality; no one else has attempted to paint, much less has painted,
the whole of life. It is because Shakespere has attempted this, and, in the
judgment of at least som