Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/294

 XXV

JULIET'S RUNAWAY, ONCE MORE

HE ignorance that knows itself, quoth the Seigneur de Montaigne, is not an absolute ignorance, and this is my one excuse for the presumption of adding even a votive pebble to the cairn which marching hosts of commentators have heaped above the embalmed dust of Shakespeare. For I long since knew that I never was and never could be his textual scholar, in the smallest degree illustrated during the evolution from Rowe and Warburton to Furness. Grateful to those who faithfully have labored to set forth the true version, I am of the laity who read it without question, for its wisdom, passion, imagination, and inexhaustible delight.

Meanwhile I take pride in our New World scholarship, and will say, in passing, that when Mr. Gosse wrote me that we did many fine things, but that we perforce must leave English literary research to those anear the rich materials treasured in the motherland, I had a fortunate rejoinder. It was a satisfaction to declare that the two most notable works of textual verification now issuing were from the American press, and edited by American scholars. I cited [280]