which will have nothing that is not adulterated-wine stronger than can be made of grape, beer than can be brewed of malt-they are prepared to supply the precise article. Among these, Mr. Fleay, as already indicated, is perhaps the chief offender. I have already referred to some of his ridiculous and reckless surmises. He is the champion guesser, or founder of facts on visionary bases. He knows who guided Shakespeare's hand while he wrote certain of his plays-who dotted his i's and crossed his t's. He will tell you, as a fact—i.e., a foundationless fact-where Pembroke's Company was playing on a given day, when he is assisted by the plots of plays published by the industrious Malone in 1790, and in Reed's edition of 1803. Some of his combinations of facts and figures are ingenious, the majority of them indicate a minute and not wholly ill-directed industry; but the conclusions he purports to derive from them, the suggestions and combinations of inferences and surmises to which they give rise, and which are alleged positively as facts, are wholly false and misleading, and hardly less mischievous in character than Mr. Collier's forgeries. Thus he tells you that Kyd wrote "The Taming of a Shrew" in 1589, and that Lodge rewrote it in 1596. This he asserts as positively as if he were present when it was so conceived and amended. In fact, neither Kyd nor Lodge had even the smallest hand in it. The story is pure fiction from beginning to end. Mr. Fleay knew that Dr. Farmer suggested that Kyd wrote it, merely as a guess, but he adopts the conjecture and amends and enlarges it as truth. Marlowe (Kit Marlowe) wrote "The Taming of a Shrew," and after he died, and not before, when his copies fell into the hands of the Chamberlain's Company, Shakespeare rewrote it, and added the induction. What he contributed to the original play we know by the editions published by the

Shakespeare Society in 1844, and by Steevens in 1779 in his six plays when collated with the present text. Mr. Fleay has published four or five volumes full of the same unfounded surmises, which are eagerly accepted as facts in America, and republished with further commentaries and additions, so that Typhoeus' monstrous brood-as indicated in Hesiod, Orthus, Cerberus, Chimera, and the Lernæan hydra-will for ever be perpetuated.

In conclusion, I cannot avoid reference to the various plays, which have by the German critics and English editors, experts both, been wrongly assigned to Shakspeare. At various times, either in the "Stationers' Register," or elsewhere, more than twenty spurious plays have been thus falsely assigned to the poet. Some of these, curiously showing no trace or semblance of the great dramatist's genius, have been eagerly received by the great German critics, and exalted to a position among the noblest of his works. Thus Schlegel classed "Sir John Oldcastle" among Shakspere's best and maturest works; though we know with certainty that he had no hand in it; that it was written by Drayton, Hathway, Murray, and Wilson; that they were paid for writing it by Henslowe, and that intrinsically it bears marks of a compound and composite creation. In like manner, "Arden of Faversham," "A Yorkshire Tragedy," "The Two Noble Kinsmen," and indeed some twenty-four plays in all have been wrongly assigned. As we know, seven of these were added first to the 1664 edition.* Mr. C. Knight, in his pictorial edition, printed about sixteen as doubtful plays. Some of these were impudently printed in the poet's lifetime, with his name on the titlepage, by scamping booksellers. Others

* "Pericles, the London Prodigal," "The History of Lord Cromwell," "Sir John Oldcastle," "Lord Cobham," "The Puritan Widow," "A Yorkshire Tragedy," and "The Tragedy of Locrine."

were entered, like "Sir John Oldcastle," on the "Stationers' Register." Others, such as "Locrine," "Pericles," "Edward the Third," undoubtedly received his supervision, and were in part rewritten or amended by him.

Let me say that I have hardly tabulated the egregious errors of belief, dependent on ignorance, faith, and a too easy credulity which surround the name of the poet. I have sought to pluck up a bare handful of weeds, conscious that while the enemy of mankind sows tares while we sleep, we can only from time to time keep pace with the growth, and much must be left to after generations to maintain the poet's immortal memory fair and unsullied, and his place of sepulchre as far as possible clean and sweet.

POLITIS: A STUDY OF TELEGRAPH POLES.

BY EDGAR ATTKINS.

"HE ought to recognise his grandmother—a little" was

Its

an observation the writer lately overheard. great merit lies in the strict limitation of the duty. Between grandmothers and telegraph poles there is an occult connection. Supported on the wires attached to the latter may frequently be seen boys' kites, some of which have been obtained from the "sandbone" man in exchange for the bonnets of their ancestors; who, probably, were themselves spared the anxiety incidental to the bargaining. In a mercantile country inherited commercial instinct shows itself in early youth. But though kites, like emetics and consols, should move upwards they are doubtful investments.

Acting in combination with the wires, telegraph poles acquire much unearned increment. Men occupying exalted positions frequently do the like. In the last earthquake a peer managed to secure far more than his fair share of shock.

They discharge their duties with rigid regularity, fatal to obtaining reputation for ability: often the result of incapacity combined with eccentricity. Of every drunken fool there are always some sober ones who assert that he is the "cleverest man in England" in his particular calling.

Telegraph poles are periodically ornamented with tar. Here is an element of danger: tar and theology have caused many blazes. They will never quite die out so long as the devil, continuing in the publishing business, supplies those "religious" newspapers in which no respectable receiver of stolen goods is ever known to advertise. Some assert the tarring is to prevent decay; others to stop adventurous youth climbing to the top to sit on the pole's whiskers. They are never known voluntarily to wash. If to that they entertain an objection they are not alone. A lady, whose name had just been inserted amongst the "departures" in the Visitors' List of the county gaol, said: Every time yer go in they wesh yer; if yer was weshed last time they wesh yer again if yer go back whether yer want it or not. Damn their weshin-there's no place like home." She may have been the visitor who, when getting into the prison van, remarked to the attendant constable, "Rather a high step for a lady." To an agriculturist she would seem to be of great value; a combined wife and market garden. Lest that should be somewhat wanting in gallantry, rather let it be said she would form a combined wife and garden party—a host in herself. She seems to have been delicate, for sometimes it appears she had to be kept "under cover."

6.

The telegraph pole will "suffer fools gladly," it frequently bears their initials. Some take a "chop" from it; if done to annoy the gastric system the trick is likely to prove successful, but, generally, the stomach is better without a "Christmas tree." If it be desired to set it a task, prehistoric lamb is very tough mutton.

Those who, in spite of the expense, which may amount to ten pounds, climb to the pole's summit get extended views, but often only to learn that a haughty demeanour ill consorts with chasing a hat. A mushroom top is safer: