agreeing to reciprocate by establishing penny postage to England; and, finally, I have undertaken to point out a means of making up for any suggested loss. Can human beings do more?' I have shown him your letter, and he is at a loss to know to what you are referring. He does not recollect any communications of the nature described passing between you and him. Perhaps you will let me know what you had in mind. J. Henniker Heaton, Esq., M.P. Yours very truly, SYDNEY BUXTON. I was able to give a satisfactory reply to this letter, but beyond kind interviews with the Chancellor of the Exchequer no progress was made. In February Lord Blyth, who for twenty-five years had always shown great sympathy for universal penny postage, had a long interview with the Postmaster-General, pointing out the great importance of the Government accepting the offer of America. He declared that if he were in the Postmaster-General's place, or in that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would not be able to sleep comfortably until this wise reform had been put to the credit of the Liberal party. On the 19th of March Lord Blyth addressed the following interesting letter to Mr. Sydney Buxton : March 19, 1908. DEAR MR. BUXTON,-At the risk of being considered as great a nuisance as a mutual friend of ours, I cannot help writing to you after yesterday's interview, as I still feel that, in the interest of our party and the country alike, there is no measure calculated to bring such lasting honour to the authors, or confer such far-reaching benefits on our people, as the extension of the penny post to the United States. While the present Government are striving to pass measures which-no matter how just-are bound to bring them numberless enemies, it passes my comprehension why they should neglect to pass a measure which would only gain them friends and which could bring them nothing but popularity. Your arguments about the cost are to me, or to anyone with whom I have conferred outside the Ministry, altogether unconvincing, for instead of involving great cost to the country, as many of your other measures must necessarily do, this one reform would most certainly, within a very short period, yield quite a harvest of increased revenue, although that would form but a very small part of the benefit to the nation. Holding these views, as I do, most strongly, I feel I should not be doing my duty if I did not avail myself of every opportunity of making them known, both privately and publicly. I am so afraid that if this question is not speedily settled some political mischance may occur to place the opposite party in power, and give to them the credit of this great and inevitable reform, that you can so easily carry, with he goodwill and applause of all parties. I can only hope you will forgive my persistency. I am, dear Mr. Buxton, Yours very truly, BLYTH. In April I received a telegram from a friend in Washington stating that an important letter had been received from the Postmaster General of England, agreeing on certain terms to the American proposal; but, whatever was the nature of the proposal, it evidently was not quite acceptable. I had no intimation of the points at issue; I suspected that the Americans wanted a half-ounce weight for a penny letter in the place of an ounce. Whatever the hitch in the negotiations, the ominous silence for many weeks greatly disturbed us; I had almost daily conferences with my friends, and especially Lord Blyth. On almost the last day of May I wrote to the American Ambassador, asking for an interview with him for Lord Blyth and myself. He appointed the following morning at eleven. His Excellency received us most courteously at Dorchester House. We pointed out to him that this was the year of the Franco-British Exhibition; that special efforts were being made to signalise that event by the introduction of penny postage between France and England; that only a few days before I had in the House of Commons introduced a strong deputation from the French Chamber of Commerce asking the Postmaster-General for this great reform; but that we and the whole of the British people, while anxious for penny postage with France, felt strongly that the first step should be Anglo-American penny postage that is, penny postage between all the English-speaking nations in the world. We took care to emphasise the fact that King Edward had more British-born subjects in the United States of America than in all parts of the British Empire outside the United Kingdom. Lord Blyth here said that he knew from private information that the British Government were wondering why no reply had been sent from Washington to their proposal sent some weeks before. The American Ambassador was most sympathetic, but we left with his simple assurance that he would carefully consider the matter. We knew that he had for many years been a great friend of the movement, and history in future years may give us the important cable message which he sent to his Government on that pleasant Thursday afternoon. On the Sunday evening we know he was in possession of a favourable answer from Washington; on Tuesday evening, with great kindness, Mr. Sydney Buxton wrote me a confidential note, asking me to be present in the House of Commons on the following afternoon, when he, amidst great cheering, announced that penny postage had been arranged between the British Empire and the United States of America. The same evening I had the pleasure of thanking him in these words: MY DEAR POSTMASTER-GENERAL,-We reformers know that, after all the exertions we may make, we are helpless until the Minister is found who will propose the desired reform to Parliament. When I contemplate the probable results of this great measure of unity-Anglo-American penny postage-between the two English-speaking nations, I can only think of one of those great national cycles of wind and wave that bear the benefits of clime and fertility