seventeenth
century? Quote from great writers on Shakespeare: Coleridge, Goethe,
Swinburne, etc.

4. _The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy_--Origin: story of Delia Bacon's
life. Is there a cipher in Shakespeare? Quotation of learned opinion on
both sides.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Emerson: Essays. E. Dowden: Essays, Modern and
Elizabethan. Arthur Gilman: Shakespeare's Morals. Ignatius Donnelly: The
Great Cryptogram. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes: Bacon-Shakespeare
Question Answered.

Have a talk on Shakespeare the historian. Is he trustworthy? Does he
give an accurate account of events or only reproduce general color? Have
a discussion on the character of Hamlet. Was he really mad? Did
Shakespeare intend so to represent him, or to leave the matter in doubt?
For those interested in such things, the subject of the early editions
of Shakespeare, and their relation to one another, is one of great
fascination. A description of the immensely costly collection recently
presented to the Elizabethan Club at Yale might be given.

X--FAMOUS PRESENTATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

1. _English_--Garrick, Charles Kean, Siddons, Charles Kemble, Lady
Faucit, Irving, Terry, Tree, Benson. Descriptions and anecdotes from
Boswell's Johnson, Charles Lamb's Essays, Fanny Burney's Diary, and
Ellen Terry's life.

2. _American_--Forrest, the elder and younger Booth, Barrett, Ada Rehan,
Mansfield, Sothern, and Marlowe.

3. _The Theater at Stratford-on-Avon_--Description of it with views.
Story of some of the famous presentations given there. Differences
between these and those of Shakespeare's own time.

4. _Discussion of the Question of Stage Settings_--Was that of
Shakespeare's time better, with no scenery, and all the effect lying in
the meaning of the lines; or is the method of to-day preferable with its
elaborate, costly, and spectacular scenery and stage effects? Describe
the change in stage ideas due to the invention of the electric light.

5. _Description of Plays Seen_--Brief statements by the club members of
the Shakespearean representations they have witnessed, with an analysis
of their impressions of plays and of actors.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Sidney Lee: Shakespeare and the Modern Stage. Percy
Fitzgerald: Shakespearean Representation: Its Laws and Limits. Percy
Fitzgerald: Romance of the English Stage. C. E. L. Wingate:
Shakespeare's Heroes on the Stage. Also, Heroines.

Prepare in advance of this meeting a screen with old play-bills