The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-18 00:00:00

lad of good parts., and they bore in mind the fact
that he had trudged hundreds of miles on foot in
order to obtain the education he coveted. Some
exertions were therefore used in his favour, and he
was sent to a little school close by, where he pre-
pared for the examination, and upon his second
attempt successfully passed it. Here, too, at the
same time, were Lee, and Grant, and Hooker, and
Baird, and Sheridan, and Longstreet, and other

afterwards when an officer asked him if the wound
was painful, he said, " No, my friend, don't trouble
yourself about me." At last they reached a hos-
pital at Wilderness Run, five miles from the place
where he was wounded. The doctors asked him
whether they should amputate his arm if they found
it necessary, and he replied, " Yes, certainly, do
for me whatever you think right." General Lee
meanwhile heard the news with deep grief, and
sent a message to his comrade, saying, " I cannot
express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have
directed events I should have chosen for the good
of the country to have been disabled in your stead.
I congratulate you upon the victory, which is due
to your skill and energy." That was the last com-
munication which ever passed between these two
great soldiers. Soon after Jackson heard the letter
read pneumonia attacked him, and he gradually
sunk. He said once, referring to his wounds, "I
consider these a blessing ; they were given for some
good and wise purpose, and I would not part with
them if I could." He had borne all his sufferings
with marvellous serenity and patience. Presently
his wife, who had been brought to his side, an-
nounced to him that his end was approaching. He
listened calmly, and tried to soothe her distress by
answering, " Very good ; very good ; it is all
right." Then he became delirious, and those who
stood over him say that he used these words,
as if giving orders for an attack Order A. P.
Hill to prepare for action ! Pass the infantry to
the front ! Tell Major Hawks to send forward pro-
visions for the men." Then his manner changed,
" a smile diffused itself over his pale features, and
he murmured, ' Let us cross over the river, and rest
under the shade of the trees.' After this he spoke no
more. So passed away one of the noblest spirits
which had animated a desperate cause. He was
buried in a little churchyard, with rows of his men
near him, and a board over the head of his grave to
tell who lies beneath."

commanders who have made themselves distinguished
by their services on one side or the other during the
late war.

