C899 
 
A Common Sense View of 
 
 « « « 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHIN MABERMEMU, 
 
 i 
 
n eoitinton Um Uiew 
 of Shakespeare 
 
 By JoDn l^aDermebl 
 
 JIutbor of Life on m lUestern Rivers 
 
 of lUestern Society. 
 
 Jl Book Strictly Origiitdl. 
 
 Part T: Jl Qeneral explanation 
 Part IT: Jin Explanation of tbe Play of Hind JoDn 
 
 The purpose of the writer is to kill two birds with 
 one throw — to assist those who find it difficult to 
 understand Shakespeare, and incidentally to get a gen- 
 eral knowledge of the historic kings of England. 
 
 MCNARY & SIMPSON 
 
 Printers and Publishers 
 
 Pittsburg 
 
THE LIBRARY »r 
 
 e©NGRESS, 
 Two Co«e5 REcev6» 
 
 APR. t8^1902 
 
 COFYRMWT WTRY 
 
 CLA88 «^ XXa No. 
 OOPY B. ' 
 
 f%.V^' 
 
 Copyright 1902, by John Habermehl. 
 
SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Perhaps it will be interesting to the readers for the writer 
 to make a few preliminary remarks of his own personal obser- 
 vations of this great genius in olden times. 
 
 In the years of the forties — now over fifty years ago — 
 west of the Alleghany Mountains the public was more stage- 
 struck on Shakespeare than at the present day. 
 
 One could hear his name in the saloons. In the public 
 streets young men in mock style would cry out, "Ah-h'm, 
 Shakespeare !" and the cabin-boys on steamboats played 
 " Richard III," fencing with broom-handles, showing the 
 public interest in the Shakespearean performances. 
 
 The compartment immediately in front of the stage, now- 
 a-days the most fashionable, was in those days called the 
 "pit," not by any means for the better class but for cheap ad- 
 mission, and the fourth tier was appropriated for the "niggers." 
 
 There was also an arrangement called the "cock loft," 
 which was included in the admission fee, where one could get 
 a drink of whisky and have a social chat with a certain class 
 of the fair sex. 
 
 To the recollection of the writer a certain class of the 
 women were admitted free to the "cock loft" to draw custom 
 for the bar and theater. By the way, "the people are not so 
 good as they used to be." These girls were very plain and 
 
unassuming to stiike up a chat with a poor man (piety clothed 
 m rags) if he was a clever "feller" to set it up at the bar 
 
 So, under this practicable arrangement in those good 
 olden times, whisky only twelve cents per gallon and tobacco 
 very cheap, a certain class of customers, old and young, would 
 take on a good load of corn tea, with a plug of dog-leg 
 tobacco in their hip pocket, for a little innocent pastime, would 
 fill up the "pit" to take in Richard III., Macbeth or Hamlet, 
 which seemed to draw the largest crowds. 
 
 Thus we have an old-fashioned crowd in the "pit" (now- 
 a-days the orchestra circle), where one nearest to the stage 
 stood a good chance to get a good dose of tobacco juice on 
 his back ; but all this could be endured, considering the fun. 
 
 The question may be asked, of what value were Shakes- 
 peare's long, flowery dialogues before such a crowd? But that 
 was neither here nor there. To see the character ranting and 
 pawing on the stage like a spirited young horse, well fed 
 on oats, led out of the stable on a frosty morning, filled the 
 bill ; and, in truth, sometimes between the acts there was the 
 most fun. 
 
 A boy would cry out, " A nigger in the pit ; a nigger in 
 the pit ; a nigger in the pit !" to start the whole pit in an 
 uproar. Some would whistle, some stamp and some would try 
 their best to see what a griting noise they could make, almost 
 to raise one up in his seat, which seemed to be enjoyed more 
 or less by the whole house. 
 
 The fumes of whisky and tobacco had an exhilarating in- 
 fluence, over the aristocracy in the rear, men would crack their 
 smiles and the women bite their handkerchiefs. 
 
