Dead." Both of these, in my judgment, are distinctly inferior to the poem given above, which, in addition to doing justice to Keats's song, "that outgrew the singer," is cleverly reminiscent of the auction-room.

Oliver Goldsmithy

VII

MEDITATIONS ON A QUARTO HAMLET

LET the scholar or the antiquary decide when English literature begins; for me it begins, not at the beginning, but with Chaucer. Of what went before, my impressions are vague and uncertain; but Chaucer sometimes seems almost as alive to me as anyone in "Who's Who," particularly when, after a weary winter, spring comes at last, and the birds begin to sing, and the leaves unfold themselves upon the trees. I say to myself, "It was on such a day as this that Chaucer's pilgrims set out." "On such a day as this," whether the sky is blue, flecked with clouds of white, or "Aprille" threatens us with her customary showers; for when the world was young, as it was five hundred years ago, an "Aprille" shower would surely not have deterred any one of the nine-and-twenty pilgrims from mounting his or her palfrey in the yard of the Tabard Inn and journeying on to the shrine of the murdered Archbishop, St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury. But the English in which Chaucer wrote makes it more or less difficult for any except the student to understand him; and while Coleridge says that, after reading twenty pages with a glossary, there will be no further difficulty, reading with a glossary is not reading but studying, and alas, how few of us care to study after our school and college days are over!

And after Chaucer, I leap a whole century and a half to Shakespeare, skipping Spenser, the scholars', poets' poet, remembering the lines,

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en,

In brief, Sir, study what you most affect,

which I have always done. Of Shakespeare, it is hardly for me to speak except from the viewpoint of the collector; and Shakespeare has now become almost impossible except for the very rich. Let but a few years pass, and all the desirable quartos, and even the folios, will have passed into that bourne whence no book returns -the great public library. How rapidly they are going is, perhaps, understood only by those who are curious in such matters. Of late we have heard much of Mr. Huntington's buying this, of Mr. Folger's buying that, and of Mr. Cochran's buying t'other, and of the immense sums they are giving for rare books; but these gentlemen are not spending their money selfishly. Mr. Cochran, we know, buys for that wonderful institution which he has established and maintains the Elizabethan Club at Yale;' Mr. Huntington's books have gone to the State of California; and it is safe to say that Mr. Folger's collection will never be dispersed. These are, in effect, public libraries, and in paying seemingly high prices, their owners are making gifts of just so much money to the public. I often ask myself whether the public fully appreciates the value of these gifts. This is an age of libraries, and I never enter such

1 Mr. Newton was elected an honorary member of the Elizabethan Club in April, 1921.