last fifty years, has the brightness of his paled in the contrast? Has it already gone down into the gorgeous tombs of the Capulets, or to live only in monumental bookbindery with the bygone English classics; to make a show of elegant gilt-backed volumes in fashionable bookcases as "standard works," or works for ever to stand on their lower ends in serried and even ranks, to be seen and not read? Further from it than ever before. No such lame and impotent conclusion can be predicted from the present appreciation of his writings. The opening years of this very decade mark a new era in their estimation. Virtually for the first time he is being introduced to a new world of readers, to the labouring masses of the people. Publishers are taking him into the cottages of the million, and bespeaking a hearty and pleasant welcome to his "Hamlet," "Othello," and all the other creations of his genius. Popular editions of Shakespeare are the order of the day. For the first time the common people begin to know him. Such is the promise of 1867. What is being done in England and America to familiarize the masses with his writings is repeated on a smaller scale on the Continent of Europe. Cheap editions in German and French have been put recently in circulation. Doubtless within a half century lie will be read in every other language in Christendom. His works never