 The writer having received a very early impression of 
 Shakespeare's plays, at least so far as the motion was concerned 
 by actors on the stage, aside from the total ignorance not to 
 understand one word of the long poetic dialogues. Like hun- 
 
dreds ot others, it came quite natural in after years to get a 
 copy of the plays which were merely read every now and then 
 with a brief glance at some of the plays, without reaching bot- 
 tom rock on any of them. 
 
 Careless reading did not give a clear understanding, with 
 the conHict of opinion pro and con of others only added to 
 confusion. 
 
 With all this difference of opinion the writer concluded 
 where there is so much smoke there must be some fire. So he 
 resolved some years ago to make use of the fragments of time, 
 to study the entire works, with care, without consulting any 
 commentors or critics, or the help of others, to see the result 
 of the conclusion by merely taking a common sense view. 
 
 Taking the words out of Shakespeare's own mouth, ''What 
 meat has he been fed on that makes him so great ?" 
 
 The question is one of shadow and light, from different 
 views. 
 
 From one standpoint Shakespeare's works contain the 
 greatest amount of wisdom with the greatest amount of non- 
 sense that ever has been published in one book. 
 
 From another standpoint his entire plays are all sense, be- 
 cause the cloth, the measure and the cut of the coat were made 
 to fit human nature. Wlien man was three hundred years 
 more vain and superstitious than now, in an age when Bruno 
 was burnt at the stake for holding that there were other worlds 
 than ours, and innocent women put to death for riding through 
 the air on a broomstick as being a witch. 
 
 Some commit the error to measure the world's intelligence 
 which does not exist, by their own bushel, to find fault with his 
 ghost stories, his fairy tales, his snarled up passages in puns, 
 his extravagant far-fetched ideas, his blood and thunder, his vul- 
 garity, his useless rhymes and verbosity, without giving the devil 
 his dues. 
 
 5 
 
Others have the generosity to call his plays a bushel ot 
 chaff, with a peck of wheat of sufficient value to redeem the 
 whole measure. First. The writer, after a careful study ^ has 
 come to the cojiclusion that Shakespeare has never been excelled by 
 others in his knowledge of human nature. Second. His equal has 
 7iot bee7i found up to date in his inexhaustable resources of ideas and 
 language. 
 
 His mistake was that he died at the age of fifty-two years ; 
 only half finished ; he ought to have been born in Germany and 
 lived thirty years longer, with the flexibility of the German 
 language and in the swim of the German philosophy we would 
 have had a complete Shakespeare. 
 
 After the writer had formed his own conclusion, without 
 
 the assistance of others, he consulted about thirty different 
 
 writers and a work of twenty-four volumes, which has not 
 
 changed his opinion in the least, obtained from a common sense 
 
 view. 
 
 TO UNDERSTAND SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 To understand him one must study the reason and spirit of 
 his writings. 
 
 In other words, if we take for example what K. John tells 
 Hubert, in conspiracy for the murder of young Arthur, that he, 
 Hubert, must hear without ears and see without eyes, to snuff 
 the scent without winking with a barn door. 
 
 The explanation is that he is a kind of an enigma, an ec- 
 centric genius, a man of a very limited education, who wrote free 
 from the heart, in a style strictly peculiar to himself, unshackeled 
 by any rules of construction, hit or miss. He further wrote 
 with a poet's license, to write obscure, which he often did for 
 reasons best known to himself. 
 
 While he was no plagiarist so far as language is concerned, 
 for in this regard lies the secret of his success, in an unlimited 
 variety in the use of words like an inexhaustable well. 
 
 6 
 
As it is intimated by some, that whenever he improved an 
 olci play, to avoid plagiarism he introduced rhymes. 
 
