lives of comedians, and closing them, you will see what good reason an
actor has for exclaiming with the old-world poet:

'Odi profanum vulgus!'

We now turn to the testimony of actors themselves.

Shakespeare is, of course, my first witness. There is surely
significance in this. 'Others abide our question,' begins Arnold's
fine sonnet on Shakespeare--'others abide our question; thou art
free.' The little we know about our greatest poet has become a
commonplace. It is a striking tribute to the endless loquacity of man,
and a proof how that great creature is not to be deprived of his talk,
that he has managed to write quite as much about there being nothing
to write about as he could have written about Shakespeare, if the
author of _Hamlet_ had been as great an egoist as Rousseau. The
fact, however, remains that he who has told us most about ourselves,
whose genius has made the whole civilized world kin, has told us
nothing about himself, except that he hated and despised the stage. To
say that he has told us this is not, I think, any exaggeration. I
have, of course, in mind the often quoted lines to be found in that
sweet treasury of melodious verse and deep feeling, the 'Sonnets of
Shakespeare.' The 110th begins thus:

'Alas! 'tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gor'd my own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.'

And the 111th: