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OUR GREAT
SHAKSPERE CRITIC
BY TALCOTT WILLIAMS
NLY a great man can accomplish a great task. For fifteen of Shakspere's most familiar plays, Horace Howard Furness condensed the criticism of three centuries for each play in a single volume, save Hamlet, which has two.[1] From 6000 to 8000 works have been published on Shakspere. All on each play is brought within the compass of its volume. Who holds this volume holds the fruits of all past criticism and comment on the play.
Mere industry can do much, but mere industry could never build the monument of these volumes. I confess I never look at the impressive row without amazement at the labor for which they stand. It would be much, if this were all. Long labor of this order grinds like a
- ↑ The plays edited by Dr. Furness are Romeo and Juliet, 1871; Macbeth, 1873; Hamlet, two volumes, 1877; King Lear, 1880; Othello, 1886; The Merchant of Venice, 1888; As You Like It, 1890; The Tempest, 1892; Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1895; The Winter's Tale, 1898; Much Ado about Nothing, 1899; Twelfth Night, 1901; Love's Labour's Lost, 1904; Antony and Cleopatra, 1909, and Cymbeline, completed and to appear. His son Horace Howard Furness, Jr., will complete his father's task, and has already published Richard III, 1911, and revised Macbeth.