 His aim and purpose seems to have been to lift himself out 
 of the old rut of the common style of writing by moulding and 
 twisting the common expressions of idioms, maxims, axioms 
 and proverbs, into a new shape, to make his ideas appear new 
 and original. 
 
 The result has been to put his writings in a mixed shape of 
 very bad construction in snarled up puns, difficult to understand. 
 
 As mentioned by writers, his puns, innuendos, riddles and 
 otherwise false construction in grammar were pointed out to 
 him, but he absolutely refused to have them corrected. 
 
 The chances are he was right, his style of writing put the 
 salt between the Hues, anything very simple has no charm, but 
 shrouded with a mystery is more worthy of our attention. 
 
 The writer ventures to say, if some one was to translate into 
 common everyday language his writings would lose their charm. 
 Men would say, just see how simple! What a fool I have been 
 to torture my brain in the study of his plays, but when we must 
 scratch our head to unravel the meaning it makes a more last- 
 ing impression. There are some things in his plays plain 
 enough in language, but otherwise not correct. 
 
 To have young Arthur get his death by leaping down from 
 the prison wall, is not true, but for an effect on the stage, can 
 be overlooked, but the explanation will not hold good in some 
 other respects. When we turn to Act ii. Scene i play, K. John 
 Arthur speaks as though he was the offspring of Richard, which 
 IS not true, and Lewis in reply to Arthur, says, "A noble boy, 
 who would not do the right." When Lewis himself was a mere 
 boy, and further could a minor (Lewis) lead an army against 
 K John. 
 
 Shakespeare an enigma, has called forth critics and com- 
 mentors by the hundreds, some of which point out upwards of 
 
two hundred points of criticism m the play of K. John, so it the 
 proportion hold, in thirty-seven plays they must reach between 
 six and seven thousand, certainly a round number to say the 
 least, to be in one book. 
 
 It will be observed, however, some of these errors av* 
 scarcely skin deep, merely hair-splitting, the mere correction of 
 a colon, or a semicolon, as the saying goes, the hair-splitting 
 critics, the dotting of an I, or the crossing of a T, which cut no 
 ice, m the general sense of the subject matter of the text. 
 
 Which are only of any value to a very limited number, the 
 general public has neither time nor patience to give atten- 
 tion to such fine spun criticism. 
 
 In justice to Shakespeare, who died at fifty-two, only half 
 finished, had he known the value of writings and lived longer, 
 he would undoubtedly have made corrections. 
 
 A writer says, that the plays were considered of small value 
 after his death, and that four firms joined to run the risk to 
 pubfish his works seven years after his demise. 
 
 Which explains, that quite a percentage of errors were not 
 his fault, his writings were botched up and doctored up in the 
 hands of others. Any one who is familiar with his style of writ- 
 ing can readily see what is Shakespeare and what is not. 
 
 Some statements, which have appearance of an error, are 
 in a true sense no mistakes when we take into consideration 
 that a play like a novel, is not in some cases intended to be 
 true, but a plot and words used for best effects. 
 
 Even in historic plays, the skeleton may be true, while the 
 flesh and the blood are necessarily manufactured in the brain of 
 the writer, consequently for stage purposes the statements -may 
 be all right to produce the best effect, and otherwise wrong. 
 
 For instance the truth of the fact that young Arhur in K. 
 John, was to have his eyes burnt out, must be taken with a grain 
 of salt, and that Arthur got his death by leaping from the prison 
 
wall is not true, but the portrayal of these facts has a great 
 effect. 
 
 Again when Falstaff was thrown into the water, he says you 
 may know by my size that I would sink down if the bottom were 
 as deep as hell, while in truth, the more fat and the larger the 
 bulk, the less a man will sink, which in common parlance is all 
 right as the people understand it. 
 
 Shakespeare was a man of very extensive information, but 
 in some cases he was misled by confiding in books, in all cases 
 however, where he gained his knowledge by his own personal 
 observation he seldom made a mistake. 
 
