Dr. Stiggins:
to men whose only merit lies in the fact that they wore clothes of a different fashion from those in use to-day. There is the elegant and alluring lustfulness of Boccaccio, the gross vulgarity of Cervantes, the mad obscenity of Rabelais, whose every page is strewn with abominations of thought and expression which are quite unspeakable, which belong rather to a prostitute in Bedlam than to a rational human being. But I pass these over and come to the most notorious instance of all, the universally read, the almost idolised Shakespeare. Nay; I am quite aware of the obloquy I shall encounter, I know that a kind of fetish worship has gathered round the name of this dramatist, that it is accounted a heresy to mention his works save in terms of the most extravagant praise. And I must allow that Shakespeare has written many great and admirable lines; there are whole pages, indeed, in his plays which may be read both with pleasure and profit, for the beauty of expression, the moral lesson, and the fidelity to life. Such for
166
