3 JUNE 1916, Page 15

GERMANY AND SHAKESPEARE.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTLTOR."1 SLR,--In the Spectator of May 13th, in commenting, under " News of the Week," upon the recent German reply to the previous American Note, you remark " that Germans, after all, remember Dickens better than Shakespeare," and appropriately apply to them some words uttered by Chadband. Also in the same issue are some interesting aortes Shakespearianat by the Archbishop of Dublin. No one, however, so far as I have seen at present, has pointed out the extraordinary appositeness in this connexion of a certain quotation from Macbeth. It contains the real gist of the German reply to America, and is as follows :—

" Now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way : I am in blood Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Ret ' were as tedious as go o'er. Strange t ' I have in head, that will to hand, Which must e acted, ere they may be scann'd."

—Macbeth, III. iv. 134-140.

am, Sir, &o.,

St. Peter's Vicarage, Loughborough. ROBERT J. STURGES.