 Strange while he lifted himself out of the old beaten track of 
 literature, he slipped into a rut of his own from which he never 
 deviates in the least, to put the same flowery, poetic style in the 
 mouth of a common, uneducated man as that of a king, old or 
 young. 
 
 He puts the same words in the mouth of K. John on his 
 death bed, and the poetic style of beautiful construction in the 
 mouth of Prince Henry, a boy only ten years old, as though he 
 be a learned professor. 
 
 A dying man uses no flourishes in his last words, neither 
 does a boy at the death bed of his father. 
 
 WHO READS SHAKESPEARE? 
 
 Most of the better class of families have his work on the 
 center table, by the side of the Bible, where the young girls read 
 certain parts on the sly, to be thankful that they have learned 
 something to know their innocence. 
 
 In small towns they have social Shakespeare readings, gen- 
 erally some reverend does the reading, careful, however, to skip 
 certain passages with a kind of a dry cough. 
 
 As a rule, the professors of institutions of learning, the edu- 
 cated protestant clergy, and especially the Catholic priests, read 
 Shakespeare most. 
 
So far as the legal profession is concerned (according to the 
 personal observation of the writer) by no mean stuck on him, 
 as a matter of course some are, enthusiastic mostly in small 
 towns (where lawyers have most leisure time), but on the whole 
 however, his stock does not stand above par. 
 
 The lawyers as a class, are out-spoken, not afraid to ex- 
 press the opinion of the Shakespearan Bible. 
 
 The writer, when a law student, was told by an old lawyer, 
 ''Don't waste your time on Shakespeare, although he makes 
 some good hits, but when one must rake amongst a pile of rub- 
 bish for a few sparkling gems, the gravy costs too much for the 
 substance. Put in your time on Blackstone." 
 
 On another occasion a lawyer expressed his private opinion 
 without any reservation. 
 
 What I don't like about Shakespeare he wants to show off 
 too smart, with some of his extravagant, far-fetched ideas. 
 
 It must be admitted that Shakespeare is a master in the use 
 of words, and that an advocate at the bar can find no richer ma- 
 terial in the English language to get a good idea in the use of 
 words, to send his arguments home with a force, before a jury. 
 
 EXAGGERATION OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 His work can afford to stand upon its own merits. Its con- 
 stant renewal of the advertisement upon the stage has contrib- 
 uted greatly to make his name so extensively known to excite an 
 interest to read his plays, while his poems, without the same ad- 
 vertisement, are comparatively unknown and neglected. 
 
 It is the same with the Bible and Shakespeare their con- 
 stant renewal to refresh their names, but take one from the pul- 
 pit and the other off the stage, and their pages will become 
 moldy and dusty. 
 
 In giving a writer a great name there is something strange 
 in human nature, as a rule we read a book for something new, 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
yet we are the most forcibly impressed with an author, who does 
 not surpass our own wisdom to applaud him sky high for know- 
 ing what we know ourselves in the wisdom of our own conceit, 
 which has given Shakespeare his great name, the credit to know 
 what others know. 
 
 It was the German poet Goethe, one of the first to give 
 Shakespeare a good send off, evidently by measuring the wisdom 
 in his own bushel. 
 
 The saying that the Germans understood Shakespeare best, 
 is not exactly in the best shape they simply understood best what 
 they knew themselves and give him credit for knowing it like- 
 wise. They admire his genius and overlook the chaff for the 
 solid grains — and have adopted his plays, of which JuHus Caesar 
 is thought in some of the schools, no doubt to uphold monarchy, 
 and often play the Taming of the Shrew, beyond a question to 
 keep woman to her place under the marriage yoke. 
 
 The question in some cases is nothing more nor less than of 
 an enthusiastic mania. 
 
 The writer in attending a lecture of a German skeptic, who 
 told the audience to read Shakespeare in place of the Bible. 
 
 On another occasion a clergyman made the remark, you 
 can find anything you want to know in Shakespeare, he strikes 
 the nail right on the head. 
 
