Nineteenth Cen

son for that fascinating generalization of the ancient philosopher, that the epochs and events of the physical realm and history were a fixed and limited quantity, which, revolving in a vast cycle, would bring from time to time the reiteration of the facts or doings of an ancient era. There was no new thing thinkable, only a reintroduction of the old. To illustrate this fact in brief, we have but to note the history of philosophy. You read the names of those who figure as founders of philosophical systems, and those

nce. Whether it come in religion, statecraft, economic science, or literature, can be of little moment. The fact is the matter of paramount importance. Christianity was the iconoclast which broke in pieces the images of decrepit polytheism, and hewed out a way where progress might march to fulfill her splendid destiny. Luther was the iconoclast whose giant strokes demolished the castle doors of Romish superstition, and broke to fragment

on in the domain of poesy, and an innovation of such a sort that against it the master-poet, Milton, lifted up his voice in solemn protest, and the solitary epic in English literature is a perpetual protestation against the c

than subjective; and attention to the spirit of the age wil

ge. Times create literatures. The literature of any period, in an emphatic sense,

ty. In early Greek times an epic without its gods and demigods, without resounding battle-shout and din of mighty conflict, had been an anachronism for which there could have been offered no apology. The splendid era of Pericles demanded

y, the colonization, the high tide of life, which ran like lightning through the Nation's arteries, made the drama, not only a possibility, but a fact. It was the embodiment of the mighty activities o

s that it was not a law enactor, but a law discoverer. Investigation found that many ideas and systems of ideas, supposed philosophies and sciences, were false and unsubstantial as the "baseless fabric of a vision." Things received as truths from time immemorial were shown to be untrue. The tendency of the human intellect is to generalize; and finding many previously received systems and facts to be without evidence sufficient to substantiate them, there arose the unwilled generalization that all these systems are likewise f

Truth never flinches before the charge of a wise investigation. But no truth can stand as such before a system of inquiry the canons of which are empirical, fallacious, and false. The task of demolition is a fascinating one. It possesses a charm imposs

cribed to him. It is not shown that this question was even mooted in the former times. Cities contended for the honor of having given this man birth. He was as much a verity as Pericles. Such was the status of the case when our century beheld it first. Bentley had hinted at the probability or possibility of separate authorship; but it remained for German criticism, in the person of Wolf, to make the onslaught on the time-honored belief. The attack was as impetuous as the charge of the Greeks across the plain of the Scamander. It astonished the world. It abashed scholarship. Grave philosophers and gifted poets were carried away in the rush of the attack. Goethe gave and Schiller withheld allegiance. The Atomist and Separatist for a time held the field. Wolf showed, by reasoning which he deemed irrefutable, that the Iliad could not have been composed by a single man. Writing did not exist. The story had many repetitions, contradictions, and inferiorities. Later, the philological argument was used against it. These statements summarize the Wolfian theory. The contrariety in dialect form was thought to be an invulnerable argument against the unity of authorship; and for a time the epic of the ancient world was declared to be the work of ma

se assumptions were wholly arbitrary, as may be seen by reading the authors on the various books. The thing which is the most observable is their lack of agreement, while the method used is the dogmatic. They all agree that the book is not of the date nor authorship usually assigned to it; but what the date and who the author, is very seldom agreed between any two. The criticism is largely of the ipse dixit sort, and the grounds of attack are, though rationalistic, seldom rationally taken. In the vaunted name of reason, the most monstrous absurdities are perpetrated. The line of argument professed to be used is inductive; but in reality the inductive element in this criticism stands second, and the deductive element has the chief seat in the synagogue. The assumption in the case, the a priori, sine qua non ("without which nothing")-these are the all-important elements in the discussion. It is the Homeric argument restated. Each man professes to find his hypothesis in the structure and language of the book. In fact, the author usually began with his hy

t has whetted its sword against each; but the lack of similarity is more apparent than real. The Bible is God's exhibit of human nature and its relation to the Divine personality and plans. Shakespeare is man's profoundest exhibit of man in his relatio

es must be believed in. Stories concerning him haunted the byways of London and literature. Ben Jonson paid him a tardy tribute. Men received him as they received Chaucer. But the spirit of the age finds him vulnerable. Delia Bacon, Smith, O'Connor, Holmes, and Donnelly are leaders who deny Shakespeare's identity. I may note Donnelly, an American gentleman of research and painstaking which would be creditable to a German scholar. He must be allowed to be a man of ingenuity. His method of discovering that Shakespeare was not himself has all the flavor of an invention. It glitters, not with generalities, but ingenuities. A sample page of his folio, covered with hieroglyphics which mark the progress of finding the cipher which he thinks the plays contain-such sample page is certainly a marvel, even to the generation which has read with avidity "Robert Elsmere" and "Looking Backward." A peculiarity in it all is, that his explanation makes marvelous doubly so. To believe that a man should have hidden his authorship of such works as the plays of Shakespeare makes a draft on the credulity of men too great to be borne. Why Junius should not have revealed himself is not difficult to discover. His life was at stake. But why the author of "The Tempest," or "King Lear," or "The Merchant of Venice," should have concealed his personality so carefully that three centuries have elapsed before men could discover it-this is an enigma no man can solve. In general, it is objected by non-believers in Shakespeare that it is impossible to conceive of a man whose rearing possessed so few advantages as did that of Shakespeare, having written the plays attributed to him. This is really the strong point in the whole discussion. All other arguments are subordinate. It is admitted that it does seem impossible for the poacher and wild country lad to become the poet pre-eminent in English literature. But this question is not to be decided by a priori reasoning. The genius displayed in the dramatic works under consideration is little less than miraculous. This all concede. Now, history has shown that to genius there is a sense in which "all things are possible." Genius can cross the Alps, can conquer Europe, can dumfound the world. Genius knows no rules. Once allow genius,

d it thoroughly, and the literature of that period can hardly be a puzzling question. The nineteenth century will stand in history as the chiefest iconoclast which has ari