minded hatred of the English, is in the highest degree interesting and piquant. Not less able are his accounts of the development of the influence of Shakespeare in Germany and France, while the vivacity of expression, the brilliancy of tone and colour, and the accurate though miraculously rapid sketching of outline of the tragical characters, or of others connected with them, is not surpassed, if it be equalled, by any writer of this century. If it be a test of the original merit or character of men or books that we can remember something of them, this work should rank among the best, since few who read it will ever forget its valuable information, or the brilliant style in which it is conveyedapples of gold on plates of silver.

These apples are not all, however, of purest gold, and I have, I trust judiciously, pointed out in notes what I believed to be the admixtures of baser metal. It is so much the habit of translators, like biographers, to swallow their subjects whole "without winking," and to exalt them as perfect in every conceivable respect, that the idea of pointing out or admitting errors in mine will seem to many to be simply an unpleasant paradox. This will certainly be the case with those who read merely for pastime, and who dislike anything which calls for thought or disturbs the even current of their waking dream,

and still more so with the fanatical asthete or Heine worshipper, who believes, like all idolaters, that his idol is perfection and all solid gold, even though the wooden core appears visibly through cracks in the plating. But the sensible critic knows that it is after all of immense value, and makes allowance for defects.

I believe that Heine himself would have approved in his heart of such fair treatment. He was as a rule only an enemy to such as had reviled him with personal insult, as did Platen. In the chapter on Anna Bullen he praises Queen Elizabeth because she desired that Shakespeare should set forth the English sovereigns, including her own father, with perfect impartiality, Heine knew his own defects-his contradictions of character, inconsistencies, and errors-he admits them sadly and sincerely enough, and rather touchingly attempts, like a child, to put them off on something else" on this horrid age."

But Heine was also conscious of his own stupendous genius, and knew that the bell, though it had a flaw in it, could ring forth tones which should be heard to all times. Therefore he would not have objected even to the closest criticism, if it were truthful, and accompanied with sincere and enlightened appreciation of his merits. The latter indeed speak for themselves so loudly and clearly as to require no comment.

With his errors it is another affair, and one of these glides so subtly into all his works, and into every expression of opinion, be it on subjects social, political, or æsthetic, that the reader should be in all fairness now and then reminded of it. This error is the inconsistency which sprang from his education and life. Professedly

or

a revolutionary or radical, ami du peuple or socialist, more or less here and there-or now and then-and an exile for liberty, et cetera, there seldom lived a man who loved aristocracy gentility" more, and this is shown in an absolutely amusing manner in several passages in this work, especially in his comments on Queen Margaret, where he taunts English chivalry as being tainted with the shop-keeping spirit, and sneers at the battle of Cressy, as I have pointed out in a note. Bearing this in mind, the reader need not be puzzled, as many have been, with apparent contradictions. With less genius and more settled principles Heine would have been unquestionably a far greater man, and probably not less brilliant. There is a popular belief that without some inconsistency or eccentricity there can be no genius; but Shakespeare, the very type of genius, is a proof to the contrary.

THE TRANSLATOR.

SHAKESPEARE'S

MAIDENS AND WOMEN.

INTRODUCTION.

I KNOW a good Hamburg Christian who can never reconcile himself to the fact that our Lord and Saviour was by birth a Jew. A deep dissatisfaction seizes him when he must admit to himself that the man who, as the pattern of perfection, deserves the highest honour, was still of kin to those snuffling, long-nosed fellows who go running about the streets selling old clothes, whom he so utterly despises, and who are even more desperately detestable when they-like himself-apply themselves to the wholesale business of spices and dye-stuffs, and encroach upon his interests.

As Jesus Christ is to this excellent son of Hammonia, so is Shakespeare to me. It takes the heart out of me when I remember that he is an Englishman, and belongs to the most repulsive race which God in His wrath ever created.

What a repulsive people, what a cheerless, unrefreshing country! How strait-ruled, hide