HAMLET: ROMEO--JAQUES

"As I passed by ... I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE
UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto
you." This work of Paul--the discovery and proclaiming of an unknown
god--is in every age the main function of the critic.

An unknown god this Shakespeare of ours, whom all are agreed it would be
well to know, if in any way possible. As to the possibility, however,
the authorities are at loggerheads. Hallam, "the judicious," declared
that it was impossible to learn anything certain about "the man,
Shakespeare." Wordsworth, on the other hand (without a nickname to show
a close connection with the common), held that Shakespeare unlocked his
heart with the sonnets for key. Browning jeered at this belief, to be in
turn contradicted by Swinburne. Matthew Arnold gave us in a sonnet "the
best opinion of his time":

"Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge."

But alas! the best opinion of one generation is in these matters often
flat unreason to the next, and it may be that in this instance neither
the opinion of Hallam nor Browning nor Arnold will be allowed to count.

As it is the object of a general to win battles so it is the life-work
of the artist to show himself to us, and the completeness with which he
reveals his own individuality is perhaps the best measure of his genius.
One does this like Montaigne, simply, garrulously, telling us his height
and make, his tastes and distastes, his loves and fears and habits, till