speare should be to create an interest in the plays themselves. For this purpose the work in hand should first be read through as a whole, and the students taught to ask themselves at the end of each scene, or in the longer scenes at moderate intervals, the following /or similar questions. First, what has this scene done to advance the story? Second, what light has been thrown by it upon the characters of the persons concerned? Third, what light has been thrown upon the circumstances under which the events which form the plot took place? These questions should in the first place be put to the students, and only when they have done their best to answer them should further information be given by the teacher, who should carefully teach the students how to read the text in order to find the answers to the questions. When this has been done, the students may begin to study the text word by word with the aid of such notes as are supplied by many editions of Shakespeare's plays. Their interest having been aroused, they will be in a position to appreciate exactness in determining the meaning of words, and to value any insight they may gain into the significance of particular phrases, because of the light thrown by it upon knowledge which they have already attained. When the play has been studied as a whole, and also word for word, it will be time to introduce the

student to what may be called the higher criticism, which he will then be in a position to profit by and to enjoy.

Such teaching I believe to be far more suited to the wants and understanding of the average student than that which is now in use. There is no reason why questions should not be framed in examinations to test the knowledge so acquired, though I admit that the answers will not be so easy to mark; and its adoption would do something to revive the popularity of Shakespeare in the mind of a generation which, if the present system is persisted in, is likely to detest him with as thorough-going an aversion as if he had written his great masterpieces in Latin or Greek.

TO THE READERS

In the sphere of literary criticism there is no such thing as finality, and if I venture to place before you a new, or at any rate a neglected, treatment of Shakespeare, I can only crave indulgence for my temerity on the plea that experiment is necessary for progress, and that if nought were attempted, nothing would be done.

At the commencement, therefore, I ask you to carefully banish from your mind all preconceived notions about the plays. Be as though Hamlet or King Lear had never been heard of before. Forget what you have read of the ghost, of Ophelia, of Cassius or Miranda. Above all, banish from your memory any representation of a Shakespearian play at which you have been present, and, Shakespeare in hand, let us endeavour by a patient study of the text, Act by Act and Scene by Scene, to unravel the method and design of the great master, not from any theory of his mind or art but from his own words. And let me remind you that to do this is to throw upon Shakespeare his full responsibility as a literary artist. Neither acting nor scenery will serve his