repelled according to his power of appreciating moral beauty or deformity. But, undoubtedly, so far as this method is characteristic of Shakespeare's work, it increases our difficulty. These are the facts, he says: make what you can of them; I do not draw the moral for you, or even deny that many very different morals may commend themselves to different people. No great poet can be without some implicit morality, though the morality may be sometimes very bad. He is great because he has a rich emotional nature, and great powers of observation and insight. He must have his own views of what are the really valuable elements in life, of what constitutes true happiness, and what part the deepest instincts play in the general course of affairs. He must therefore have his answer to the great problems of ethics. But we have to translate his implicit convictions into an abstract theory in order to discover his moral system. To do that in the case of Shakespeare would no doubt be a specially difficult and delicate task. He refuses to give us any direct help towards divining his sympathies. Scott, in his most Shakespearean moods, has something of the same impartiality. When he describes an interesting person, Louis XI. in Quentin Durward,