After Jackson left West Point he took part in the
Mexican war, but his old companions lost sight of
him, and it was not until his name became a house-
hold word in the South that they recalled the moody
and retiring youth who spent so much of his time
in solitude and prayer. The men under his com-
mand did not understand his stern ways at first,
but they soon learnt that wherever their captain led
them it was to certain victory, and although his dis-
cipline was severe and inexorable, he came to be
regarded by his soldiers with the strongest affection.
Chary of speech at all times he never made addresses
to his men ; and, indeed, at the councils of war his
opinion was always given in a few words. After the
battle of Fredericksburg, when Lee summoned the
generals around him to decide what was to be done,
after much discussion, Jackson was appealed to for
an opinion, "Drive 'em into the river ; drive 'em into
the river," said he curtly, waking up from a doze.
The strength of the Federals was gradually exerted
on a larger scale, and Jackson's hands were always
full of work. At last, in May, 1862, the Confede-
rate commanders formed an army of over 150,000
established under General Hooker at Chancellors-
vine, and Lee hastened down from Fredericksburg
to stop its further progress. An attempt was made
under Jackson to carry a part of Hooker's intrench-
meats, but the position being too strong it was pro-
posed by Jackson that he should pass rapidly round
the Federal front, where he would be partially con-
cealed by the woods, and attack Hooker on the right
flank. This movement was carried out, but not un-
perceived by the enemy. They saw him pass in
front, and fired upon his force, but left it to continue
its road under the impression, as it was said at the
time, and even reported now, that they were retreat-
ing towards Richmond. That this story should still
gain credence only shows how soon facts are for-
gotten here. I have the evidence taken before the
committee appointed to inquire into the conduct of
the war before me, in which it is conclusively proved
that General Hooker foresaw the attack upon his
flank, and issued explicit orders to Major-Generals
Slocum and Howard to strengthen their reserves in
order to resist a flank attack. General Hooker had
inspected the lines in the morning, and wrote an
urgent note to the officers named, bidding them to
make better defences for the threatened position.
These orders were entirely neglected, and mean-
while Jackson was pushing forward. As soon as he
had succeeded in getting his men into the desired
position he ordered the attack, and it was so unex-
pected and determined that it caused something like
a panic among the Federal forces in that direction.
Jackson designed, as his staff officers say, " to put
his entire force into action, extend his left, and place
that wing between Gen. Hooker and the Rappaha-
nock. Then, unless the Federal commander could
cut his way through,_ his army would be captured or
destroyed." Jackson himself said, a few hours later,
when his remaining moments were few, " we should
have surrounded their army, and they would have
been obliged to surrender, or cut their way out ;
they had no other alternative. My troops may
sometimes fail in driving an enemy, from a posi-
tion, but the enemy always fails to drive my men
from a position." The accident which cost the life
of this invaluable officer happened before he could
see his purposes accomplished.
It appears from the statement of a " Virginian,"
who has gathered all the facts from Jackson's offi-
cers, that Jackson had ridden out to reconnoitre,
the night being a dark one except when the moon
occasionally broke through black drifts of clouds.
He had left orders behind with his men that they
should be very 'vigilant, and fire on any one they
saw approach, and particularly upon cavalry,
should any appear, " for," said he, " as we have
no cavalry about here, any that comes must be
the enemy's." He rode off with a few members of
his staff, his force being then so near the enemy
that Federal skirmishers strolled in and were taken
prisoners, amazed to find that they were actually
within the Confederate lines. Jackson was
about a mile away, listening intently for any sound
from the enemy, when suddenly a volley was fired
upon the party from his own force behind him.
" The origin of this fire," says the Virginian who
has painstakingly inquired into all the circum-
stances, "has never been discovered; and after Jack-
son's death there was little disposition to investigate
an occurrence which occasioned bitter distress to all
who by any possibility could have taken part in it."
It is believed, however, that the Confederates saw
the horses and men dimly, and believing them to be
the enemy's cavalry fired upon them. It was fatal
to several members of the staff, and Jackson him-
self galloped off into the woods close by to escape
from it. Unhappily, a brigade of his own men,
drawn up within 30 yards of him, saw him do so,
and, believing that he was a part of an advancing
force of Federals, fired with such fatal precision that
he was struck in three places, twice in the left arm
and once in the right hand. "At the moment when
he was struck," says the authority I have mentioned,
" he was holding his rein in his left hand, and his
right was raised either in the singular gesture habi-
tual to him at times of excitement, or to protect his
face from the boughs of the trees." It may be, how-
ever, that this gesture was intended as a signal to
the brigade to cease firing; but his arm dropped
directly he was shot, and his horse carried him on
among the trees, until a branch caught him violently
in the face and threw him back. Still he was not un-
seated, and catching the bridle with the broken and
bleeding fingers of his right hand, he recovered the
turnpike road, and succeeded in rejoining the surviv-
ing members of his staff. He sat on his horse a few
moments, looking up the road towards his lines
with apparent astonishment, and continued for
some time to look in that direction, as if " unable
to realise that he could have been fired upon and
wounded by his own men." Captain Wilbourne,
one of his staff, said to him, " They certainly must
be our troops." He nodded his assent, and in a few
minutes, finding himself exhausted by loss of blood,
said, " You had better take me down." He was lifted
off his horse and laid under a tree, begging that the
news of his being wounded should be kept a secret
from his men.

Before there had been time to bring the doctor up
the Federals pushed on their lines so rapidly that the
staff became anxious for the safety of their general,
who was close to the enemy, and proposed among
each other to carry him to the rear. Jackson said,
"No ; if you can help me up I can walk." He
" slowly dragged himself along towards the Confe-
derate lines, the blood from his wounded arm flow-
ing profusely over Capt. Leigh's uniform," on whom
he was leaning. At last they reached a litter, and
Jackson was lifted into it. The Federals opened a
heavy fire at this moment upon the road on which
they were moving, and the officers who were with
Jackson ordered the litter to be laid down, and threw
themselves on the ground to escape the deadly storm
:which struck millions of sparks from the flinty
ones of the roadside." Once Jackson tried to
raise himself up, as if to look. round him, but
Lieut. Smithana Prevented him. On that awful road
Jackson
wo ofTe t c
beyonde r s
were
menhis '
bore i
who thehe litter
t ta
el
ro alone
having that
nn
moment, the
off into the woods to g
cannonade. Presently the fire relaxed reach of the
' son was moved on till lie came to the' Sapnodt jwherek
-
one of his generals, Fender, was stationed. Fender
expressed his sorrow at seeing him wounded, and
said he thought he should fall back, in consequence
of his lines being much broken. But Jackson's
officers repeat now that his eye flashed with its
old fire, exhausted as he was, and he cried out,
" You must hold your ground, General Fender !
You must hold your ground, sir !" It was the last
order Jackson was destined to give.
The party moved on, and before long one of the
men who carried the litter slipped and let it fall. It
struck upon the hero's " shoulder where the bone
had been shattered, and his agony must have been
extreme." He groaned for the first time, but soon

