versary of the poet's birth, was unfortunately completely destroyed by fire in January, 1879; but on June 1st, 1882, a new Shakespeare Library was again started, and has since then received numerous contributions.

We have now brought the story of Shakespeare's life to a point where the last traces, so to say, of his physical life are lost sight of. His intellectual life, on the other hand, i.e. his life as continued in his works, still exists; indeed, it seems rather to increase than to lose in inward strength and outward vigour, and exercises its influence in every one of the different countries of the civilized world-a fact that cannot be maintained of any other poet the world has ever seen. How immensely Shakespeare, in this respect, surpasses all the other poets of the Latin races, the French and Spanish dramatists, the Italian and Portuguese epic poets! One main reason of this is that Shakespeare's works are written in English, a language which-owing to a marvellous concatenation of outward and inward causes-has come to enjoy a wider diffusion than any other language. But Shakespeare has found his way into regions even beyond the range of the English tongue, and has found a home among the Teutonic nations, and, indeed, the Latin and Slavonic nations have been unable to resist his influence. If Ben Jonson could say of Shakespeare that every theatre in all Europe ought to do him homage, these words may now without exaggeration be applied to the whole world. The story of Shakespeare's life, therefore, requires to be continued, and this sequel will, in extent, in trustworthiness and far-reaching significance, surpass all that has yet been written of his actual life; this sequel might be called Shakespeare After His Death. Of this second part of the poet's life, however, only the first beginnings have as yet been attempted, and these again have been principally the work of Germany; England, the poet's own country, is

1 Among these are Hamlet in France (in my Essays on Shakespeare, pp. 193-253); Hamlet in Spanien, Caroline Michaelis in the ShakespeareJahrbuch, x. 311-354; Shakespeare in Griechenland, Wagner (ibid., xii. 3356); Hamlet in Schweden, Bolin (ibid., xiv. 23-86); Shakespeare in Island, Gering (ibid., xiv. 330-335); Zur Shakespeare-Literatur Schwedens, Bolin (ibid., xv. 73-128); Shakespeare in Ungarn, Greguss (in Hunfalvy, Literarische Berichte aus Ungarn, Bd. iii. Heft. 4); the various contributions towards a statistical account of the performance of Shakespeare's dramas in Germany (in the Shakespeare-Jahrbuch); Tara, or Shakespeare in Bengal, Harold Littledale (in Macmillan's Magazine, May, 1880), &c.

not to the front in this work, and it would almost seem as if in England Shakespeare's works were less intimately connected with the theatre, with literature and criticism generally, than they are in Germany-that, in fact, there is less evidence of the poet's influence in England than in Germany. But before it is possible to form any reliable idea of Shakespeare's far-reaching influence on the literatures of the world, on the intellectual development of civilized man, an immense variety of material will first have to be collected, sifted, and worked out. To accomplish this it will not only be necessary to have a complete bibliography on the subject, but more especially an historical and statistical account of the drama, together with an account of all the critical and aesthetic works relating to Shakespeare; and of such works there exist as yet none whatever among the Latin and Slavonic nations. Only when these gaps in our knowledge have been satisfactorily filled, only when Shakespeare's intellectual influence can be viewed in systematic connection and in every direction, then only will it become perfectly evident that his own words, in "Cymbeline" (i. 6 [7]), and in "Henry VIII." (v. 5), can with absolute justice be applied to himself:

Half all men's hearts are his

He sits 'mongst men like a descended god :
He hath a kind of honour sets him off,
More than a mortal seeming.-

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations: he shall flourish,
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him: our children's children
Shall see this, and bless heaven,

APPENDIX I.

ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE'S

NAME.

