him"; and
Johnson declared that "the stream of time, which is continually washing
the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the
adamant of Shakespeare." But Pope and Johnson had ventured to point out,
in the honesty of their criticism, that Shakespeare was not free from
faults; and it was this which the nineteenth century chose to remark.
Johnson's Preface in particular was remembered only to be despised. It is
not rash to say that at the present time the majority of those who chance
to speak of it pronounce it a discreditable performance.

This false attitude to the eighteenth century had its nemesis in the
belief that we were awakened by foreigners to the greatness of
Shakespeare. Even one so eminently sane as Hazlitt lent support to this
opinion. "We will confess," says the Preface to the _Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays_, "that some little jealousy of the character of the
national understanding was not without its share in producing the
following undertaking, for we were piqued that it should be reserved for a
foreign critic to give reasons for the faith which we English have in
Shakespeare"; and the whole Preface resolves itself, however reluctantly,
into praise of Schlegel and censure of Johnson. When a thorough Englishman
writes thus, it is not surprising that Germany should have claimed to be
the first to give Shakespeare his true place. The heresy has been exposed;
but even the slightest investigation of eighteenth-century opinion, or the
mere recollection of what Dryden had said, should have prevented its rise.
Though Hazlitt took upon himself the defence of the national intelligence,
he incorporated in his Preface a long passage from Schlegel, because, in
his opinion, no English critic had shown like enthusiasm or philosophical
acuteness. We cannot regret the delusion if we owe to it the _Characters
of Shakespeare's Plays_, but his patriotic task would have been easier,
and might even have appeared unnecessary, had he known that many of
Schlegel's acute and enthusiastic observations had been anticipated at
home.

Even those who are willing to give the eighteenth century its due have not
recognised how it appreciated Shakespeare. At no time in this century was
he not popular. The author of _Esmond_ tells us that Shakespeare was quite
out of fashion until Steele brought him back into the mode.(1) Theatrical
records would alone be sufficient to show that the ascription of this
honour to