a gift the thoughts do flow" very subtly said Goethe. The spirit of the time gives the questions of prevailing curiosity to all its children. In the present theory, with very few exceptions, all the similar passages bear on topics of universal concernment at the close of the Sixteenth Century. It would be easy to prepare an equally curious list of resemblances between Bruno and almost any of Shakespeare's dramatic contemporaries; and not Hamlet alone, but the majority of Shakespeare's own works, would reveal, if scrutinized for the purpose, affinities with the heresies of Bruno. The tongue of Bruno is in that line of Julius Cæsar: Swear priests, and cowards and men cautelous."

J. C., II. 1. 129. and Edmund's speech in King Lear I, II, beginning "This is the excellent foppery of the world," is a precise summary of the main teaching of the Spaccio. But neither Tschischwitz nor Brunnhofer are unreasonable theorists, and the former does not insist upon the unqualified acceptance of his hypothesis. He only asserts, and with reason in his favor, that when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet he had ascended to the summit of the consciousness that had

been attained in that day. That is it. Hamlet, the skeptical mind was constructed out of the speculative elements in the thoughts of the century, and necessarily included in its compass the philosophy that Bruno represented. We welcome therefore the approaching publication in England of a new Life and Works of Bruno, believing that each revelation of the scope of the forces of the Elizabethan age gives us increased knowledge of its living thought.

This entire subject of literary parallelisms, answering for the "Baconian theory as well as for Bruno, has been most admirably defined by John Morley. He says: "Then as always the monumental writers only gathered up, arranged, developed and enforced ideas that were already substantially in the air and floating in the minds of men. Every one even of foremost capacity imbibes the subjects of intellectual interest from the working of the larger causes that are current in his age. He accepts in the main the speculative dialect of his age, and what is not less important, but more, he accepts the prevailing notions as to what constitutes demonstration or probable evidence in the leading object of the curiosity of the time."

rope.

Prof. Rolfe has been spending his summer in EuDenton J. Snider was one of the lecturers this year at the Concord Summer School of Philosophy.

Dr. Horace Howard Furness is busy at his edition of Othello. It will be the fifth play in his edition.

Dr. Brinsley Nicholson has left the New Shakespeare Society and will be greatly missed, as he was one of its ablest writers.

Before the Browning Society some time since, Rev. J. D. Williams read a paper on Gwendolen as compared to Shakespeare's Beatrice, and at the same meeting the tone was contrasted, in which music is spoken of by Milton and Shakespeare.

Rev. H. N. Ellacombe has made the discovery that Shakespeare was also an angler.

Amongst the recent additions to Mr. Halliwell Phillipps's Shakespeare Museum, at Hollingbury Copse, Brighton, England, are two objects of peculiar interest. One is an original and hitherto unknown indenture of 1596, referring to connections of the Shakespeare family, the poet's father, John Shakespeare, being one of the witnesses. The other is the

original deed of the transfer of the legal estate of the Blackfriars property, 1618, in trust to follow the directions of Shakespeare's will.

We are glad to note that at the University of Michigan, Shakespeare is systematically studied, and over forty members of the Senior Class have this year elected to take the course. Mr. James McMillan, of Detroit, presented the University with $6,500, to found a Shakespearian library, and with this gift over two thousand volumes of texts and "ana" have been purchased. We may confidently expect good work from Ann Arbor.

Harper's Magazine will shortly commence a new story by William Black, entitled "Judith Shakespeare, Her Love Affairs and Other Adventures." The heroine is Shakespeare's daughter, and the immortal dram

atist himself with many of the characters of his plays will take a conspicuous part in the action of the story. The scene is laid in Stratford-on-Avon, and all that can be truly said to be historical will be utilized by the novelist. E. A. Abbey will furnish the illustrations, and the story is said to be of sufficient length to run through twelve numbers.

James H. Hubbard in The Nation for August 30, 1883, claims a pre-eminence for the second edition of Shakespeare, published in 1807, by Munror & Francis, Boston, over all other American editions, so far as regards the awakening of an interest in Shakespeare's works in America. This judgment is based upon the marked success with which its introduction into our colleges was attended.

Till now it has been commonly supposed that the first representation of Romeo and Juliet in GerThe Revue Critique, howmany dates from 1626. Trautmann in the Archiv fur Literaturgeschichte, ever, quotes a document, published by Herr Karl according to which the first representation of Romeo twenty-two years earlier; that is to say in 1604. This and Juliet known in Germany must be dated at least document, discovered in the archives of Nordlingen, is a petition addressed on the 20th of January, 1604, to the council of that free imperial town, by a troupe of actors, probably English actors. The troupe asks leave to play among other pieces, "Romeo vundt Julitha," which it had already played at Ulm, at Heilbronn, and elsewhere, "with exceptional pleasure to the hearers."

Leo H. Grindon has published this year at Manchester "The Shakespearian Flora." The book is a pleasant successor to Ellacombe's exhaustive Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare. Major Walker's Shakespeare's Home and Rural Life, presents a few aspects of the subject not mentioned by either of the authors named above. The director of the Botanic Gardens at Melbourne has been publishing Notes on Shakespearian Botany in an Australian newspaper.