103 



of his not receiving honour at the hands of his contem- 

 poraries, more probably arose from the fact that the 

 puritanic prejudices against players were already in fall 

 force, and that his social position in the then existing 

 state of society, bound as it was by the bonds of feudal 

 laAv, and encumbered by its fetters, hindered his recogni- 

 tion. " He was a Galilean," and no good could come " out 

 of Galilee." It might perhaps be questioned that a mere 

 matter of worldly position would influence his estima- 

 tion as an author ; but we have only to consider how 

 heavily it weighed on an author who lived within this 

 century, Robert Burns, to perceive that it might not only 

 do so, but would be most likely to do so. Extraneous con- 

 siderations weigh in every administration of justice, blind 

 the goddess is. If the resources of a powerful, even 

 gigantic mind, were crippled in the nineteenth century, 

 its popularity limited, its results held cheaply till twenty 

 or thirty years after death, how much more may we 

 suppose the influence of an author indirectly injured in 

 the seventeenth century. The ignominy that then at- 

 tached to his pursuits must have dulled the vision of the 

 most far-sighted and impartial. Educational acquire- 

 ments were valued then, even more than they have been 

 since, to the prejudice of genius — man's art was honoured 

 above his Creator's. The mere pretension to erudition, 

 or to academic accuracy, as in the case of Ben Jonson, 

 whose learning was none of the profoundest, was suffi- 

 cient to give an ascendancy in reputation ; but neither 

 Jonson nor Shakspere could be honoured as college bred. 

 Sliakspere was known to be an actor, therefore no 

 scholar — a glover's son, consequently no classic. Lack- 

 ing classical lore, he lacked art ; was a mere unskilful 

 and inartistic, though eminently successful, witty and 

 eloquent playwright. Like Burns, he was regarded as a 

 literary phenomenon. He was a comet of even a higher 