FEE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1865.

out of their depth, and their crested shadows relieve
with their dark fringes the vivid green of the sloping
pastures beneath. Wood is as hair to a landscape.
Looked at singly a hair is a wondrous texture, but
by no means a pleasing object, but let it fall in
clusters round the neck and shoulders, and it becomes
one of the great elements to give loveliness or dig-
nity to the human face divine.

than that the officer cannot afford to wear such
expensive clothing, and renew it as often
as might appear necessary. From having to
parade every day in the tunic there is
the certainty of its getting wet through several times
in the course of a season, and consequently of its
being ruined; therefore, as every officer is obliged
to have two tunics, it is suggested that he might
have one without lace or other ornament for the
daily parades and drills, and all other occasions ex-
cept when the staff wear red, when the full dress
might be worn. The blue patrol jacket (advocated
by so many) would not be so useful as an undress
tunic would be, for there is always the objection to
the officers being in a different colour to the men on
parades ; and this is not the case with those branches
of the service already in possession of the patrol
jacket, viz., the Artillery and Rifles. A. scarletpatrol
racket, similar to the serge frock worn in India,
might be useful. The buttony frock is so seldom
worn, except by rifle instructors, that it might easily
be dispensed with without a substitute. There are
certain parts of a mounted officer's trousers which
soon become shabby from friction, perspiration from
the horse's flanks, and mud splashings, and as the
staff and mounted corps have long since found the
advantage of leather strapping as a protection, what
reason can there be for the invidious exception ? A
correspondent says :—" I cannot understand why
the present shako is so abused, it is comfortable to
wear and much lighter and better shaped than its
predecessors. I only know of one fault it has,
which is that the grease comes through and makes
it shabby before the men are entitled to new ones.
A bronze plate instead of the present shining brass
one would be preferable, the latter being too con-
spicuous when skirmishing ; those who recommend
a white shako should know that anything white can
be seen distinctly by a sharpshooter when most
other colours at the same distance would be almost
invisible."

But I must not forget that the theme of my tra-
velling notes is the traveller, not the land he travels
through. Interlaken, we are told, is half German ;
the 36 tribes that have been toiling from the days
of Otho the Great to become a nation have made
themselves at home here, and it is as much as one
can hope if one can crowd in here in some of
their pensions among them. The Junfraublick,
for instance, is almost entirely taken up by Ham-
burg, Dusseldorf, and Baden. The Germans
have managed to get up a Kursaal here, where
they have music and beer and pipes. This Kur-
saal is a huge chalet lurking back in the rear of the
row of hotels, close to the river, and almost crushed
by the perpendicular mountain behind. There is a
room for drinking goat's whey on the premises, and
there are molkenkur, traubenkur, and all other sorts
of kurs in several establishments about the place.
For your German has faith in cures, all and each,
and his learned doctor sets no limits to his inventive
powers, and ride& out on a new hobby yearly. I
hear even of a hunger-kur being now the rage—a
starvation system which, carried on with stubborn
German consistency, will undoubtedly rid a man of
all earthly complaints.

Notwithstanding this ascendancy of Germany and
Germanism, Interlaken cannot, at the present
moment, harbour less than 700 or 800 English
guests within its dwellings. Their number would
soon exceed the thousands if this long spell of per-
petual sunshine were to break, and the many cara-
vans which are now rambling along the passes of the
Wengern Alp, of the Great Scheideck, of the Ro-
senlaui and the adjoining valleys, were to be driven
in by stress of weather, as their wont is, and seek
the well-known comfort of this overland centre.

