70 L. A. Sherman 



And skippers' keels shall go straight over it. 



And never mark that they have cut its stalk. 



It is that lily's destiny. But still, 



As long as in the sand its root holds fast, 



The plant shall have its worth, and borrow hue 



From sister-stars which glitter pale above, — 



A star itself upon the blue expanse. 



But if it struggle free, it only drifts 



A wither'd leaf around the desert waters. ^^ 



Can one omit mention, on taking leave of Quiller-Couch's 

 fervent tribute, that this was the work which won recognition of 

 Shakespeare's genius from the dons and scholars of the day? Is 

 it not affirmed of Hamlet, on the title page of the First, and ap- 

 parently pirated Quarto, text, — < 



As it hath been diuerse times acted by his Highnesse 

 seruants in the Cittie of London; as also in the two 

 Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and else-where? 



' And elsewhere.' Where ' elsewhere,' we wonder. At Bristol, 

 at Norwich, possibly. At Elsinore palace, at Kronberg? . And 

 how did Shakespeare's fame reach the Isis and the Cam? Did 

 Shakespeare himself, at some first rendition of Hamlet, manage 

 the cast ? Was he his own ghost eitherwhere ? The archives, 

 perhaps, in one or the other university will show. Might not the 

 Edward-Seventh Professor of English Literature at Cambridge 

 institute, like our Professor Wallace at the Public Record Office, 

 an inquiry? 



"^^ Esaias Tegner : Frithiofs Saga, Cant'o VIII, 11. 267-284. 



172 



