stage which
sanctioned the perversions of the eighteenth century are happily
well-nigh extinct.

In music and art.

Music and art in England owe much to Shakespeare's influence. From
Thomas Morley, Purcell, Matthew Locke, and Arne to William Linley, Sir
Henry Bishop, and Sir Arthur Sullivan, every distinguished musician has
sought to improve on his predecessor's setting of one or more of
Shakespeare's songs, or has composed concerted music in illustration of
some of his dramatic themes. {341} In art, the publisher John Boydell
organised in 1787 a scheme for illustrating scenes in Shakespeare's work
by the greatest living English artists. Some fine pictures were the
result. A hundred and sixty-eight were painted in all, and the artists,
whom Boydell employed, included Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney,
Thomas Stothard, John Opie, Benjamin West, James Barry, and Henry Fuseli.
All the pictures were exhibited from time to time between 1789 and 1804
at a gallery specially built for the purpose in Pall Mall, and in 1802
Boydell published a collection of engravings of the chief pictures. The
great series of paintings was dispersed by auction in 1805. Few eminent
artists of later date, from Daniel Maclise to Sir John Millais, have
lacked the ambition to interpret some scene or character of Shakespearean
drama.

In America.

In America no less enthusiasm for Shakespeare has been manifested than in
England. Editors and critics are hardly less numerous there, and some
criticism from American pens, like that of James Russell Lowell, has
reached the highest literary level. Nowhere, perhaps, has more labour
been devoted to the study of his works than that given by Mr. H. H.
Furness of Philadelphia to the preparation of his 'New Variorum' edition.
The Barton collection of Shakespeareana in the Boston Public Library is
one of the most valuable extant, and the elaborate catalogue (1878-80)
contains some 2,500 entries. First of Shakespeare's plays to be
represented in America, 'Richard III' was performed in New York in March
1750. More recently Edwin Forrest, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Booth,
Charlotte Cushman, and Miss Ada Rehan have maintained on the American
stage the great traditions of Shakespearean acting; while Mr. E. A. Abbey
has devoted high artistic gifts to pictorial representation of scenes
from the plays.

Translations. In Germany. German translations.

The Bible, alone of literary com