" THE READER" ON LONDON MUSIC HALLS.—
All classes and both sexes, with the exception of the
higher grade of women, use them ; and they are as
variously classed as concerns frequenters as the
theatres, which are greatly affected by situation.
According to a late calculation, there are in London
thirty-two music-halls, at which are employed, as
singers, musicians, dancers, and helpers of all kinds,
fifteen hundred people; and they can accommodate
nearly forty-two thousand visitors, although they
are not, on the average, above half full. It is said
that, including the great provincial towns, there are
upwards of a hundred and fifty music halls in Eng-
land. We, however, can only speak from personal
knowledge of the metropolitan ones. They are of
very recent growth, the first music-hall (proper or
improper) being built in 1851 ; and the Canterbury
Hall has, we believe, the honour (or the dishonour)
of starting a new and mixed form of popular enter-
tainment. Evans's, indeed, was far earlier, but it
never admitted female visitors, or employed female
performers. That Apollo and the Muses should be
introduced to beer and tobacco--and even to mut-
ton chops and kidney potatoes—seems an anomaly ;
yet Ovid tells us in his classic lines that the andanar
of the ancient "'theatres were not unmindful of the
creature comforts ; and his hero is told to be very
assiduous in providing these cates for his adorable
mistress. It is not pleasant to associate the Alcestis
or the Medea with fried sausages and assafeetida
sauce, yet we fear that the researches of that great
scholar, whom Le Sage mentions as finding out that
little boys cried when they were whipped at Athens,
• might discover that such indulgences took place in
an Athenian audience, and during the performance
pf the immortal Greek plays. However this may
be, Music has ushered in Dancing, and the two
seemed inclined to introduce Comedy or even
Tragedy. However shocking this may be, it is
probably a natural process, and we can only hope
that ultimately the intellectual may completely
triumph over the sensual. The question is Beer and
some art, or Beer and no art. But it is no province
. of ours at the present moment to settle this ques-
tion, which indeed is sure to settle itself, and will
probably do so by saying " Less Beer and more
art" We, however, intend only, in our brief view
of popular entertainments, to report what we have
seen, and what are the facts. The West-end music-
halls are the loosest as to morals and the genteelest as
to company. The East-End and Suburb music-
halls are most frequented by the artizan class,
who introduce their wives, and are frequented
by the family. These latter really show
a new phase of manners, as introducing
women to participate in their evening enjoy-
ments. At Canterbury Hall, the Metropolitan in
Edgware-road, at Wilton's, Wellclose-square, the
genuine artisan and his family will be found, or the
new and populous class of girl-workers, and their
affianced and accepted lovers. At the Oxford,
Weston's, and the London Pavilion, will be found
the faster portion of the grade above the artisan and
small trader, the young assistant and clerks of the
wholesale dealers, with a sprinkling of the fastest
portion of a still higher grads ; but all these are also
intermixed with respectable men and women, who
come solely to enjoy the entertainment. Of course,
the vicious will resort to all available places to ply
their vile trade ; and although there are no scenes
such as we recollect in the two grand (and then
only) theatres for the performance of the legitimate
drama, when the staircases and lobbies were beset
and thronged with the most openly abandoned wo-
men, yet there is a sufficient demonstration at some
of the music halls that they are used as a resort by
habitually misconducted women. Perhaps this is
unavoidable, while there is no open violation of pub-
lic decoruth ; but it is to be regretted, as it is desir-
able to afford to the wives and families of the less
rich grades of society a cheap and amusing resort
uncontaminated by obvious vice. We are very
much inclined to think if any proprietor were to
open one of these places of entertainment, With a
strict determination only to admit respectable wo-
men, it would answer his purpose as a pecuniary
speculation. It is perfectly possible for any intel-
ligent person to keep his hall perfectly select, if he
will only exercise his own discretion as to whom he
admits. Indeed, the arrangementwould soon work
itself, for disreputable women have no motive for
wishing to get into purely respectable society, when
not formed solely of wealthy men. As to the perform-
ances at these places of public entertainment, it is
noticeable that the same kind of performance pleases
all classes. The country or the town gentleman is
as anxious to hear Vance or Mackney as the coal-
whipper at Wapping. "Slap bang !" is as charm-
ing at the West End as at the East. Plenty of
money and fine clothes give no assurance of mental
refinement ; and it may be doubted if the Faust
music is not more eagerly listened to by the quiet
artizan and his young wife than by the sport-
ing gentleman and the very fast-looking lady in
the pink bonnet. The managers of the establish-
' rnents have, on the whole, been active and intel-
ligent in catering for their audiences. They
have provided good concert music ; and in some
instances, as at the Oxford and the Canterbury, a
full and efficient company of instrumentalists and
singers, who have given some of the best modern
music, not even excepting the high productions of
Beethoven. At Evans's, at one time, they had a
remarkable youthful choir, with some unrivalled
voices, that sang the music of Purcell and other
high masters. Mingled with this has been, and un-
doubtedly is, much buffoonery and some vulgarity.
Comic singing has never been noted for its refine-
ment, and that of the present day is not so coarse as
that of the past generation. The abominations of
the Jim Crow melodists have been much amelio-
rated, and Vance is not so gross as Grimaldi. The
comic songs of a nation are always a re-echo of its
manners ; and every popular comic song has some
sly hit at the ways and conduct of the beaux and
belles of the lower grade, and certainly takes life
as it at present exists and is known in their own
circle. It expresses some foolish confidingness of
Mary Jane, or some crafty deception on the part of
a flash cracksman. It betrays the innate love of
flirting in the sex, as in the case of the damsel who
goes off with the organ-grinder, or is fascinated by
one of a German band ; or it sings the praises of
the dark young girl who works at the sewing machine.
Absolute buffoonery seems sometimes to be in the
ascendant, and the long popularity of " The Cure"
and " The Nervous Man" prove on how infinitely
small an idea many minds will feed. It has, how-
ever, the rare merit of not being imitative. Alto-
gether, perhaps, music-halls andtheir entertainments
do not give all, or exactly what a philanthropic
philosopher would desiderate for a free, intellectual,
and progressing people. But the question to consi-
der is, are they on a par with other portions of our
manners and proceedings. Look at our system of
education ; our social arrangements as regards our
general mode of living ; on the way the masses are
housed; the state of the domestic arts, and of the
fine arts as concern every-day life, they really seem
to fit in harmoniously. The great populace can
only be taught manners by associating in public ;
and at least the music halls conduce to that. Nor
are their morals any worse than other places of
public resort; and compared with the old fairs they
are refinement itself. Compare Evans's, Canter-
bury Hall, and the Oxford, or Weston's, the Metro-
politan, Highbury Barn, or the Lord Raglan, with
Bow, Camberwell, or Bfirtlemy fairs, or even with
the more genteel Brook Green, and certainly, as
regards the conduct of the visitors or the entertain-
ment provided, there can be no comparison ; but to
the advantage of the music halls.

