conceal his thoughts, Shakespeare may often be complimented on having skilfully made use of it for that purpose, since there are points on which it seems all but impossible to discern the drift of his reasoning. As a rule it may be affirmed, that when a man aims at veiling his opinions from his contemporaries, and even from posterity, he is impelled into this course by the consciousness that he cherishes notions deemed heterodox by the multitude, and likely therefore to alienate their affections from him. The working of Shakespeare's mind, which appears sometimes to bring forth its conceptions with great throes, convinces me that he is at such times engaged in suggesting ideas which it might be dangerous to express.

No writer of deep and earnest thought has perhaps been able to square all his theories in strict conformity with popular views, though he may desire to keep on good terms with the majority whose favour or disfavour might affect his social well-being; yet the wish to be understood by minds of an elevation like his own must lead him to the employment of symbolical or enigmatical language, intelligible only to the initiated. From time immemorial this practice has been in vogue, since very early reference is made to the words of the wise, and their dark sayings, which however were only dark to the unwise. When Alexander reproached Aristotle for publishing his Metaphysics,' since his esoteric doctrines would now, he said, be revealed to everyone, the philosopher replied that none would penetrate their significance but such as deserved to understand them. It is the same with Shakespeare: few with him are admitted behind the veil, perhaps no one completely, so that nothing can be more rash than to predicate of this or that belief that it is Shake

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speare's. Horace, a much more superficial writer, when asking himself how many would comprehend and correctly estimate the whole extent of his conceptions, replies: Aut duo, aut nemo.'

Some things whispered at Eleusis have left no echo audible to us; and Shakespeare at the Blackfriars and the Globe gave utterance to many a phrase on which the seal of unintelligibility is still stamped. This to writers like Charles Lamb has suggested the persuasion that Shakespeare's plays ought not to be acted, it being impossible that motley audiences, such as usually fill a theatre, should divine all their meaning. But it is by no means necessary that they should. The language of the passions addresses itself to all grades, and all grades understand it, which is the fact that qualifies Shakespeare to speak to us in our collective capacity. It needs no subtle philosophical apprehension to sympathise with the sorrows of Hamlet, with the jealousy of Othello, with the madness of Lear, with the torturing avarice and the baffled pride of Shylock, or with the devouring love of Juliet. This at least is a language which all who run may read, while they who are gifted with acute powers of observation cannot fail to perceive that behind these obvious phenomena there lies a stratum of subtle thoughts to penetrate which must be a work of time.

Ariel in The Tempest' and Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream' are spirits, we are told. Did Shakespeare, then, believe in the existence of such spirits? To help ourselves to an answer we must examine the speech of Theseus, the soliloquy of Hamlet, and many other portions of the plays.

Was the conclusion at which Shakespeare had

arrived respecting women favourable or unfavourable? To be able to reply to this question may appear easy; for who has drawn more lovely female characters, who has uttered more gentle or flattering things of women? On the other hand, who has drawn female characters more hideous or revolting, or who has suggested more depreciatory opinions of the sex in general? Yet, balancing the good with the bad, he must have cherished some general conviction, which, carefully considered, will be found to be for or against women. The corner-stone of the female character is chastity, and did Shakespeare upon the whole think them chaste, or did he agree with Aristophanes that when you have named one celebrated example of female virtue you will be constrained to stop because neither history nor tradition records a second? To pursue this inquiry through all Shakespeare's plays proves pleasant or unpleasant according to the decision at which you arrive, or according to your own leanings. Women are dear to men on different grounds, and Shakespeare therefore may be tolerant of them in one sense though adverse in another. At all events, no one who delights in poetical imagery, in pictures of tenderness, in delicious displays of fancy, in the revelations of sweet communion of soul with soul, will grudge the hours he may devote to this fascinating investigation.

Again in what regards religion, ascending from what is sweetest to what is most awful, it is of momentous import to learn what a poet no less philosophical than Eschylus, no less bold than Lucretius, thought of the Divine Nature. The difficulty of the inquiry may appear from this, that some have regarded him as the most religious of poets,

while he has been looked upon by others as totally without religion. When a man ranges freely through the whole world of speculation, he must at times traverse expanses where thought finds little footing, where there is at best but a dim light, where the reason at every glance runs the risk of mistaking shadows for substances, where no guide that can be trusted offers himself, and where the prevalent feeling must be the desire to escape and reach firm land. When Shakespeare found himself so circumstanced his intellect must have been swayed like that of other men by cheerful or depressing influences, springing from the contiguous sources of faith and doubt. What was the course which his understanding at such times traced out for itself? Was it analogous to that which the majority of men select, or did it diverge and plunge far away into dark and unfrequented tracks of speculation?

The greatness of his Atlantean intellect is made evident by the prodigious scope of thought necessitated by his varied and profound investigations, which, however carried on, led in his mind, we cannot doubt, to settled results, and the business is now to ascertain what these were.

Men are intolerant in religion, intolerant in love, but still more intolerant in politics. This conviction apparently renders Shakespeare's enigmas doubly enigmatical, when he speaks of the relations of rulers to society. For this reason he has been suspected by some of believing in divine right, by others of leaning towards aristocracy, while it would not be difficult to discover in his works grounds for charging him with democratic propensities. If we consider it of no importance to come to a decision on this point, it is

professing indifference respecting the conclusions of one of our deepest thinkers. That Shakespeare held political principles cannot be doubted: he had observed the working of various forms of government and watched their effects upon the conditions of social life; he could not refuse therefore to recognise the truths which experience and reason laid before him. It seems worth some pains to make ourselves acquainted with what he thought on this most momentous of the sciences, which takes upon itself in this world to perform the part of Providence by distributing happiness or misery to its inhabitants. I have consequently weighed with the utmost caution and solicitude every expression in Shakespeare which seemed to throw light on his political theory, so that if I have failed to make out to what party he belonged, it is neither through inattention nor through supercilious indifference.