to deny. Is this statement, however, true of all of them? It may be ignorance, it may be folly, it may be presumption, it may be all these combined, but it seems to me that there is a field of Shakespearean research which, though frequently entered, has never been thoroughly explored. At all events, its story has never been fully told. There are controversies affecting the name and work of the dramatist which have never been made the subject of detailed recital. Some of them were going on at the very beginning of his career; certain of them have gone on from that day to this, nor do they yet show signs of ultimate subsidence. Even echoes of those which may be considered as finally settled still continue to fall upon our ears. To all of them there have been or are frequent allusions. Scattered episodes in the history of some have been given in full. But, so far as I am aware, no attempt has been made to record in continuous narrative the whole story of these discussions; to bring to view and to contrast the different opinions held about Shakespeare as a dramatist and a poet, which at times have come into collision, and to trace their varying fortunes; to give a description of the disputes which have been carried on in regard to the proper method of settling the text of his works; and furthermore, to furnish some slight portrayal of the men, whether well or little known, who were concerned in these various conflicts, and to relate the precise part they took. It is these controversies which it is the aim of the present series to chronicle.

They naturally fall into two distinct and sharply

ation of the art displayed by the dramatist, the other to the methods taken to establish the text of his works in its original purity. There are matters of dispute in regard to Shakespeare which do not range themselves under either of these heads; but, comparatively speaking, they are of minor importance. It is the controversies about the text of the poet which suggested originally the general title which has been given to the series, and formed the real occasion of its being. It soon became apparent, however, that the two classes, slight as seemed the relation between them, were after all inextricably bound together; and that in order to understand the one completely some knowledge must be possessed of the other. The attitude taken towards Shakespeare as a writer for the stage affected in the past not only the alterations made in his plays, but to some extent also the manipulations to which his text was subjected, and even the character of the corrections proposed or adopted. The consideration, therefore, of the controversies of this first class, though in a sense entirely independent of those of the second, rose naturally out of the latter. Accordingly in this series the history of the views entertained about Shakespeare as a dramatic artist, including as it does the varying estimates taken of him at different periods, assumes precedence of controversies on all other topics.

The discussion of Shakespeare's position as a dramatic artist necessarily involves reference to, or rather discussion of, various questions at issue between what we now call the classical and romantic dramas. Strictly speaking, this should imply a consideration of

the differences between the ancient and the modern stage, between the French and the English stage, and between the practices which have prevailed at different periods on the English stage to which playwrights willingly or unwillingly conformed. The field, however, is by no means of this unrestricted nature and extent. By classical, it hardly needs to be said, is not meant here the Greek or Roman drama, but the modern which assumed that title, which professed to be a direct descendant of the ancient, and was not unfrequently disposed to believe that it had improved upon its parents. Its enemies, on the contrary, have been fond of applying to it the term pseudo-classical. Between its methods and those of the romantic drama controversy has raged with violence for fully three centuries. Upon Shakespeare, as the chief representative of the latter, the brunt of the attack almost from the outset has fallen. National feeling has been aroused by it, and there have been times when the conflict of opinion threatened to assume something almost of the character of an international quarrel.

It is the English sentiment at different times which I have sought to portray, and not the foreign, save so far as the latter affected the attitude exhibited towards Shakespeare by Shakespeare's countrymen. In one way the difficulty of this task cannot well be overrated. It is never an easy matter to ascertain the prevailing state of mind of a whole people in regard to any author or subject, even when ample testimony exists for contemporaries in the opinions of all sorts which are put forth

view. Far less easy is it when the evidence transmitted from the past is scanty and imperfect, and as a consequence almost invariably one-sided. In such a case there is always special danger of being unduly impressed by the little which chances to have come down. Scattered remarks, of no particular weight in themselves, have formed the foundation of many misleading statements in regard to Shakespeare's popularity at different periods. They have had the luck to survive the oblivion which has overtaken the others, and frequency of repetition has at last conferred upon them among the many an authority to which they are not in the least entitled. It is only by a full examination of the whole field that we can correct the erroneous inferences drawn from the assertions of individuals. In particular, it is only by the careful study of the critical writings, now often deservedly forgotten, of the men who took part in the controversies which went on between the adherents of the two dramatic schools, that we can get any real insight into the nature of the conflicting views which were held from time to time in regard to Shakespeare.

One exception there is to the statement that this work does not pretend to deal directly with foreign opinion. It is in the case of Voltaire. This author occupies a most conspicuous position in the controversies that took place in regard to Shakespeare's dramatic art; and in the varying views entertained about it, the words he said, and the influence he exerted not only on the Continent but in England itself, can never be disregarded. It was my original intention to make the part he played the subject of a chapter in the present volume. But the

mass of matter accumulated speedily rendered it manifest that it could not be satisfactorily compressed in so short a space. For Voltaire not only affected the opinions of others in regard to Shakespeare, his own reputation in turn suffered in the reaction which his hostile criticism of the poet provoked. No small share of the derogatory opinion expressed of him in England was due not so much to his attacks on theological belief as to his attacks on Shakespeare. The feeling showed itself early and grew in strength as time went on. For the adequate representation both of his own state of mind, and of the state of mind in reference to himself which he called into being, a separate treatise became indispensable.

So much for the controversies belonging to this first class. It was to those of the second, as has been said already, that the title of Shakespearean Wars was intended to be applied. These deal generally with the efforts to establish the text of the dramatist and with the linguistic and literary quarrels to which they have given rise. There was, however, enough of bitterness displayed in the controversies about his art to make the title not inappropriate to them also. Still, as the discussion was here mainly of general principles, it had nothing of the virulence which inevitably attends the discussion of words and meanings. The quarrels of Shakespearean critics and commentators have left enduring records of themselves in English literature. In them have been engaged some of the greatest authors of our speech, and for that reason, if not for themselves,