l
system; but his implied remedy was personal sobriety and freedom from
idolatrous illusion in so far as he had any remedy at all, and did not
merely despair of human nature. His first and last word on parliament
was "Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see
the thing thou dost not." He had no notion of the feeling with which
the land nationalizers of today regard the fact that he was a party to
the enclosure of common lands at Wellcome. The explanation is, not a
general deficiency in his mind, but the simple fact that in his day
what English land needed was individual appropriation and cultivation,
and what the English Constitution needed was the incorporation of Whig
principles of individual liberty.

Shakespear and the British Public

I have rejected Mr Harris's view that Shakespear died broken-hearted
of "the pangs of love despised." I have given my reasons for
believing that Shakespear died game, and indeed in a state of levity
which would have been considered unbecoming in a bishop. But Mr
Harris's evidence does prove that Shakespear had a grievance and a
very serious one. He might have been jilted by ten dark ladies and
been none the worse for it; but his treatment by the British Public
was another matter. The idolatry which exasperated Ben Jonson was by
no means a popular movement; and, like all such idolatries, it was
excited by the magic of Shakespear's art rather than by his views.

He was launched on his career as a successful playwright by the Henry
VI trilogy, a work of no originality, depth, or subtlety except the
originality, depth, and subtlety of the feelings and fancies of the
common people. But Shakespear was not satisfied with this. What is
the use of being Shakespear if you are not allowed to express any
notions but those of Autolycus? Shakespear did not see the world as
Autolycus did: he saw it, if not exactly as Ibsen did (for it was not
quite the same world), at least with much of Ibsen's power of
penetrating its illusions and idolatries, and with all Swift's horror
of its cruelty and uncleanliness.

Now it happens to some men with these powers that they are forced to
impose their fullest exercise on the world because they cannot produce
popular work. Take Wagner and Ibsen for instance! Their earlier
works are no doubt much cheaper than their later ones; still, they
were not popular when they were written. The alternative of doing
popular work was