hat Shakespeare was to his own time. And it is,
indeed, a noble destiny for the theatre to vindicate in these later
days the greatness which sometimes it has seemed to vulgarize. It has
been too much the custom to talk of Shakespeare as nature's child--as
the lad who held horses for people who came to the play--as a sort of
chance phenomenon who wrote these plays by accident and unrecognized.
How supremely ridiculous! How utterly irreconcilable with the grand
dimensions of the man! How absurdly dishonoring to the great age of
which he was, and was known to be, the glory! The noblest literary
man of all time--the finest and yet most prolific writer--the greatest
student of man, and the greatest master of man's highest gift of
language--surely it is treason to humanity to speak of such an one as
in any sense a commonplace being! Imagine him rather, as he must
have been, the most notable courtier of the Court--the most perfect
gentleman who stood in the Elizabethan throng--the man in whose
presence divines would falter and hesitate lest their knowledge of
the Book should seem poor by the side of his, and at whom even queenly
royalty would look askance, with an oppressive sense that here was
one to whose omnipotent and true imagination the hearts of kings and
queens and peoples had always been an open page! The thought of such a
man is an incomparable inheritance for any nation, and such a man was
the actor--Shakespeare. Such is our birthright and yours. Such the
succession in which it is ours to labor and yours to enjoy. For
Shakespeare belongs to the stage for ever, and his glories must
always inalienably belong to it. If you uphold the theatre honestly,
liberally, frankly, and with wise discrimination, the stage will
uphold in future, as it has in the past, the literature, the manners,
the morals, the fame, and the genius of our country. There must have
been something wrong, as there was something poignant and lacerating,
in prejudices which so long partly divorced the conscience of Britain
from its noblest pride, and stamped with reproach, or at least
depreciation, some of the brightest and world-famous incidents of her
history. For myself, it kindles my heart with proud delight to
think that I have stood to-day before this audience--known for its
discrimination throughout all English-speaking lands--a welcome and
honored guest, because I stand here for justice to the art to which I
am devoted--because I stand here in th