What were his views on literature, and on the literary
controversies which have been agitated from his day to our own? He tells
us very little. He must have heard discussions and arguments on metre,
on classical precedent, on the ancient and modern drama; but he makes no
mention of these questions. He does not seem to have attached any
prophetic importance to poetry. The poets who exalt their craft are of a
more slender build. Is it conceivable that he would have given his
support to a literary academy,--a project which began to find advocates
during his lifetime? I think not. It is true that he is full of good
sense, and that an academy exists to promulgate good sense. Moreover his
own free experiments brought him nearer and nearer into conformity with
classical models. _Othello_ and _Macbeth_ are better constructed plays
than _Hamlet_. The only one of his plays which, whether by chance or by
design, observes the so-called unities, of action and time and place, is
one of his latest plays--_The Tempest_. But he was an Englishman, and
would have been jealous of his freedom and independence.
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