This is the work which properly belongs to the secondary schools; and it is quite as much as they can be expected to do even up to the close of the high school course. I am personally unable to see
what good is accomplished by taking any body of school-children that ever came under my own observation,—and the question must be judged by personal experience,—and drilling them in such matters as the following. I have taken these notes almost at random from approved school editions of the classics, and they seem to me to be fairly representative.
Some striking resemblances in the incantation scenes in "Macbeth" and Middleton's "Witch" have led to a somewhat generally accepted belief that Thomas Middleton was answerable for the alleged un-Shakespearean portions of "Macbeth."
Shakespeare's indebtedness in "Midsummer's Night's Dream" to "Il Percone" admits of no dispute.
The incident of a Jew whetting his knife like Shylock occurs in a Latin play, "Machiavellus," performed at St. John's College, Cambridge, at Christmas, 1597.
The opening note in a popular edition of "Silas Marner" is a comment upon this passage:
The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the natural, cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the simple rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys.
The note reads as follows:
The hand-loom, once found in every village and hamlet, was controlled by the action of the feet on the treadles, and worked by the hands. A figure representing the parts may be found in "Johnson's Cyclopædia." The longer article on "Weaving" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" may also be consulted. The rattle of