In My Vicarage Garden 



and it is from the Puritan Milton, and not from 

 the no-Puritan Shakespeare that we catch the 

 beauties of the " pealing organ blowing — 



To the full-voiced Quire below, 



In service high and anthems clear," etc. 



Something might be said also of the fact that 

 he makes no use of architects' or builders' tech- 

 nical terms. If he speaks of a " vaulted arch " it 

 is of the sky he is speaking ; and so of almost 

 every other word which might be considered to 

 be borrowed from the architect or builder. I say 

 this because it is from the seemingly unconscious 

 use of many terms peculiar to many arts and 

 sciences that the conclusion has been drawn that 

 he was not only a proficient in those arts and 

 sciences, but even a member of the special pro- 

 fessions and handicrafts ; but I omit this part of 

 the subject without going further into it. 



It may, of course, be said that the entire omis- 

 sion of all reference to fine buildings and grand 

 architecture proves nothing as to Shakespeare's 

 ignorance of the art or want of observation of the 

 buildings. It is impossible to prove a negative, 

 and with many writers such omissions would not 

 be worth noticing. But with Shakespeare it is 

 different. There seems to have been almost 

 nothing that he did not notice, and having noticed 

 it he said something about it in his writings ; and 

 so when we find one particular subject entirely 

 unnoticed, and that a subject which more or less 

 216 



