g his material, useful as
that is in its place. The reader who has mastered Hudson's
introductions and has read Dowden's "Shakspere: His Mind and Art" or
Brandes's "Critical Study" will have all that he will ordinarily need in
the way of guidance. But remember that reading about Shakespeare is not
reading Shakespeare; _that_ means, for the time at least, self-surrender
to Shakespeare's leading. Shakespeare is perhaps the supreme example of
a man who found the world interesting. He may not be sympathetic with
evil, but he finds it so interesting that he makes us, for the time
being, take a fratricidal usurper like Hamlet's uncle, or a gross,
sponging braggart like Falstaff, at his own estimate. Shakespeare is
never shocked at anything that happens in the world; he knows the world
too well for that. He offends the Puritan in us by his indifference; he
is therefore probably the best kind of reading for Puritans. Shakespeare
is romantic in his literary methods, but in his portrayal of character
he is an unsurpassed realist. If life were all thought and achievement,
Shakespeare would be the last word in literature; but there is another
side, the side which the Puritan represents, with which Shakespeare is
but imperfectly sympathetic. His message accordingly needs to be
supplemented; and it is interesting that his great successor, the man
who still stands next to him in our literature, supplies that missing
strain. If we could take but one book with us into banishment, it would
be Shakespeare--thus proving Shakespeare's supremacy by Miss Peggy
Heath's principle of elimination; but if we could take two, that second,
I am frank to confess, would for me be Milton.

It is Milton's literary glory that he appeared in the second generation
following Spenser and Shakespeare--he was born in Shakespeare's
lifetime--and carried off the palm, which he still keeps, for the
greatest English poem. In spiritual kinship he is much nearer to Spenser
than to Shakespeare. Shakespeare hides behind his pages; his
personality makes no clear or at least ready impression upon us; but the
colossal personality of Milton towers above all his works. He is Milton,
the superman, and communion with him for the moment lifts us to
something like his own level. In this personal inspiration lies Milton's
greatest service to his readers. Over and above the poetic delights, of
which he is a master unsurpassed, is the inspiration that comes from the
man behind the