CONTENTS

PAGE
Preface by Sidney Lee[v]
Some Notes on Shakespeare’s Reputation[1]
PART I
“THESE THREE HUNDRED YEARS”
THE FIRST PERIOD
1596Francis Meres[35]
1598Richard Barnfield[36]
1599John Weever[37]
1610John Davies[38]
1614Thomas Freeman[39]
1622William Basse[40]
1623Anonymous[41]
1623Ben Jonson[42]
1623Hugh Holland[45]
1623John Heminge and Henrie Condell[46]
1623Leonard Digges[47]
1627Michael Drayton[48]
1630John Milton[49]
1632I. M. S.[50]
a.1633John Hales[53]
1637Sir William D’Avenant[54]
c.1637Anonymous[55]
1639Thomas Bancroft[57]
1647George Daniel[58]
1651Samuel Sheppard[59]
c.1661Thomas Fuller[61]
1662-7Samuel Pepys[62]
1664Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle[64]
1667John Dryden[66]
1668John Dryden[67]
1672Anonymous[69]
1675Edward Phillips[71]
1680Thomas Otway[72]
1681“A Person of Honour”[74]
1693Sir Charles Sedley[75]
THE SECOND PERIOD
1709Sir Richard Steele[76]
1709Nicholas Rowe[78]
1711Elijah Fenton[80]
1712John Dennis[82]
1712Edward Young[83]
1714Joseph Addison[84]
1725Alexander Pope[85]
1727James Thomson[88]
1733Lewis Theobald[89]
1740Joseph Warton[91]
1743William Collins[92]
1744Sir Thomas Hanmer[93]
1747Samuel Johnson[94]
1747Bishop William Warburton[95]
1751Christopher Smart[96]
1754David Hume[97]
1756Horace Walpole[99]
1758John Armstrong[100]
1759William Mason[101]
1759Thomas Gray[102]
1759David Mallet[103]
1759Edward Young[104]
c.1760Mark Akenside[105]
1760Robert Lloyd[106]
1760Edward Capell[107]
1761Charles Churchill[108]
1762William Whitehead[109]
1763William Thompson[110]
1765Samuel Johnson[111]
1768George Keate[112]
1769David Garrick[113]
1769Anonymous[116]
1774William Richardson[117]
1775William Julius Mickle[119]
1777William Hayley[120]
1777Thomas Warton[121]
a.1782Anna Seward[123]
1794William Lisle Bowles[124]
THE THIRD PERIOD
1802William Wordsworth[127]
1804Felicia Dorothea Hemans[128]
1814Sir Walter Scott[129]
1817Samuel Taylor Coleridge[130]
1817Francis, Lord Jeffrey[133]
1818William Hazlitt[135]
c.1818John Keats[138]
c.1818John Keats[138]
1819John Wilson[140]
1824Charles Sprague[142]
1824Charles Lamb[144]
1827Julius Charles Hare[145]
1831James Hogg[146]
1833Charles Lamb[148]
1833Hartley Coleridge[149]
1838Thomas de Quincey[150]
1839John Sterling[153]
1839Henry Hallam[155]
1840—— Johnstone[156]
1840Thomas Carlyle[157]
1841William Wordsworth[159]
1843Lord Macaulay[160]
1844Ralph Waldo Emerson[162]
1850Frederick William Robertson[164]
1851Leigh Hunt[166]
1852James Anthony Froude[167]
1853David Masson[168]
1853Matthew Arnold[169]
1853Walter Savage Landor[170]
1858John Henry Newman[171]
c.1858James Russell Lowell[173]
1863Nathaniel Hawthorne[175]
1864Bishop Charles Wordsworth[176]
1864Oliver Wendell Holmes[177]
1865Cardinal Wiseman[179]
1865Archbishop Trench[180]
1865Francis Turner Palgrave[181]
1866Frances Anne Kemble[183]
1868John Ruskin[184]
1871Dante Gabriel Rossetti[185]
1872Bayard Taylor[186]
1874William Minto[189]
1875Edward Dowden[190]
1877George Meredith[191]
1877Frederick James Furnivall[192]
1878Walter Horatio Pater[193]
1879Matthew Arnold[195]
? c.1880Anonymous[197]
1880Algernon Charles Swinburne[199]
1882Algernon Charles Swinburne[201]
1883George Meredith[202]
1884Robert Browning[204]
1886William Wetmore Story[205]
1886Thomas Spencer Baynes[207]
1888Gerald Massey[209]
1890Walt Whitman[210]
1891Richard Watson Gilder[212]
c.1894Mathilde Blind[213]
a.1892Alfred, Lord Tennyson[214]
1899Sidney Lee[215]
PART II
“GOOD SENTENCES”
1639Anonymous[219]
1681John Crowne[220]
1737Alexander Pope[221]
1745James Thomson[222]
1767Anonymous[223]
a.1767George Colman[224]
1776Richard Graves[225]
1778Horace Walpole[226]
1787Daniel Webb[227]
1801William Lisle Bowles[228]
1807Felicia Dorothea Hemans[229]
1811Francis, Lord Jeffrey[230]
1811George Dyer[231]
1812Samuel Taylor Coleridge[232]
1813Samuel Taylor Coleridge[232]
1817Samuel Taylor Coleridge[232]
1817Leigh Hunt[233]
1818William Hazlitt[234]
1818Percy Bysshe Shelley[235]
1819John Keats[236]
1821William Hazlitt[237]
1821Robert Southey[238]
1821Lord Byron[239]
1822Samuel Taylor Coleridge[240]
1827Thomas Hood[241]
1828Thomas Carlyle[242]
1830Samuel Taylor Coleridge[243]
1830Anonymous[244]
1831Lord Macaulay[245]
1834Samuel Taylor Coleridge[246]
1836Samuel Taylor Coleridge[246]
1837Leigh Hunt[247]
1838Thomas de Quincey[248]
1839Thomas de Quincey[248]
1839Thomas Carlyle[249]
1844Leigh Hunt[250]
1844Ralph Waldo Emerson[251]
1844Elizabeth Barrett Browning[252]
a.1846Walter Savage Landor[253]
1847Thomas de Quincey[254]
1850Robert Browning[255]
a.1850William Wordsworth[256]
a.1851David Macbeth Moir[257]
1851Thomas Lovell Beddoes[258]
1853Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton[259]
1857Charles Mackay[260]
c.1860Abraham Lincoln[261]
1860Ralph Waldo Emerson[262]
1865Cardinal Wiseman[263]
1867Thomas Carlyle[264]
1867Matthew Arnold[265]
1870James Russell Lowell[266]
1875Edward Dowden[267]
1879Matthew Arnold[268]
1882Dante Gabriel Rossetti[269]
1884William Watson[270]
1893Richard Green Moulton[271]
1894Sir John Robert Seeley[272]
1896John Ruskin[273]
PART III
“ROUND ABOUT”
1664Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle[277]
1711Joseph Addison[278]
1743Henry Fielding[279]
1747Thomas Edwards[281]
1749Mark Akenside[284]
1751Robert Lloyd[288]
1765Oliver Goldsmith[291]
1765George, Lord Lyttelton[292]
1768Laurence Sterne[295]
1769Anonymous[298]
1769Isaac Bickerstaff[299]
1778Anonymous[302]
1788Horace Walpole[305]
1790Paul Whitehead[306]
1812William Combe[308]
1826Charles Lamb[313]
1845Nathaniel Hawthorne[314]
1846Walter Savage Landor[316]
1868William Schwenck Gilbert[318]
1872Oliver Wendell Holmes[323]
1897Theodore Watts-Dunton[325]
1902Judge Willis[326]
To My Very Good Friend, Mr William Shakespeare[329]
INDEX[331]

