olesome as sweet." He would offer
more than a mere resume of what his author expresses. He would be one
of the interpreters and transmitters of new forms of thought to the
masses of readers who lack time or ability to discover values for
themselves. Very widely read himself, he is fitted for just
comparisons and comprehensive views. As has been pointed out, he is
fond of working from a general consideration of a period with its
formative influences, to the particular care of the author with whom
he is dealing. Saintsbury tells us that Mr. Dowden's procedure is to
ask his author a series of questions which seem to him of vital
importance, and find out how he would answer them.

Dowden's style is careful, clear, and thorough, showing his
scholarship and incisive thought. His form of expression is strongly
picturesque. It is nowhere more so than in 'Shakespeare: a Study of
His Mind and Art.' This, his most noteworthy work, has been very
widely read and admired. His intimate acquaintance with German
criticism upon the great Elizabethan especially fitted him to present
fresh considerations to the public.

He has also written a brilliant 'Life of Shelley' (bitterly criticized
by Mark Twain in the North American Review, 'A Defense of Harriet
Shelley'), and a 'Life of Southey' in the English Men of Letters
Series; and edited most capably 'Southey's Correspondence with
Caroline Bowles,' 'The Correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor,'
'Shakespeare's Sonnets,' 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' and a collection
of 'Lyrical Ballads.'

THE HUMOR OF SHAKESPEARE

From 'Shakespeare: a Critical Study of His Mind and Art'

A study of Shakespeare which fails to take account of Shakespeare's
humor must remain essentially incomplete. The character and spiritual
history of a man who is endowed with a capacity for humorous
appreciation of the world must differ throughout, and in every
particular, from that of the man whose moral nature has never rippled
over with genial laughter. At whatever final issue Shakespeare arrived
after long spiritual travail as to the attainment of his life, that
precise issue, rather than another, was arrived at in part by virtue
of the fact of Shakespeare's humor. In the composition of forces which
determined the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, this must be
allowed for as a force among others, in importance not the least, and
efficient at all times even when little apparent. A man whose visage
"holds one st