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Character of Shakespeare's achieveested, contained within itself the ger He knew intuitively how every faculty and feeling would develop in any conceivable change of fortune Men and wo, wise or foolish, merry or sad, rich or poor--yielded their secrets to hies to all the shapes of huhway of life Each of his characters gives voice to thought or passion with an individuality and a naturalness that rouse in the intelligent playgoer and reader the illusion that they are overhearingthe written speeches or hearing written speeches recited

The more closely the words are studied, the coination--fairies, ghosts, witches--are delineated with a like potency, and the reader or spectator feels instinctively that these supernatural entities could not speak, feel, or act otherwise than Shakespeare represents them The creative power of poetry was never manifested to such effect as in the corporeal semblances in which Shakespeare clad the spirits of the air

Its universal recognition

So ht the colobe to which civilised life has penetrated Shakespeare's power is recognised All the world over, language is applied to his creations that ordinarily applies to beings of flesh and blood Hamlet and Othello, Lear and Macbeth, Falstaff and Shylock, Brutus and Romeo, Ariel and Caliban are studied in alue as if they were historic personalities, and the chief of the impressive phrases that fall from their lips are rooted in the speech of civilised hu in divers accents, applies with one accord his oords: 'How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in apprehension how like a God!'

APPENDIX

I--THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

Contemporary records abundant

The scantiness of conteerated An investigation extending over two centuries has brought together a mass of detail which far exceeds that accessible in the case of any other contemporary professional writer Nevertheless, so, and at some critical points appeal to conjecture is inevitable But the fully ascertained facts are nueneral direction that Shakespeare's career followed Although the clues are in soether eludes the patient investigator

First efforts in biography

Fuller, in his 'Worthies' (1662), atteraphical notice of Shakespeare, with poor results Aubrey, in his gossiping 'Lives of Eminent Men,' {361} based his ampler information on reports coed actor, whoe,' and as doubtless in the main a trustworthy witness A few additional details were recorded in the seventeenth century by the Rev John Ward (1629-1681), vicar of Stratford-on-Avon from 1662 to 1668, in a diary and memorandum-book written between 1661 and 1663 (ed C A Severn, 1839); by the Rev

Williae, Oxford (with valuable interpolations made before 1708 by the Rev Richard Davies, vicar of Saperton, Gloucestershi+re); by John Dowdall, who recorded his experiences of travel through Warwickshi+re in 1693 (London, 1838); and by William Hall, who described a visit to Stratford in 1694 (London, 1884, fro the Bodleian MSS) Phillips in his 'Theatrulish Dramatick Poets' (1691), confined themselves to elementary criticism In 1709 Nicholas Rowe prefixed to his edition of the plays a more ambitious memoir than had yet been attempted, and embodied some hitherto unrecorded Stratford and London traditions hich the actor Thoossip was collected by William Oldys, and was printed from his manuscript 'Adversaria' (now in the British Museum) as an appendix to Yeowell's 'Meraphical prefaces to their editions, mainly repeated the narratives of their predecessor, Rowe

Biographers of the nineteenth century Stratford topography

In the Prolegomena to the Variorum editions of 1803, 1813, and especially in that of 1821, there was embodied a mass of fresh information derived by Ed the parochial records of Stratford, the manuscripts accumulated by the actor Alleyn at Dulwich, and official papers of state preserved in the public offices in London (now collected in the Public Record Office) The available knowledge of Elizabethan stage history, as well as of Shakespeare's biography, was thus greatly extended John Payne Collier, in his 'History of English Dramatic Poetry' (1831), in his 'New Facts' about Shakespeare (1835), his 'New Particulars' (1836), and his 'Further Particulars' (1839), and in his editions of Henslowe's 'Diary' and the 'Alleyn Papers' for the Shakespeare Society, while occasionally throwing soht on obscure places, foisted on Shakespeare's biography a series of ingeniously forged docuraphers {362} Joseph Hunter in 'New Illustrations of Shakespeare'

(1845) and George Russell French's 'Shakespeareana Genealogica' (1869) occasionally supplemented Malone's researches James Orchard Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps) printed separately, between 1850 and 1884, in various privately issued publications, all the Stratford archives and extant legal docu on Shakespeare's career, many of thean the collective publication of raphy in his 'Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare;' this as generously enlarged in successive editions until it acquired massive proportions; in the seventh and last edition of 1887 it nues Mr Frederick Gard Fleay, in his 'Shakespeare Manual' (1876), in his 'Life of Shakespeare' (1886), in his 'History of the Stage' (1890), and his 'Biographical Chronicle of the English Drae history and Shakespeare's relations with his fellow-drainal editions of the plays of Shakespeare and of his contemporaries; but unfortunately many of Mr Fleay's statements and conjectures are unauthenticated For notices of Stratford, R B Wheler's 'History and Antiquities' (1806), John R Wise's 'Shakespere, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood' (1861), the present writer's 'Stratford-on-Avon to the Death of Shakespeare'

(1890), and Mrs C C Stopes's 'Shakespeare's Warwickshi+re Contemporaries' (1897), lossary of words still used in Warwickshi+re to be found in Shakspere' The parish registers of Stratford have been edited by Mr

Richard Savage for the Parish Registers Society (1898-9) Nathan Drake's 'Shakespeare and his Tiland' (1856) collectShakespeare's social environraphy Useful epitoraphs on special points in Shakespeare's biography are Dr

Richard Far of Shakespeare' (1767), reprinted in the Varioruesof Ben Jonson's Enmity towards Shakespeare' (1808); W J

Thoms's 'Was Shakespeare ever a Soldier?' (1849), a study based on an erroneous identification of the poet with another Williaal Acquirements considered' (1859); John Charles Bucknill's 'Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare' (1860); C F

Green's' 'Shakespeare's Crab-Tree, with its Legend' (1862); C H

Bracebridge's 'Shakespeare no Deer-stealer' (1862); Williaraphy' (1872); and D H Madden's 'Diary of Master William Silence (Shakespeare and Sport),' 1897 A full epitoraphical information accessible at the date of publication is supplied in Karl Elze's 'Life of Shakespeare' (Halle, 1876; English translation, 1888), hich Elze's 'Essays' frolish translation, 1874) are worth studying A less ambitious effort of the same kind by Samuel Neil (1861) is seriously injured by the writer's acceptance of Collier's forgeries