 All true enough, we must bear in mind it is an old rusty nail 
 that has often been struck before, the difference, however, he 
 drives it home with a clinch, to stand the weather-beating of 
 time. 
 
 If we picture an old man before our eyes of general infor- 
 mation with a checkered life reading the plays, we will see him 
 nodding his head, every now and then, remarking, ''You are 
 right, just exactly so, how well you hit the truth." 
 
 But in hiting the truth the old man in his approval, is simply 
 measuring to good hits in his own bushel. What he knows him- 
 L»fC. ^^ 
 
a 
 
 self to be true. As the saying — there is nothing new under the 
 sun — there are thousands of men who know all the wisdom in 
 Shakespeare, without knowing that they do know it. 
 
 But the rub comes in to put on paper what they know, 
 they fall short to be his equal, to present old truths in the same 
 masterly, skillful manner. To use an old proverb, may sound flat 
 like a tale twice told, in which he excells to mold and shape an 
 old truth, to a new form, to strike us with a greater force. 
 
 Let us take a few examples. 
 
 We say opportunity makes thief. "How oft the sight of 
 means to do ill deed makes ill deeds done." 
 
 The saying, with success, all actions are over looked, "Noth- 
 ing is deemed foul for those that win." 
 
 The common remark — Man is blind to see his own faults. 
 "The eye seeth not backwards." 
 
 Again there is nothing so deep and bitter as a woman's jeal- 
 ousy. "The venom clamours of a jealous woman, poison more 
 deadly than a mad dog's tooth." 
 
 A lie may be a virtue. He presents this in most forcible 
 manner upward of 200 words, "Bear a fair presence, though your 
 heart be tainted." 
 
 To carry out this principle a sensualist, and by concealing 
 his own corruption, to preach virtue to his children, may raise 
 a good moral family. 
 
 Thus we have only an example to show his stronghold, to 
 garnish up old proverbs on a new dish, which might be greatly 
 multiplied. 
 
 While he has shown no originality, to get up new plots or 
 plays he has excelled others to pick up an old play out of the 
 scrap basket, to be a success in his hands, where others have 
 failed, by a most remarkable gift of original ideas in the use of 
 language, and aside from this his keen insight of human nature. 
 
 12 
 
Beinsf a keen observer, associated as in contact with the 
 lowest London loafers in bar rooms, and as an actor on the stage 
 on the one hand, and with the highest royalty, even Queen Eliza- 
 beth on the other, gave him a very rich field to gather his ma- 
 terial for the stage. 
 
 As our own personal experience is our best teacher, he in 
 contact with the lowest and the highest grade of society gave 
 him every opportunity to observe the robbery, stealing, swind- 
 ling and from his own personal experience the chances are, had 
 his pockets picked by some of the London sharpers, to put his 
 estimation of man's honesty and fair dealing far below par. 
 "Ha, ha, what a fool honesty is, and trust his sworn brother." 
 
 "Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by 
 chance." 
 
 THE CHAFF IX SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 This point has in a small measure already been touched up. 
 
 Some of the critics hold that aside from his ghost stories 
 and fairy tales, not intended to be natural, otherwise some of his 
 plays are held to be very unnatural. 
 
 His long-winded dialogues, although good reading for 
 "Literary cultah," are entirely out of date for the modern stage, 
 and his verbosity in rhymes, called poetry, no longer pass for 
 par. 
 
 turther note is made on his bluntness on immorality, to 
 speak so plain and imdisguised on man's chastity and virtue, ex- 
 pressions which no modern publishing house would put in print. 
 
 Now the matter in a nutshell, is from what standpoint we 
 take the matter in. 
 
 In his day theaters were condemned by the religious people 
 and are condemned at this present day by a very large per cent 
 of the religious community as being immoral. 
 