SOME NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE’S REPUTATION

I
INTRODUCTORY

This book provides a chronological sequence of the best pieces in verse and prose which the best writers in successive periods have written in praise of Shakespeare, and thereby aims at presenting, as it were, an index to the standard of estimation in which Shakespeare has been held at any given point of time. Thus, as an anthology, it differs in various respects from other anthologies. An anthology, as a rule, hopes to confine itself to pieces of literature intrinsically valuable. The conscientious compiler of an ordinary anthology includes nothing which, according to his own canons of taste, can be considered of doubtful merit. His choice may not always be approved by others—it frequently is not; but he, at least, is satisfied. Here, however, is a different case. My object has been to collect what may be called materials for a history of opinion of Shakespeare, so that as many years

as might be of the three centuries and more, which have elapsed since Shakespeare’s reputation was born, had to be represented. With these conditions it has not always been possible to exclude bad pieces, for the obvious reason that there has been at times a dearth of good writers. In such cases the best has been given that could be found. The best has at times been deplorably mediocre, but the scheme was inexorable.

The labour of selection has been guided by one or two principles. In the first place, complete poems, or extracts in verse and prose, which relate solely to Shakespeare have been taken in preference to those which mention him in company with his contemporaries. Secondly, passages that exhibit unusual characteristics, whether good or bad, have frequently been chosen. For some of the poor pieces, and I hope they are not many, something may be said. Though their writers are practically forgotten to-day, they were considered great during their own lives; so their productions have at least a historical value. If, then, this volume includes, as I think it does, the best things that have been written about Shakespeare, it includes also many things that in a comparative estimate of the whole must be considered as second-rate, though they happened to be the best in the period during which they were produced. The distinctiveness of the book may perhaps be indicated in this way. An ordinary anthology may be said to gather into a garland the choicest flowers from various fields of literature; this anthology claims to be little more than a collection of botanical specimens.