The Museum Catalogue devotes

The Museum Catalogue devotes six volumes to the poet and his editors. All these thousands of works are entered under ‘ Shakspere’; though in about 95 per cent, of them the name is not so written. The editions of Dyce, Collier, Staunton, Halliwell-Phillipps, and Clark, which have Shakespeare on their title-pages, are lettered in the .binding Shakspere. Nay, the facsimile of the folio of 1623, where we not only read Shakespeare on the title-page, but laudatory verses addressed to ‘ Shake-speare ’ {sic’) is actually lettered in the binding (facsimile as it purports to be), Shakspere. We shall certainly end with ‘Shaxper.’

The claim of the palaeographists to re-name great men rests on a confusion of ideas. ‘ Shakespeare ’ is a word in the English language, just as ‘Tragedy’ is; and it is in vain to ask us, in the name of etymograpliy, to turn that name into Shakspere, as it would be to ask us, in the name of etymology, to turn ‘Tragedy ’ into Goat-song. The point is not, how did the poet spell his name — that is an antiquarian, not a literary matter, any more than how Homer or Moses spelled their names. Homer and Moses, as we know, could not possibly spell their names: since alpha-bets were not invented. And, as in a thousand cases, the exact orthography is not possible: the matter which concerns the public is the form of a name which has obtained currency in literature. When once any name has obtained that currency in a fixed and settled literature, it is more than pedantry to disturb it: it is an outrage on our language. And it is a serious hindrance to popular education to be ever unsettling familiar names.

If we are to re-edit Shakespeare’s name by strict revival of contemporary forms, we ought to alter the names of his plays as well. There is reason to think that Macbeth was Mcelbcethe. The twentieth century will go to see Shaxpers Mcelbathe performed on the stage. And so they will have to go through the cycle of the immortal plays. Hamlet was variously written Hamblet, Am leth, Hamnet, Hamle, and Hamlett; and every ‘ revival ’ of Hamlet will be given in a new name. Leirs daughters were properly Gonori/l, Ragan, and Cordila. If Shakspere’s own orthography is decisive, we must talk about the Midsummer Night’s Dreame, and Twelffe-Night, Henry Fift, and Clcopater, for so he wrote the titles himself. Under the exasperating revivalism of the palaeographic school all things are possible; and, in the next century private guide turkey, it will be the fashion to say that ‘the master-creations of Shaxper are undoubtedly Cordila, Hamblet, and Madbaethe.’ Goats and monkeys! can we bear this?

Revivalism rests upon

All this revivalism rests upon the delusion, that bits of ancient things can be crammed into the living organism of modern civilisation. Any rational historical culture must be subordinate to organic evolution; lumps of the past are not to be inserted into our ribs, or thrust down our throats like a horse drench. A brick or two from our father’s houses will not really testify how they built their homes; and exhuming the skeletons of their buried words may prove but a source of offence to the living. An actor who had undertaken the character of Othello once blacked himself all over the body, in order to enter more fully into the spirit of the part; but it is not recorded that he surpassed either Edmund Kean or Salvini. So we are told that there exists a company of enthusiastic Ann-ists, who meet in the dress of Addison and Pope, in boudoirs which Stella and Vanessa would recognise, and read copies of the old Spectator, reprinted in contemporary type.

In days when we are warned that the true feeling for high art is only to be acquired by the wearing of ruffles and velvet breeches, we shall soon be expected, when we go to a lecture on the early Britons, to stain our bodies all over with woad, in order to realise the sensations of our ancient ‘ forbears ’; and na one will pass in English history till he can sputter out all the guttural names in the Saxon Chronicle. Palaeography should keep to its place, in commentaries, glossaries, monographs, and the like. In English literature, the literary name of the greatest ruler of the West is Charlemagne; the literary name of the most perfect of kings is Alfred; and the literary name of the greatest of poets is Shakespeare. The entire world, and not England alone, has settled all this for centuries.