 13 
 
An act is a play, and a play is to amuse a certain class, be 
 it sense or nonsense, moral, or what some call immoral, the 
 question simply, do the theatergoers take stock in the play. 
 
 He wrote to suit and fit the times of his day. When mor- 
 ality was a much thinner coat of white wash than now. As a 
 fact, that which may be a virtue in one age may be' a vice in 
 another. 
 
 His writings present to us a sociological question, a key to 
 learn the exact intelligent and moral conditions of society in his 
 day. 
 
 He had a level head to waste no printer's ink to write sense 
 when there was no demand for it, no use to conceal man's inner 
 thoughts on chastity when he prefers to have them laid bare 
 undisguised. 
 
 He had a level head to deal in goods to bring the ready cash 
 in hand, and he was well posted to know if one wants to shear 
 wool he must understand how to coax the lambs in the fold. So 
 he gave his customers the unnatural ghost, because there is 
 nothing so natural than for man to be a fool to believe in the 
 unnatural. 
 
 The meaning of Ghost comes from the German's Geist, a 
 spirit, which the Germans use in a double sense, one for man 
 and another for the beer barrel, which is, when the stopper is 
 taken out of the bung hole, the Banquo will slip out to kill the 
 beer, and when man dies it is said he gives up the Ghost. 
 
 Mr. Banquo is a very tough old customer, and there is not 
 the slightest chance that he will hand in his check and give us 
 the cold shoulder yet for many years to come. 
 
 Hence the explanation of the sociological question, to deal 
 in Ghosts and stock to command a premium, with a smack of 
 King Lear, and the Bastard K John on adultery, and some- 
 thmg very interesting in all's well that ends well, a side blink in 
 Romeo and Juliet. The expression of Prince Henry, Henry the 
 
 14 
 
 1 
 
IV. and the chief cap of the remarks of Falstafif Merry Wives 
 of Windsor, written expressly for the Queen of the Nation 
 EHzabeth. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE WAS A SENSUALIST. 
 
 Of late years critics, without any reservation, have come out 
 flat footed to call him a sensualist, and some point out with con- 
 siderable satisfaction, that he was guilty of poaching in his 
 younger days, in company with others. 
 
 Now so far, as for one, in taking game, from another's 
 premises is concerned, is a matter of every day occurence in our 
 country, which scarcely has the name of being a tresspass, and 
 it certainlv stands to reason that in England, where a lord has a 
 thousand acres for a pleasure park, and a poor man not one 
 foot to raise bread for his children, a poor man's conscience is 
 not worth a button who would hesitate to leap over the fence. 
 
 The critics who live in glass houses ought to be careful how 
 they throw stones, to call him a sensualist, when they have no 
 other evidence than his writings. 
 
 Had he written like a saint, he would have bankrupted his 
 stage, and what he did write was sanctioned by public opinion 
 and even by the Queen herself, to give him a full house. 
 
 It would have been just as cheap to conceal his own natural 
 inclination in his own heart, to practice his pranks in the dark 
 and preached holiness, and virtue to others had there been a de- 
 mand for it. It would be w^ell enough for his critics to bear in 
 mind that m nature there is no sin, that in animal creation that 
 the hrst germ of a being of life was the result of a natural force 
 (call it sensualism if you please), to remain as an irresistible 
 force in the system during the life of the being, for propagation 
 of life. 
 
 As Shakespeare says, virtue must be lost before a virgin can 
 be born. 
 
 15 
 
Shakespeare in writing up human nature could not consist- 
 ently call Cleopatra a virgin, ignore the fact that Queen Elinor 
 called her grandson a bastard, and that Lady Faulcanbridge 
 leaped over the moral fence with King Richard. As the saying 
 goes, the people are not as good as they used to be. 
 
 In the reign of Richard II. in a quarrel between two royal 
 cousins one accused the other ''that the people believed him to 
 be the son of a priest, and not of the black prince." 
 
