ΤΟ JOSEPH MAYER, ESQ., F.S.A., F.R.A.S., MY DEAR SIR, The Second Edition of this Pamphlet, like the First, owes its publication to your good opinion and generosity. To you, therefore, it is also dedicated, with the belief that it will be found, more than equally with its predecessor, worthy PREFACE. Four years have elapsed since I published the result of my examination of Shakespeare, in a peculiar and limited point of view, to which I had been induced to give special attention while engaged in general study of his dramatic works. Encouraged by the approval of some of our most eminent Shakespearean students and scholars, and by the almost unanimous verdict of the Press, I have prosecuted the agreeable research; and I offer, in consequence, this enlarged edition. I have resisted the temptation to explain or remark on much of the text extracted; considering that, although such discussions would be interesting, they might possibly weaken the impression that I wished to make from the large number of quotations which seem to stand with such weight in their own apt and expressive language. In some instances, however, I have briefly added notes; and in a few only, I have written more at length. It is to the student of our greatest man I appeal; and, I am satisfied, he will find ample evidence in the passages themselves without need of prolix or lengthy pleading. It would have been very remarkable if an opinion so novel and decided as that to which I am committed had passed unchallenged; and therefore I was not surprised in receiving two or three adverse criticisms. They were not at all ungratifying; because, while they seem to embody all the objections that could be raised, and were, indeed anticipated by me (see page 61), they are untenable; and will not stand before matured judgment or common sense. One writer says:-"Out of his (Shakespeare's) plays generally texts may be taken on which he may be charged with being anything. He has already been proved to have been brought up for a lawyer, a physician, a soldier, a sailor, an engineer, a man of science, and what not. He may be thus shown to be Paynim, Buddhist, Christian, Papist, or any thing else." Another writes:-" It would be equally easy to prove that Miss Braddon is learned in the law; that she knows a great deal about stock-jobbing; that her acquaintance with prisons is surprising; and that her familiarity with medicine would enable her to set up as a practitioner. The very exigencies of their trade render it absolutely indispensable that both the writer of plays and the writer of novels should know something of the various professions which are practised by their characters." The fallacy of this kind of argument is easily exposed. Take, for instance, the "Tempest," from which it may be suggested that Shakespeare was a sailor. In this play, where shipwreck is a main feature, and sailors prominent among the Dramatis Persona, a knowledge of ships, of the sea, and of the phraseology of sailors was requisite and indispensable. This knowledge could have been acquired by books and by conversation, aided, perhaps, by some little personal experience; and so of the soliloquy in "King Henry IV," and passages in other plays in which the ocean is a striking object. But we do not find similes drawn constantly from the sea, as we do find them in all the plays, and so frequently, taken from rural matters. It is the same as regards the law; and the same with military affairs; the necessary knowledge is always displayed whenever it is |