446 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



more attention among their contemporaries. If another 

 Shakespeare were to exist to-day, he would be treated in exactly 

 the same fashion, or even worse. We may be quite sure that 

 our very minor reviewers would still call him a minor poet. 



Viscount Bryce complains that we cannot even tell whether 

 Shakespeare had any, and what, political opinions — as if such 

 a mind could ever possess anything so contemptible, which, as I 

 have said, did not begin to appear until an age of later degenera- 

 tion. Viscount Bryce also remarks on the poet's want of 

 interest in the fate of his own work, and fancies that he did not 

 know how good that work was. But this homager has evidently 

 failed to understand the interpretation of Shakespeare's final 

 work, the Tempest — in which the poet clearly figures himself 

 as Prospero and the English public of that time as Caliban. 

 Shakespeare knew quite well that it was no good trying to 

 make Caliban understand his master's virtues. He worked his 

 magic and remained contented at that. In fact it was the very 

 obscurity of his life which gave opportunity for the brilliance of 

 his intellect. We can never at the same time both sit in high 

 places and work in them. 



Some of the verses in this fine collection are excellent, 

 especially, I think, the two opening stanzas of Mr. Hardy's. 

 And the prose contributions are full of points of interest and 

 information. There are many contributions in foreign languages 

 (even in Chinese), always well and sometimes beautifully trans- 

 lated. But it is impossible in the space at my disposal to com- 

 ment on particulars ; so that I had better conclude simply by 

 recommending the work for the humble libraries of men of 

 science. Prof. Gollancz is especially to be commended for 

 his share in this work — and I may add that his Epilogue is, in 

 my opinion, the best poem in the book. The portraits of 

 Shakespeare and the other plates are worthy of the volume. 