 In view of this uncertainty as to who was a true father, to 
 keep up the pure stock, there was a law made in reign Henry 
 VIII. to be treason in a woman who had lost her virtue to marry 
 a king by concealing it, and as a matter of course the women 
 kept silent about these little trifles, so the law was repealed. 
 
 Thus if we consider the atmosphere we can well afford to go 
 one eye blind on Shakespeare's bluntness, in some cases, and it 
 is only a wonder that he has shown so much modesty to fail, to 
 show these matters up far more extensively. 
 
 To give the devil his dues, in his plays, he portrays quite a 
 number of women of a high standard of virtue who resisted 
 every temptation, as unapproachable, as the rainbow. 
 
 He has given the world the highest standard of virtue, to 
 kiss with cast iron lips and an icy breath, an ice cold chastity, to 
 be the envy of a priest. 
 
 The fact that modern society has made some progress in 
 concealment with hypocrisy to enjoy its spice of life in the dark, 
 has not curbed the natural inclination in the least. 
 
 In criticism it is often the case, that it is merely the pot call- 
 ing the kettle black — "the eye seeth not backwards," but it can 
 get a reflection backwards in the glass which however, remains 
 silent, it has no tongue, as a blessing for its own self preserva- 
 tion to run the risk being mashed into a thousand fragments. 
 There is no proof that he was a libertine^ aside from the thoughts 
 in his head, judging by his writings, which if it be a sin, the sen- 
 
 16 
 
sual thought in ones head, the door of heaven would stand idle 
 and its hinges become rusty, for there would be but few ad- 
 missions. 
 
 THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 
 
 He had a good knowledge of the human system and his 
 opinion of the absurdity to cure human ills with medicine ("Art 
 can not overcome nature") is m accord with Napoleon, Thomas 
 Jefferson and Dr. Franklin. 
 
 He speaks inirony to cure with a horse drench, a medicine 
 that will breath life in a stone. Throw physic to the dogs. 
 
 The remark of Falstaff, "I would I might never spit white 
 again, ^ has been a puzzle to many to know the meaning, which 
 shows what a most remarkable keen observer Shakespeare must 
 have been to note that a white frothy spittle a sign of good 
 health. To give him his dues, there is one thing worthy our 
 most useful study, the general accepted fact that Harvey was 
 the first to have made the discovery of the circulation of the 
 blood. 
 
 The writer has made this his careful study, and has found 
 three coupling links in the chain that Shakespeare was the first 
 to have made discovery for all practicable purposes. 
 
 First — Brutus tells his wife that she is as dear to him, "as 
 the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart," plain to see if the blood 
 visits his heart, it must be in circulation. Julius Caesar, Act ii, 
 Scene IV. 
 
 Second — Falstaff in one of his prankish harangues too long 
 for quotation, tells in sum and substance how good liquor 
 sherns-sack puts life in a man. "Makes it course from the in- 
 wards to the parts extreme," which shows the blood in circula- 
 tion from inmost parts to the end of the outer extremities of the 
 limbs— Henry IV., Act IV., Scene IV. 
 
 17 
 
Third — K. John in his conspiracy for the murder of young 
 Arthur, tells Hubert if from wrongs his system were in a melan- 
 cholic condition ''had baked blood and made it heavy-thick, 
 which else runs ticking up and down the veins" he (K John) had 
 something to tell Hubert if he had heavy-thick blood, to be in a 
 fit condition to take a hint about something important, K. John 
 Act HI., Scene HI. 
 
 Shakespeare's idea, that a man's actions are dependent upon 
 a happy or depressed condition that when there is a free circu- 
 lation one feels good and cheerful, but when the mind is under 
 a strain to commit a crime the circulation of the blood becomes 
 heavy, slow and sluggish, in which he is undoubtedly right. 
 
 It is difficult to see where Liebig-Draper and others who 
 follow in the track of Harvey have given any better explanation 
 than that of Shakespeare. 
 
