The Hawaiian gazette., 1873-10-15
~ tCommunicated.l 4
ShakesPearean Enigma.

several articles appeared IN the Advertiser, under
the heading did Shakespeare write Shake
| speare." This query made some laugh and others
sneer While the writer doubtless believed that
| William Shakespeare was the real aud veritable
author Of the plays attributed to him, still, he
may have found 1t difficult to reconcile the man
Shakespeare, as known in history. with the i'm
mortal works attributed to his pen and genius.
| The writer Of those articles was not the only
one who has been perplexed in reviewing this
subject. Coleridge, Emerson, Carlyle, and other
great critics have been perplexed beyond measure
TO account for the wonderful fact, that man,
such as Shakespeare is reported to have been,
could possibly have written Hamlet, ''0fheIlo,"
Macbeth" and his other plays.
This enigma is fully described 10 Professor
Nathaniel Holmes work on " The authorship Of
Shakespeare" Professor Holmes is now con-.
uected with the Law School of Cambridge Uni
versitY, and was formerly judge in Missouri.
This book may be regarded as good example of
Especial pleading" but it is, nevertheless, richly
meriting careful perusal, by any one who de-
sires to read upon a subject Of this nature.
The following paragraphs afford good illustra-
ton Of the character of the book: c
THE German critic, Schlegel, equally amazed
at the extent Of the knowledge and the depth of
the philosophy of these plays of Shakespeare,
the author Of which he could not but consider as
one who had mustered all the things and rela-
tions of this world, does not hesitate to declare
the received account Of his life to be "a mere
fabulous story. q blind and extravagant error !
this Shakespeare must have been another sort of
man from what we know him. The Germans
seems to have been the first to discover and ap-
preciate the full depth of his philosophy, not ex-
cepting Geryinus, who appears to have had less
difficulty about the author himself. That single
passage, which had never attracted the particu-
lar attention Of an English critic, otherwise than
as brilliant figure of speech, should be capable
of creating whole books In the soul of Jean Paul
Richer, is. perhaps not much to be wondered at
especially, if we consider that he, to whose great
learning, deep philosophy, and divine wisdom,
this universe became crystalline and transparent,
did not fail to see that no one had better pur-
sued and illumined the actual truth Of things,
even into the deepest wales aud the little worms
therein, than those twin-stars Of poesy, Homer
and Shakespeare
Indeed, the bare proposition, that this man,
on his arrival in London,a at the age of twenty
three, with only such history as we possess Of
his previous life education, studies, and pursuits
could have begun almost Immediately to produce |
the matchless works which we know by his name
not merely the most mastery works Of art, and |
as such in The opinion Of eminent critics, surpaSs
ing the Greek tragedy ITSELF but classical poems,
and plays the most profoundly philosophical in
the English language, or any other flor no less q
critic than Goethe has awarded this high praise).
may justly strike US as simply preposterous and
absurd. What exclaims Coleridge, at this
consequence of the Traditional biography, ARE
we to have miracles in sport? = Does God
choose idiots by whom to convey divine truths TO
man !? Emerson, no less, considering that the
Shakespeare Society had ascertained that this
William Shakespeare was a good natured sort
of man. jovial actor, manager, aud shareholder,
not in any striking manner distinguished from
other actors and managers and that he was a
veritable farmer withal, engaged in all sorts of
traffic at Stratford, doing business commissions
in London, and suing Phillip Rogers for malt de-
livered, while writing Hamlet or Lear is
apparently obliged to lay down the problem in
dispair with this significant confession can
not marry this fact 10 his verse. Other admira-
bic men have led lives in some sort of keeping
with their thought but this man. in wide con-
trast.' Ia like manner, Jean Paul Richter would
have him buried, if his life were like his writings,
with Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, and the high
est nobility Of the human race, 10 the same best
congregated earth Of our globe, Gods hower-gar-
den in the deep north Indeed, consde ring how
this man should drop the theatre as an idle pas
Time or as trade that has filed bis Golfers and
quietly sit him down for the remainder of life
merely to talk and Jest with the StratfOrd burgh-
ers, and, turning over his works to the spelling {
hand of bluudeung printers and surreptitious
traffic, regardless of his own reputation, needless
of the world around him, leaving his manuscripts
10 perish, taking no thought of foreign nations,
Or the next ages, or as if not deeming he had
written anything worthy of preservation. should
steal in silence 10 his grave, beneath doggerel
spitaph reputed to have been written by himself 1
md certainly suitable enough for his bones by
he side Of which the knowing friends who erect
ID monument over him caused to be inscribed
Latin memento, which might indeed do honor .
o the memory Of the Star of Poets =
'Judcio Pyllum, genio Socratem, arte SIaronem,
Terra tegit PoPuus meret Olympus habet';-
ny man might wonder, If he did not laugh out
ight, TO see this Son of Menus wearing thus his
ions skin even in his tomb. Carlyle. that other
of our time, chewing the cud of this
careless mortal, open to the Universe and its in
uences not caring strenuously to open himself
Tho, Prometheus-like. will scale Heaven (if 1t SO
must be). and is satisfied if he Herewith pay the
ent Of his London Play. as it were with
he imperturbabiIity Of Teufelsdroeh himself SIM {
ly breaks out, at last, with this brief exclama-
ion: An unparalleled mortal +"