"
These were a few of the points, set down at random, which he had been
enabled to verify within the limits of a single play. They would suffice
to give an idea of the process by which, when applied in detail to every
one of Shakespeare's plays, he trusted to establish the secret history
and import of each, not less than the general sequence and significance
of all. Further instalments of this work would probably be issued in the
forthcoming or future Transactions of the Newest Shakespeare Society; and
it was confidently expected that the final monument of his research when
thoroughly completed and illustrated by copious appendices, would prove
as worthy as any work of mere English scholarship could hope to be of a
place beside the inestimable commentaries of Gervinus, Ulrici, and the
Polypseudocriticopantodapomorosophisticometricoglossematographicomaniacal
Company for the Confusion of Shakespeare and Diffusion of Verbiage
(Unlimited).
CHIMAERA BOMBINANS IN VACUO.
NOTE.
Mindful of the good old apologue regarding "the squeak of the real pig,"
I think it here worth while to certify the reader of little faith, that
the more incredibly impudent absurdities above cited are not so much or
so often the freaks of parody or the fancies of burlesque as select
excerpts and transcripts of printed and published utterances from the
"pink soft litter" of a living brood--from the reports of an actual
Society, issued in an abridged and doubtless an emasculated form through
the columns of a weekly newspaper.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322