 A FINAL RESUME OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The criticism ot the chaff in the bushel has been suffi- 
 ciently answered. 
 
 The writer will simply repeat that the unnatural plays were 
 perfectly natural for the purposes they were intended to fit the 
 time. Nature of man, like a fist on an eye, to be agreeable to his 
 vanity, his whims, his monkey nature and his superstitious ideas, 
 to suit the mental sickness at the time the plays were written. 
 
 He does not say he wrote for tools, but he does say "What 
 fools these mortals be," and "That we are come to this great 
 stage of fools." 
 
 Mark he uses the word "we" by counting his own nose, does 
 not seem to put the highest confidence in man's intelligence, as a 
 matter of course his idea of the stage, nothing more nor less 
 than a mere puppet show, as the German proverb goes, "The 
 world is a mad house." 
 
 18 
 
it was held by the ancient philosophers that man was in- 
 capable to perceive the absolute truth, which is upheld by the 
 modern thinkers who call themselves ''know nothings." 
 
 Man is a very strange animal. Pope says, Man is in doubt 
 to judge himself a God or a beast. Schiller makes man half 
 angel and half beast, and Shakespeare calls man a centaur — the 
 upper part human and the lower part (below the girdle), a beast, 
 which seems to be the most correct, to locate the sense in the 
 upper and the beast in the lower part. 
 
 Since his time man has made some progress in thought, yet 
 he has not yet learned to know when he is right or wrong, what 
 one upholds to be right another holds to be wrong, two of op- 
 posite opinions each is willing to sign his death warrant that 
 he alone is right. 
 
 In truth the only true criticism, as a standard of reason are 
 the laws of mechanics, which will accept no blarney on the 
 ditterence of opinion on Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 In building the stage every nail, every. stone, every brick 
 and every beam, must have its proper strength and be put in the 
 proper place, else down comes to the whole business to decide 
 the question, but when it comes to acting on the stage there is 
 no standard of authority to be simply — difference of opinion. 
 
 It has been predicted that parts of Shakespeare will remain 
 for ages and parts will be expunged, as man advances in 
 thought. 
 
 His plays will remain the same so long as man remains the 
 same, who is as stubborn to change his myths for reason as a 
 four span of army mules. 
 
 He had taken his modest expressions and introduced the 
 ghost Banqua upon the stage, from a license of the Bible, and his 
 chaff in the bushel will meet with no objection in future genera- 
 tions, for it is good feed with a little salt. 
 
 19 
 
It will be a long rainy day before his majesty, said to have 
 a barbed tail, a cloven foot and horns, will resign his office as 
 the superintendent of the department of brimstone, fire and hell. 
 
 WAS SHAKESPEARE A SKEPTIC. 
 
 Some who made his marks a careful study, judging from 
 the words of his mouth, hold that he was an unbeliever. 
 
 He thunders down on priest with a vengeanance accusing 
 them of foul conspiracies and murder. He shows a great con- 
 tempt for those of pious pretensions, ''in religion what damned 
 error but some sober brow will bless it." He speaks of heaven 
 with a doubt, "to meet our friends in heaven if that be true." He 
 seems to doubt a hereafter, ''The undiscovered country from 
 whose bourn no traveller returns." He calls the deity a "dull 
 God." He makes sport of religion, men go to a place of worship 
 to pray against their enemies, and Falstafif claims to have been 
 corrupted by going to church, and upon his death bed he puts 
 the name of the Lord in the mouth of this foul lump to cry out, 
 God, God, God. But by Shakespeare's will his heart seems to 
 have undergone a change to believe, he assigns his soul to God 
 and gives Jesus Christ credit for being his savior. 
 
 Now this looks rather thin, during his life time he shuffled 
 his cards with the devil as his right handed bower for trump, and 
 when matters come to the final pinch he goes back on the old 
 man without giving the devil his dues, a clever trick to say the 
 least. 
 
 20 
 
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