For the rest, the particular charm which makes
Interlaken the resort of Alpine tourists is sufficiently
obvious to all comers. It has all the character of
an oasis in the mountain wilderness. Here you
stand on perfect even ground—a strip of level ver-
dure between two lakes, shut in by huge rocky
masses, on the beauty of which you may gaze to your
heart's content as you saunter along the easiest of
garden walks, under the shade of the loftiest walnut
trees. It is the oasis in the desert, the secure haven
from which to contemplate the turmoil of Alpine
storms. On one side (the southern side, the side
towards which all your front windows are turned),
you have two great mountain masses coming down
obliquely upon each other from east and west, and
closing the view much as the screens and curtains
of a drawing-room, or the decorations of a stage.
Those two mountain sides are like the folding-
doors of a reliquary, or of a triptych, on an
altarpiece in some old mediaeval minster. The wings
fly open, and within you see the Jungfrau, that
Venus de Medici of mountains, wooing the world in
purest snow and ice. There is nothing like the one
view at Interlaken in the whole Alpine region—no-
thing, perhaps, unless we cross over to the other
side and see Mont Blanc descending in one slope
like a wall upon Cormayeur, or Monte Rose coming,
as it were bodily, within reach of man's hand amid
the rich pastures of Gressoney.

" THE ATHENIEUM" ON THE DOUBTS AS TO SHAK-
SPERE'S HAVING EVER EXISTED!—The life of Shak-
spere is still the puzzle, the disgrace, and the despair
of critical art. Although it is beyond question the
greatest of all literary subjects, nothing has been
made of it better than an antiquary's jest. Genius,
prudence, labour, hospitality, success—noble virtues,
noble services _are stamped upon that story, like

figures on a coin. But the story itself appears to
lack the ordinary marks of actual truth. It is a
history without details. The tale may be quite true,
and the moral beauty of it may represent material
facts, but we have no evidence to convince the eye
and ear. That large life of the poet—

" Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues"—
clings to the actual world of dates by such slender
threads that we can barely seize it as a part of the
wide province of prosaic fact. Shakspere is the
highest name in the highest of all arts ; higher than
that of Homer, that of Dante ; and of the selectest
and supremest band of poets, he is also the youngest
born. Yet we have nearly everything still to learn
about him. It is true he lived in a great city in the
neighbourhood of a busy Court, in the midst of
taverns and theatres, and among a nation of news-
mongers and letter-writers; but when we come
to these idlers and gossips, who loved to tell
each other of " some new thing," and bid them
speak what they know of this player, their
faces are all but blank. They have nothing
to say. Player ? One William Shakspere ?
Yes ; no more, no less ; the author of " Hamlet,"
" Othello," and "Measure for Measure." Certainly,
he was a man who wrote plays ; those and some
others ; also poems and sonnets. But beyond these
general words the oracles are dumb. Dates, names,
incidents, stories, conversations, everything entering
into the realities of a man's life, must be sought
elsewhere by those who want them ; sought, it may
be feared, for ever, evermore in vain. Are we sure
of a single fact in .what is called Shakspere's life ?
Sir William Penn was said to be a suppressed cha-
racter in English history. Is William Shakspere
another ? A modern critic of the destructive school
would reject as fable the whole bases of the poet's
life. If the subject came in their way, Strauss and
Renan, perhaps Millman and Colenso, would feel
no compunction in stigmatising Shakspere as " un-
historical." And critics of a safer school of thought
would see that in doing so they would be acting in
good faith according to their principles and the
measure of their light. Clouds and mists surround
the poet as a man so closely that of all the theories
of his life, the least unintelligible theory would
perhaps be one assuming that he never lived at all.
Of course there would be difficulties in the way of a
theory making Shakspere an illusion of the mind—•
• a convenient invention—a masculine form of Betsy
Prigg's invisible friend. Every theory has its weak
points. It certainly might be urged in favour of
Shakspere having lived and written books, that the
books remain—a thin quarto of sonnets, other thin
quartos of poems, " Lucrece" and " Venus and.
Adonis," a thick folio of plays; that sundry por-
traits of the man exist in National Portrait Galleries
and elsewhere ; that the house in which he was born
is known. All these things are a part of the case,
and must be taken into account by those who would
argue against an actual Shakspere in the flesh. To
a certain extent, they tell against the theory of non-
existence ; but then it is a question whether they
tell for much. Look at them sternly, and see if
they will not begin to melt away under your ardent
gaze. Even those who stand to the idea that a poet
who bore the name of Shakspere lived in the flesh—
wrote plays and poems—trod on the stage—owned
shares in a theatre—made a little fortune by his pen
—and died in Stratford-on-Avon—as the common
story, told in a thousand books, asserts, will admit
that this old idea of the Poet's life is based on all
sorts of assumptions, contradictions and absurdities.
Which of the facts put forth in the books have ever
been proved ? How do you know that Shakspere
wrote plays? You produce the copies ; quarto, folio;
" Hamlet," " Othello," and their bright compeers.
Very good. But where is your evidence that Shak -
spere wrote those plays? Where are the originals
in Shakspere's hand ? You allow that none of them
are to be found. Why are they not to be found ?
Shakspere is not an ancient. Writings of his time
abound in our public libraries. Spenser's manu-
scripts exist. Jonson's manuscripts exist. Bacon's
manuscripts exist. Raleigh's manuscripts exist. Why
of this great circle of contemporary authors should
Shakspere (if he really lived and wrote), and Shaks-
pere only, have left no originals to prove his right ?
You say the plays must have been burnt in the fire
which destroyed the Globe Theatre. It is a common,
an unhappy leap in the dark. How do you know that
Shakspere's manuscripts were kept in the Globe Thea-
tre ? Is it likely? Between the early plays and the
later there was, according to the usual story, an interval
of about thirty years. Some were written in Lon-
don, some in Stratford. Some were produced at
the Globe, some at Blackfriars, some at Court.
Why should they all be kept in the Globe Theatre ?
Blackfriars was the chief establishment, and there,
if anywhere in theatrical custody, the manuscripts
should have been kept. But more. If a fire at the
Globe were allowed, for the sake of argument, to
have furnished a possible explanation for the disap-
pearance of all the MS. Shakspere plays, such an
agency could only account for the plays. Where
are the sonnets ? Where is " Lucrece" ? Where is
" Venus and Adonis"? Still more, where are the
