, 1891-03-25
SPEAKS ON SHAKESPEARE
A Great Lecture by Col. Robert
G. IngersOll.
England's Great Dramatist Pic
tured in Glowing Rhetoric.
A Side Light on DOnnelly's
BacOnian Theory.
IngersoII on Shakespeare.

49, OA1@
audience that overlooked the Broadway
theater tonight. Net only we're all the
regular seats in the house sold, but extra
seats were placed in the orchestra and on
the stage, aud many prominent men and
women listened to the famous orators 5
eloquent words ON Shakespeare and His
Work"
Mr.. IDgersoll lecture was read rapidly
from manuscript and occupied over an
hour and a halt III its delivery. A full
report would CONSIST of about 10000
words and it was Mr.. Ingersolls request
that II shonld not be reported in full, as
he proposes to use the lecture in another
form at some future time.
His chief points were as follows:
We have met to paw tribute to the
great genius of the world. He gave to
us the treasure OF the rarest sort that
ever lived. and wrought by words the
statues, pictures and temps OF thought.
Shakespeare was So great that | feel as
though | am endeavoring to grasp a globe
70 large that | cannot obtain any bold.
More thau three centuries ago this great
est intellect of the human race was born.
He was not of supernatural origin. HIS
father and mother both lived 10 the world.
There was no drop of royal blood. There
was nothing that we know connected with
his birth or education hat can account
for him. Ignorant people are apt to
overrate the value OF education. They
believe that wealth is the mother of joy.
On the other hand the children of the
rich find that gold does not purchase hap
piness, and they are apt TO underrate he
value of wealth. The children of great
authors rarely become writers. Possibly
differences in culture right themselves in
the centuries. Possibly the eras that lie
fallow gather strength, 1t is said that his
father came under the ban of the church.
That is good as far as It go,s
OF his mother we know little, but her
beautiful name of Mary. In those days
little of women was written except that
they were born. married and died. When
men became great nobody thought OF
hunting up their ancestry on the mothers
side. They looked after the fathers and
the grandiathers. Yet the mother oil
Shakespeare endowed her son with passion
and IMAGINATION. with the highest quality
of the soul, higher than any other man
ever possessed. 1t has been said that
men OF genius must select their ancestors
with great care. Laughter. Yet there
does not seem to be 50 much in heredity
as people think. So far as we know
Shakespeare was not sired BY noble, or
soldier, or priest. He lived at a time
when the poet was subordinate to the
theolog an. Happily he had no intimate
friends to be his biographer and TO write
"reminiscences of him, so the trivaliucs
about him are lost, aud we have preserved
only the best. An hat is known of him
can be written on a page. Yet he was
unknown to his contemporaries He is
mentioned In the lists that were made of
the great writers of the day before his
name had become world wide, and yet
there has survived him no letter written
by him 10 any mau, or by any man to
him. | have found it difficult to explain
the epltaph on his tomb. 1t is so disrc-
putable that the only reason | can give
for it Is that 1t was put there to reconcile
the ignorant people of Avon TO the idea
OF having an actor buried in a church.
lie was then considered ~disreputable to be
an actor or a dramatist. | do not believe
that Shakespeare wrote his own epitaph
because some one else wro;e it as an
apology for placing his remains in that
church where the images were once de
faced, a church that has been made Im-
mortal by the fact that his body lies there.
We find mention of Shakespeare in
1895, IN 1898, 1000, 1907 by vhnous au-
thors about this time, and twelve years
after he began to write; he was well
known in England. 1t has been remarked
as curious that in all his works Shaks-
peare made no mention of any of his
contemporaries. 1t has been urged by
some that he was patronized by Queen
Elizabeth and that he referred to her in
the lines ending In maiden medication
fancy free, but this is doubtful. 1t has
been said that he mentioned her in the
second act of Henry the Eighth. Some
people think that Bacon wrote
S~hakspeare's plays; but that part
Of the play of Henry the VIII
was written by Fletcher, so hat Shaks-
peare could not have written it. At the
time of S~hakspeare's birth Europe was
emerging from the darkness OF the bar
barous and middle ages. There was Ger
vantes in l547. Rcubens in 1897, that
greatest OF martyrs, Glordomi Bruno, in
1913.
1t was written of Oxford that she was
the widow of learning, the meaning being
that learning was dead and Oxford was
the widow. Calico was horn in the same
year with Shakespeare, Michael Angelo
in 1869, Kepler Of the three laws in 1871,
Moliere in 1922. Shakespeare was born
seventy two years after the discovery of
America. The world was widening in
every direction, and he had his share to
fill in it. His was a work greater than
that of the painter or the sculptor. He
prepared the stage for the future. He
was not a copyist but 4 creator. Famines
tend to make men think OF creeds. With
prosperity come JOY and leisure, and the
beautiful is born. The birth of Shaks
peare came with the awakening of the
world. We can only say of Shakespeare,
He was" He was bOru where the
actor and dramatist were d~i-reputable,
but in that surrounding he reached the
heights of the intellectual heavens. There
has been no great play written since
Shakespeare. 1t never occurred to
Shakespeare to go to the unnatural. He
never thought about writing a play IN
which a wife's lover should become
jealous of her husband Qaughter). He
above all things idealized because he was
a genius. Your realist is but a copyist.
/ Nj N..- -IAN -