and so far as it deals with the precise artistic methods of Shakspere might well have found place in our study. Here and there, indeed, as space permitted, we have touched on it, most notably, perhaps, in showing how the finished form of the Midsummer Night's Dream grew at once from old motives and from old and crude conventions. So far, however, as such discussion deals with general matters,- questioning, for example, whether classic art or romantic be the finer, it is foreign to our purpose, and in some aspects akin to the less famous discussion as to whether shad or custard be the greater delicacy. For our purposes, we may be content with knowing that Shakspere, an Elizabethan playwright, was as much bound by the conditions of his time to write in the Elizabethan manner as was Sophocles of Athens to compose his tragedies after the manner of the Greeks. Whoever, then, would finally or intelligently criticise the art of Shakspere must first master, as hardly anybody has yet mastered, the conditions of Shakspere's theatre. Much of the extant criticism of Shakspere's art resembles that of Gothic cathedrals which prevailed when pseudo-classic architecture was all the fashion; much of what remains resembles that criticism of the same Gothic churches which refers the origin of their aisles and arches to the trunks and boughs of forest alleys. Partly for want of space, then, partly for want of sufficient knowledge as yet, we have studied Shakspere's art only so far as was

1 See pp. 107, 110.

necessary to make clear the general conditions of his time.

Concerning Shakspere's philosophy,—his deliberate teaching, the state of affairs is much like that concerning his genius. Earnest students innumerable have read between his lines endless lessons, some of which are doubtless very wise and valuable. Just how far he meant to put them there, however, is another question. We have seen enough of Eliza bethan Literature to recognize that much of its aphorism is nothing intentionally more serious than a fresh combination of language. In the very prevalence of its aphorism, however, we must have recognized a symptom at once of a general appetite for proverbial philosophy, and of that generally ripe state of practical experience which at intervals in history gives more or less final expression to a state of life about to pass away. The aphoristic wisdom of Elizabethan Literature, so far as it is more than verbal, broadly expresses the experience of medieval England. To this aphorism Shakspere added much. Very probably, though, what he added was no system of philosophy; it was rather a series of superbly final phrases, now and again combining to produce a complete artistic impression, such as the pessimism of Macbeth, or the profound idealism of the Tempest, which to him would have seemed rather emotional than dogmatic. In one sense every artist is a philosopher; but as philosophy is commonly understood, artists are apt to be unconscious philosophers, phi

losophers rather by the inevitable law of their nature than by any deliberate intention; and, whatever else we have done, we have never allowed ourselves to forget that from beginning to end Shakspere was an artist.

Another matter, much discussed nowadays, we have hardly glanced at. Nothing more surprises such readers of Shakspere as are not practical men of letters than the man's apparent learning. To one

used to writing, the phenomenon is less surprising. To translate technical matters from a book merely glanced at, into such finished terms as the uninitiated suppose to imply years of study and research, is within anybody's power. Whoever will take a few Elizabethan books,- North's Plutarch, for example, Paynter's Palace of Pleasure, Foxe's Martyrs, Holinshed, and Coke on Littleton,- and, with the help of stray passages from all, translate some narrative from one of them into blank-verse dialogue, will produce an effect of erudition which shall profoundly impress not only his readers but himself. Whoever has a few compendious works at hand and knows how to use them, in fact, can make himself seem a miracle of learning to whoever does not know his secret. In Elizabethan England almost all books were compendious; so was the common talk of all intelligent men,

for learning was not yet specialized. Given these facts, and given the exceptionally concrete habit of thought and phrase native to Shakspere, and Shakspere's learning is no longer a marvel, except to those who insist on finding it so.

To pass from matters neglected to a matter purposely reserved, nothing is more notable to a student of Elizabethan Literature than the fact that Elizabethan Literature presents a remarkably typical example of artistic evolution. Art, of any kind, in nations, in schools, even in individuals, progresses by a rhythmical law of its own. At certain epochs the arts of expression are lifelessly conventional. Born to these conventions, often feeble and impotent, the nation, the school, or the individual destined to be great, will begin, like those who preceded, by simple imitation, differing from the older conventions only in a certain added vigor. By and by, the force which we have called creative imagination will develop, with a strange, mysterious strength of its own, seemingly almost inspired. Throbbing with this imaginative impulse, the nation, the school, or the individual artist will begin no longer to imitate, but instead, to innovate, with an enthusiasm for the moment as unconscious of limits to come as it is disdainful of the old, conventional limits which it has transcended. After a while, the limits to come will slowly define themselves. No creative or imaginative impulse can stray too far. The power of words, of lines and colors, of melody and harmony, is never infinite. If slavish fidelity to conventions be lifeless, utter disregard of conventions tends to the still more fatal end of chaotic, inarticulate confusion. One may break fetter after fetter; but one's feet must still be planted on the earth. One may move with all the freedom which the laws of nature allow;

but if one try to soar into air or ether, one is more lost even than if one count one's footsteps. So to nations, to schools, to individuals alike a growing sense of limitation must come. There are things which may be achieved; there are vastly more things and greater which remain fatally beyond human power. Experience, then, begins to check the wilder impulses of creative innovation. Imagination is controlled by a growing sense of fact. Finally, this sense of fact, this consciousness of environment, grows stronger and stronger, until at length all innovating impulse is repressed and strangled. Again art lapses into a convention not to be disturbed until, perhaps after generations, fresh creative impulse shall burst its bonds again.

As elsewhere in nature, so in art, creative impulse is a strange, unruly thing, tending constantly to variation from the older types, but not necessarily to improvement. While the general principles just stated are constantly true everywhere, their result is often abortive, often, too, eccentric or decadent. At rare moments, however, creative impulse surges for a while in a direction which carries art irresistibly onward to greater and better expressions than men have known before. Such impulses as this the centuries find marvellous. When a great creative impulse has come, when the shackles of old convention are broken, when the sense of the new limits is developed at once so far as to tell instinctively what may be accomplished, and not so overwhelmingly as to crush imagination with