35 
beautiful in womanhood, all that was heroic and gracious in 
man, but from his sympathy with the lowliest forms of life, the 
brute creation, flowers and the aspects of the natural world, and 
especially with poor, humble, and common-place people, with 
topers, clowns, and fools, and his recognition of the better 
nature that was often found in the vilest and most degraded of 
God’s creatures—from all these we could discern not only the 
marvellous genius of the poet, but those rare qualities of the man 
which earned for him from his contemporaries the name of 
‘the gentle Shakespeare.” In conclusion, he said Shakespeare 
was not a learned man in the sense in which Ben Jonson, 
Milton, or Lord Bacon were learned men. One thing was cer- 
tain, that the plays of Shakespeare were not written in a library, 
or by aman who spent his days and nights in study of the 
thoughts of other men and bygone times. Shakespeare studied 
men and things in the streets, in the taverns, in the court, “ in 
huts where poor men lie,” in country lanes, and the deep, sweet, 
and solemn secrets of humanity in his own deep mind and 
mighty heart. 
THE LITERATURE OF THE ENGLISH LAKES. 
By A. NICHOLSON. March 26th, 1889. 
Mr. Nicholson explained that he had for some time back been 
engaged in compiling a Bibliography of this district, and what 
he laid before the members might be styled ideas and facts, 
taken from these books illustrating some of the many and varied 
interests that cluster round Lake Land, its history and its 
people ; he said, 
Up to the present time I have noted the works of some 300 
writers on this subject small and large, poetry and prose—many 
laying claim to the former title among the prosists. These 
verse writers however and their efforts, good, bad, and indifferent, 
from §. T. Coleridge to the ‘ Poet” Close—I must reserve for 
notice in a future paper. Amongst much that is weak and worth- 
less contributed by those unknown to fame are some verses that 
would do honour to any literature. Mr. Nicholson then gave 
many anecdotes from and about the guide books and their 
authors ; ke concluded by expressing a doubt if we have really yet 
attained perfection in this matter. He said, Mr. Baddeley and 
Mr. Jenkinson are certainly to be implicitly depended on for 
minute and accurate itineraries which will enable you to see the 
Lake country, its highways and byways, but there is a romantic 
