sycophantic if Mr W. H. was really attractive and promising, and
Shakespear deeply attached to him. A sycophant does not tell his
patron that his fame will survive, not in the renown of his own
actions, but in the sonnets of his sycophant. A sycophant, when his
patron cuts him out in a love affair, does not tell his patron exactly
what he thinks of him. Above all, a sycophant does not write to his
patron precisely as he feels on all occasions; and this rare kind of
sincerity is all over the sonnets. Shakespear, we are told, was "a
very civil gentleman." This must mean that his desire to please
people and be liked by them, and his reluctance to hurt their
feelings, led him into amiable flattery even when his feelings were
not strongly stirred. If this be taken into account along with the
fact that Shakespear conceived and expressed all his emotions with a
vehemence that sometimes carried him into ludicrous extravagance,
making Richard offer his kingdom for a horse and Othello declare of
Cassio that

Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all,

we shall see more civility and hyperbole than sycophancy even in the
earlier and more coldblooded sonnets.



Shakespear and Democracy

Now take the general case pled against Shakespear as an enemy of
democracy by Tolstoy, the late Ernest Crosbie and others, and endorsed
by Mr Harris. Will it really stand fire? Mr Harris emphasizes the