AT T first sight nothing seems simpler or more natural than that Shakespeare's name should be spelt as he himself spelt it, for assuredly a person is himself the best authority as to how his name ought to be spelt and pronounced. However, it is by no means certain how Shakespeare wrote his name. The six autographs of the poet that have the best claim to being regarded as genuine, and which moreover are the only signs we possess of his handwriting, are the following: (1) his signature to the indenture relating to the property in Blackfriars purchased from Henry Walker, and dated the 10th of March, 1612-13; (2) his signature to the mortgage deed relating to the same purchase, dated the 11th of March, 1612-13; (3) the three signatures on the three sheets that form his will, dated the 25th of March, 1615-16; and, finally, the autograph in Florio's translation of Montaigne's "Essays" (the folio edition of 1603), for which no definite date can be given. Facsimiles of all these signatures have repeatedly been published since Steevens' (1788) and Malone's "Inquiry" (1796); of the indenture and of the poet's will we have complete photo-lithographic reproductions

With regard to other supposed autographs of Shakespeare, see also The Athenæum, October 1, 1864, p. 432; January 28, 1865, p. 126; April 13, 1867, p. 488; July 24, 1869, p. 120; July 31, 1869, p. 152; August 7, 1869, p. 176; May 6, 1871, p. 546. Compare also (as regards the pronunciation of the name, by Al. Ellis) The Athenæum of August 17, 1872, p. 207; Fennel's Shakespeare Repository, p. 4; R. Gr. White, The Works of Shakespeare, i. cxxiii. f.; Knight, William Shakspere; a Biography, p. 538 f.; Notes and Queries, July 1, 1871, p. 1 f.; Dr. Ingleby, Shakespeare. The Man and the Book, London, 1877, pp. i.-ii.

in Staunton's "Memorials of Shakespeare." The indenture of March 10th was purchased by the City of London in 1841 for £145, and has since been preserved in the Guildhall Library. The mortgage deed was discovered in 1768, came into Garrick's possession, was lent to Steevens, and was missing after 1796. It came to light again, however, and was purchased at an auction on the 14th of June, 1858, by the British Museum for £315.1 The genuineness of the sixth autograph (in the British Museum) is accepted on the authority of the eminent palæographer Sir Frederic Madden, whereas Halliwell-Phillipps has declared himself doubtful about it, and his doubts are not without good foundation. Yet, of all the signatures it is the most legible, and beyond all doubt gives the spelling "Shakspere." The second and third signatures in the will have evidently been written with a tremulous hand, and the second syllable is very difficult to decipher-if, indeed, it can be deciphered at all. Madden, nevertheless, traces these two signatures also back to the form "Shakspere," and it is difficult to avoid agreeing with him, the more so as Malone and Boaden had previously come to the same conclusion, although both men made use of the form "Shakspeare" themselves notwithstanding. Boaden says, "If there be truth in sight, the poet himself inserted no a the second syllable of his name." Other Shakespearean scholars, more especially Chalmers, Drake, and Halliwell-Phillipps, on the other hand, are of the opinion that the poet did not adhere to any uniform method, sometimes spelling his name "Shakspere," sometimes "Shakspeare;" in fact, Mr. John Cordy Jeaffreson even maintains that two different forms are recognizable in the signatures to the will, namely,

4

3

in

1 Halliwell, Life of Shakespeare, p. 248; The Times, June 15, 1858; Kenny, The Life and Genius of Shakespeare, p. 46 f.; Fennel, Shakespeare Repository, p. 18 f.

Observations on an Autograph of Shakspere and the Orthography of his Name, by Sir Frederic Madden, London, 1838. J. C. M. Bellew (Shake speare's Home at New Place, p. 241 f.) discovered that" upon the edges of the leaves is printed with pen and ink the name of A. Hales," which he refers to Anthony Hales, a brother of John Hales (see above, p. 367). A sister of these two brothers-as Bellew subsequently points out-was married to one Combe, so that, if all these details are correct, this remarkable book might be traced back to Stratford.

3 James Boaden, An Inquiry into the Anthenticity of the Various Portraits of Shakspeare (London, 1824), p. 62.

The Atheneum, April 29 and May 27, 1882.