16 DECEMBER 1922, Page 17

THE ELUSIVE SHAKESPEARE.

[To the Editor of the SrEcTAToa.1

Sin,—In reply to Lord Sydenham. If Dickens had shown sympathy with Uriah Heep or Pecksniff I should have said his mentality, as revealed and so far, was repulsive ; but he certainly does not ; and, as certainly, Shakespeare does sympathize with Coriolanus, and does hold him up for our admiration. That being so, I say and repeat that his men- tality, as revealed in this play, repels me ; and is unlike Bacon's. I should explain it by artistic decadence having temporarily superinduced a moral blindness. Again, to have insight into a character is not to sympathize with it ; and Shakespeare could draw Shylock without being himself the "money-grabber of Stratford," as he has lately been