The Nevada journal., 1856-02-01
Shakespeare and his PIays,

| pears III lne january numDer or L futnamS'
Monthly, on the above subject, which de-
velopes ideas startling to the literary
world, and sets at defiance the notions
that tradition and leps acquiescence have
rendered almost inseparable from Shakes
peareaa history. The editor feels him
self constrained at the outset to disclaim
all responsibility for the novel speculations
of his correspondent refuge on
neutral ground till the more developed
and fortified views of his learned conmu-
meant have raised him up "a party in the
State," or he has been vanquished by
opposing pens. For ourself we must say
we have read the article with disposition
not to be convinced, and are at present in
the perplexcd position of having gained
new idea that We dare not appropriate,
and label as truth. The eloquence of the
author gradually carried our entrenched
prejudices, one after another, and when,
at the end of the cannonade, we surveyed
the whole field, summoned the remains of
old ideas around as, we felt constrained to
admit we could not sustain such another
attack without capitulation. Still we are
not yet prepared to go over to the enemy
Gentle reader, the startling proposition
of this literary Ajax is that VIM. Shakes
peare was not the author of "Shakespear's
plays" This position is sustained with
wit, philosophy, good sense, good reason
ing, gallantly marshalled to the task-it
is opposed by tradition, current opinion,
contemporary belief.
The author seems to feel that he treads
on forbidden ground, and just ifes his ir-
reverent criticism-irreverent to the pre-
judices of this and past generations-by
an allusion to the boldness of scholars of
the present age in deciding, by such evi-
dences as have drifted down the stream of
time for two thousand FIVE hundred years,
upon all the Homeric phenomena that
puzzled Plato, Solon and Pisistratus-in
settling the old dispute Of the contending
cities for the birthplace, and contending
ages for the era of poets birth, whose
date is anti-historical. He says "With
these works, [of Honer,] in their hands
to-day, reasoning from them alone, with
no collateral aids, with scarce an extant
monument of the age from which they
come to US, they are not afraid to fly in
the face of all antiquity with their conclu-
sions"
If then scholars dare tread with conf
dent step upon such ground as this, why
not examine into the myt that lies at our
own door, in the works Of our Homer who
lived but two hundred and fifty years ago
The age which has put back old Homer's
eyes, safe, in his head again, after he had gone
without them well nigh three thousand years
the age which has found, and labeled, and sent
to the museum, the skull in which the pyramid
of Cheops was designed, the lions which "the
mighty hunter before the Lord" ordered for
his new palace on the Tigris some millenniums
earlier the age in which we have abjured our
faith in Romulus and Remus, is surely one in
which we may be permitted to ask this question.
Having thus established his footing,
gained prop for his archimedean lever,
the author proceeds to overthrow the
fabric of popular and traditional theory.
The ingenuity of his arguments defes
close analysis. One forcible idea is ad-
vanced, that there is no voice from the
hero's tomb, no sacrifice of life or effort
on Shakespeare's part, to forbid question Of
his reputation. He did not toll, suffer,
struggle, and keep his heart from break
ing, to the end that future ages might
glorify his fame. He had no conscious
ness of the value of those works that
passed in his name He had the original
manuscripts which publishers and scholars
would give millions now to see. The art
of printing had been in use an hundred
years. Yet he took no means to trans
NIT to posterity the golden thoughts that
burst in every line of Hamlet and Lear,
that sparkle in and enrich all subsequent
Intellectual efforts He was unwise and
unjust to his own fame. He acted as the
illiterate, unappreciative actor would act,
whose name was the convenient vehicle Of
the great thoughts of patron who could
not else give to the world his lessons of
wisdom and rebuke.
Again, who will say that nature passed
over the wits and scholars of that bright
era of English literature-the reign of the
virgin queen, the men ofdeep thought and
philosophy, of worldwide travel and e1-
! oor;apra of classical raaoarsh and poofio