and
of the few who do. Nay, more: until Shakespeare is represented on the
stage constantly and in his variety, English-speaking men and women
are liable to the imputation, not merely of failing in the homage due
to the greatest of their countrymen, but of falling short of their
neighbours in Germany and Austria in the capacity of appreciating
supremely great imaginative literature.

II

SHAKESPEARE AND THE ELIZABETHAN PLAYGOER[4]

[Footnote 4: This paper, which was first printed in "An English
Miscellany, presented to Dr Furnivall in honour of his seventy-fifth
birthday" (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1901), was written as a
lecture for delivery on Tuesday afternoon, March 20, 1900, at Queen's
College (for women) in Harley Street, London, in aid of the Fund for
securing a picture commemorating Queen Victoria's visit to the College
in 1898.]

I

In a freak of fancy, Robert Louis Stevenson sent to a congenial spirit
the imaginary intelligence that a well-known firm of London publishers
had, after their wont, "declined with thanks" six undiscovered
tragedies, one romantic comedy, a fragment of a journal extending over
six years, and an unfinished autobiography reaching up to the first
performance of _King John_ by "that venerable but still respected
writer, William Shakespeare." Stevenson was writing in a frivolous
mood; but such words stir the imagination. The ordinary person, if he
had to choose among the enumerated items of Shakespeare's
newly-discovered manuscripts, would cheerfully go without the six new
tragedies and the one romantic comedy if he had at his disposal, by
way of consolation, the journal extending over six years and the
autobiography reaching up to the first performance of _King John_. We
should deem ourselves fortunate if we had the journal alone. It would
hardly matter which six years of Shakespeare's life the journal
covered. As a boy, as a young actor, as an industrious reviser of
other men's plays, as the humorous creator of Falstaff, Benedick, and
Mercutio, as the profound "natural" philosopher of the great
tragedies, he could never have been quite an ordinary diarist. Great
men have been known to keep diaries in which the level of interest
does not rise above a visit to the barber or the dentist. The common
routine of life interested Shakespeare, but something beyond it must
have found place in his journal. Reference to his glorious achievement
must have gained entry there.

S