private letters, the personal accounts, the noted and
inscribed books belonging to this great reader and
writer ? Did they all perish in the Globe fire ?
This query would be pressed by a Strauss with re-
lentless logic. A man's private letters are not easily
destroyed. They are sent to many persons. They
lie up in country houses, and are often preserved
with religious care. Hundreds of Bacon's, Raleigh's,
Cecil's letters—not a few of Donne's and Johnson's
—are preserved. Yet not one scrap of ordinary
writing, known to be Shakspere's, has ever yet
turned up. What is the meaning of this strange
circumstance ? You say there are portraits ; and
you argue that a man who sits for his portrait must
be a living man. The portraits answer for Shak-
spere ; but who will venture to say a word for the
portraits ? We know nothing whatever about these
pretended portraits. We do not know that Shak-
spere ever sat to a painter. We have no record of
any artist ever painting him either with or without
his consent. No contemporary ever mentioned
a painting of him, good or bad. Moreover, the
pretended portraits are each unlike the other, and
all are unlike Droeshout's engraving and Johnson's
bust. The Chandos picture is of a different man
from the birthplace picture, and neither work has a
pedigree worth a straw. What, then, a critic of
the destructive school might urge, is the value of an
argument drawn from the existence of a dozen
spurious portraits ? No more than a Wardour-street
ancestry for a grocer suddenly grown rich on sand.
But, says the fond believer in tradition, there is the
house in which he was born ; house in Henley-street,
Stratford; once a butcher's shop, then a crumbling
cottage, now a sacred shrine ; restored, enlarged ;
made into a library, a museum, a picture gallery ;
surrounded by a pretty garden in which Shakspere
plants and flowers are taught to bloom. But alack!
the house is only part of the general legend. Instead
of the house answering for the fable, the fable is
obliged to answer for the house. Shakspere may
have been borne in Henley-street ; but we do not
know that he was so. It is probable, and some
believe it. But no court could receive, in a case
where ss. depended on the evidence, such probabi-
lities as can be urged in behalf of the idea. In truth,
without going the length which a destructive critic
might feel himself free to go, we must admit that
very little of the common kind is known of our
greatest writer. We are uncertain of his name. We
find it in the forms of Chacksper and Shaxpur, and
with twenty other variations, including Saxpere and
Shagspere. Critics cannot agree even now upon a
common way of spelling Shakspere's name; Malone,
Knight, and Collier having each his favourite delu-
sion on the subject. We only know beyond doubt
that the poet spelt his name one way in his books and
another way in his will. We are uncertain as to
when he was born and where he was born. We infer
that he was born on the 23dof April, 1564 in Hen-
ley-street ; but we only infer the first from the cir-
cumstance of his being christened on the 26th of
April, and the second from the fact of his father
being then the owner of a house in Henley-street.
Books have been written to show that he was not
born on April 23. As regards the house, our only
particle of evidence tells against the received idea.
Shakspere mentions it in his will • and he does not
describe it as his birthplace. We are uncertain
about his childhood and his youth,--when he went
to school, what he learned, to what business he was
put, why ke left Warwickshire, and when he came
to London. That he wrote poems and plays is
matter of safer knowledge ; though critics like Mr.
Smith and Miss Bacon have not been slow in assert-
ing that the poems and plays which go under his
name were really written by Bacon and Raleigh,
with a philosophical and revolutionary purpose.
Beyond the facts of his being in London for some
years, and producing plays and poems, scarcely any-
thing is known with clearness. He wrote sonnets,
which are the profoundest mystery in all literature.
He retired from London to Stratford ; but we are
ignorant why, and when this change in life took
place. We see nothing of his married life, and we
have only two or three lying stories about the com-
panions of his social hours. The origin of the com-
mon tale of Raleigh founding the Mermaid Club,
of which Shakspere is said to have been a member,
has not been traced. Is it older than Gifford ? No-
thing is known as to the cause of his death. His
will makes no mention of books, papers, letters,
manuscripts, or copyrights; a fact of the utmost sin-
gularity on the part of such a writer in such an age.
All these mysteries make us look upon the life of
Shakspere as the disgrace of our critical art.
THE " EXAMINER" ON FRANCE'S TRIBUTE TO
JENNER.—France has erected a monument at Bou-
logne to record its gratitude to an Englishman who
saved more lives than all the conquerors celebrated in
history have destroyed. Jenner went to his grave
with no title but the title to world-wide honour,
which has just been so generously accorded by the