toric personages to disclose themselves, while, in the main, his
historical data are correct as understood in his day. He has not
juggled with facts, though in instances where he has taken liberty with
events he has, by such change in historic setting, made the main issues
more apparent. Some one has said that simply as historian of England
Shakespeare has done nobly by his country, which remark I, for one,
think accurate. Beginning with King John, he keeps the main channels
of English history to the birth of Elizabeth, where, in a spirit of
subtle courtesy, he makes the destination of his historical studies.
If the purpose of noble history be to make us understand men and,
consequently, measures, then is Shakespeare still the greatest English
historian. Richard III never becomes so understandable as in the
drama; and Henry IV is a figure clearly seen, as if he stood in the
sunlight before our eyes, so that any one conversant with these
history-plays is fortified against all stress in solid knowledge and
profound insight into turbulent eras of Anglo-Saxon history; for
Shakespeare has given us history carved in relief, as are the metopes
of the Parthenon. For knowledge psychologically and historically
accurate commend me to William Shakespeare, historian.

The lover is Shakespeare's main thesis; and his lovers--men and
women--never violate the proprieties of love. What his lovers do has
been done and will be done. Helena, in "All's Well that Ends Well," is
a true phase of womanhood; and in those days of the more general
infidelity and lordship of man, more common than now--though now this
picture is truthful--woman has a power of self-sacrifice and rigorous
self-denial when in love, which, as it is totally unconscious on her
part, is as totally inexplicable on our part. Life is not a condition
easily explained. The heart of simplest man or woman is a mystery,
compared with which the sphinx is an open secret. The vagaries of love
in life are the vagaries of love in Shakespeare. Life was his book,
which he knew by heart. Rosalind, in "As You Like It," is a portrait
both fair and accurate. We have seen Rosalind, and the sight of her
was good for the eyes. To read Shakespeare is to be told what we
ourselves have seen, we not recognizing the people we had met until he
whispers in our ears, "You have seen her and him;" whereat we answer,
"Yes, truly, so we have, though we did not know it till you told us."

Shak