no doubt, but how many? I do not mean that these books are never "looked into," but how many have read them as they have read "The Newcomes," or "David Copperfield," or "Adam Bede," or "Ivanhoe," or "Childe Harold," or the "Idylls of the King?" A few, no doubt, but how many? How many of those who bubble over about Shakespeare could give a brief abstract of the plots of the plays above mentioned—or quote half-a-dozen lines from any of them? A few, no doubt, but how many?
Of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Henry V., The Merry Wives of Windsor, most people know something, for most people have seen those plays acted. But how many know anything about those plays of Shakespeare which are never acted? The gentleman who is reading these lines knows all about them, but how many of his friends are as well informed as he? Let him invite the first acquaintance he meets (who has no professional connection with the stage) to favour him with a sketch of the plot of Cymbeline, and note the result. The chances are ten to one that that acquaintance, if he ventures on an answer at all, will describe Cymbeline as a Queen of Britain. Of Troilus and Cressida he will be equally ignorant.
The truth is that Shakespeare is not light reading. But an absolute ignorance of the works of Shakespeare is most properly held to be disgraceful, and so when it comes to pass that a play of Shakespeare is adequately presented people rush to see it in order to familiarize themselves, in the readiest and easiest and most agree-
