as not, she thought The Spanish Tragedy worth six Hamlets. He was not
stupid either: if his class limitations and a profession that cut him
off from actual participation in great affairs of State had not
confined his opportunities of intellectual and political training to
private conversation and to the Mermaid Tavern, he would probably have
become one of the ablest men of his time instead of being merely its
ablest playwright. One might surmise that Shakespear found out that
the Dark Lady's brains could no more keep pace with his than Anne
Hathaway's, if there were any evidence that their friendship ceased
when he stopped writing sonnets to her. As a matter of fact the
consolidation of a passion into an enduring intimacy generally puts an
end to sonnets.

That the Dark Lady broke Shakespear's heart, as Mr Harris will have it
she did, is an extremely unShakespearian hypothesis. "Men have died
from time to time, and worms have eaten them; but not for love," says
Rosalind. Richard of Gloster, into whom Shakespear put all his own
impish superiority to vulgar sentiment, exclaims

And this word "love," which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me: I am myself alone.

Hamlet has not a tear for Ophelia: her death moves him to fierce
disgust for the sentimentality of Laertes by her grave; and when he
discusses the scene with Horatio immediately after, he utterly forgets
her, though he is sorry he forgot himself, and jumps at the proposal
of a fencing match to finish the day with. As against this view Mr
Harris pleads Romeo, Orsino, and even Antonio; and he does it so
penetratingly that he convinces you that Shakespear did betray himself