"*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 7.
--
Following his study of the sonnet-writers of the Elizabethan age,
comes a somewhat technical study of the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time --
a restatement of Ellis's monumental work on that subject.
His discussion of music in Shakespeare's time has already been noticed.
He next tried to reproduce for his class the domestic life of the age,
commenting in full on the sermons, the plays, the customs of the time.
In order to give unity to this study, he sketches in a somewhat fanciful way
the boyhood of Shakespeare in Stratford and his early manhood in London.
The most important part of the lectures, however, is his discussion
of the growth of Shakespeare's mind and art, a study made possible
by recent publications of the New Shakespeare Society.
Lanier never wrote any more vigorous or eloquent prose than these chapters,
although it must be said that he makes too much of the dramatist's personality
as revealed in his plays. Two passages are quoted to indicate
in the first place the standpoint from which he studied the plays,
and in the second place to show his conception of the moral height
attained by Shakespeare as compared with contemporary dramatists: --
"The keenest scholarship, the freest discussion, the widest search
for external evidence, the most careful checking of conclusions
by the Metrical Tests one after another, have all been applied
to establish this general succession in time of these three plays;*
and it is not in the least necessary to commit ourselves
to the exact years here given in order to feel sure that these three plays
represent three perfectly distinct epochs, separated from each other
by several years, in Shakspere's spiritual existence.
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