to all parts of the world. And I think of the mild, beneficent influences of the mighty Gulf Stream, which for ages has set in from the west to bless our shores. It is now for us to acknowledge the equally real and beneficial stream of sympathies which come from the same quarter. The date fixed for Anglo-American penny postage was the 1st of October. A large number of friends united with me to get it inaugurated on the 4th of July, Independence Day; but without success, readily understood. If this could have been arranged it would be both significant and appropriate. So far I have endeavoured to give a bare outline of the battle for universal penny postage up to the present day. The only regret I have is that room cannot be found for the enumeration of the names of the large number of strong and progressive public men—notably Mr. W. T. Stead, Sir William Holland, Sir Edward Sassoon, Sir Walter Peace, Sir William Mulock, Sir David Tennant, etc.-who during those years of toil and struggle helped us onward in the work and rendered such great service to the cause. I cannot conclude this article without referring to our work in the future to complete universal penny postage. I will briefly state that there are only 50,000,000 letters annually sent from Great Britain and Ireland to foreign countries not yet enjoying penny postage. The number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom last year was 2,800,000,000, so that the number sent abroad at the high rate is merely a drop in the ocean. The increase of letters posted in Great Britain every year is 100,000,000, so that this increase within the United Kingdom itself is double the total number of letters sent abroad in the whole year. I will deal with this question more fully at a future time, but I shall be greatly mistaken if another year elapses before the completion of universal penny postage. J. HENNIKER HEATON. DANTE AND SHAKESPEARE At first thought we might be inclined to consider Dante and Shakespeare as too different both in aim and in method to admit of any extended comparison. As a matter of fact, the two poets are seldom compared at all, whereas it seems only natural to think of Dante and Milton together. But deep reflection and protracted study must convince us of the closer, more vital kinship of the stern Florentine exile and the genial poet of Merry England. This kinship it is my primary purpose to establish as respects a few fundamental principles of life and of art, because it is impossible to estimate the relative merit of these two giants among modern poets until we can look beyond their necessary differences to their common perception of what consummate poetry must be. Obviously Dante's power to portray actual life and to apprehend sympathetically the universal element in life must be found equal to Shakespeare's, if we are not to adjudge him the inferior poet. On the other hand, it is necessary to ascertain whether Shakespeare satisfies the demands of modern philosophy, which says of the poet-and the truth of the statement is undeniable-that he must possess a unitary conception of the meaning and larger relations of human life,' that his appreciation of life in detail must be 'determined by his interpretation of the meaning of life as a whole.' This is the case, as we must all admit, with Dante; and unless Shakespeare gives us such interpretation of life in its full meaning, he will be obliged to yield the palm in this one respect to Dante. Since, then, a poet's universality depends largely upon his philosophical attitude towards life, let us first consider some of Shakespeare's ideas about life. As, however, it is sometimes said in disparagement of Dante that his poetry suffered from his partisanship, we must ascertain, by way of preliminary, whether Shakespeare, too, did not have decided convictions about the problems of life which assailed the characters he drew. It is frequently asserted that Shakespeare seldom represented his own views on any subject; Ruskin and Pater agree with the Dante scholar Gardner that it was necessary that Shakespeare should lean no way,' but that he should be removed from all influences which could in the least warp or bias his thoughts.' Gardner asks whether the phrase 'the impartiality of Shakespeare' does not at once reach the very root of the essential difference' between him and Dante. Doubtless it would be a great shock to the nerves of these gentlemen to be told that if Shakespeare were really impartial, as they say, we should be obliged to condemn him to a place among Dante's neutrals, hated almost as much as Lucifer himself, and considered unworthy of a place in Hell proper simply because they leaned no way. But how can a great poet be impartial? We must feel, with Dowden, that Shakespeare makes it clear and emphatic whether he would have us side with Goneril or Cordelia, with Edgar or the traitor. And are we not conscious of a decided love of law and order on the part of Shakespeare even in all the confusion in King Lear? Has Shakespeare left us in the dark as to whether he thought the deeds of Brutus and Cassius should triumph, and must triumph ultimately, or the idea embodied by Julius Cæsar, the spirit of Cæsar? Brutus, looking upon Cassius dead, exclaims: O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet! Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords In our own proper entrails. Critics are agreed that in Henry the Fifth Shakespeare portrayed his ideal of manhood, and his ideal king, but, forsooth, how could he have an ideal if he leaned no way? Of the English historical plays Dowden asserts that they reveal 'Shakespeare's convictions as to how the noblest practical success in life may be achieved.' Since, then, we cannot call Shakespeare impartial in the sense that he lacked definite convictions, and since it is not derogatory to Dante that he had definite convictions, let us now seek to discover the opinions of Shakespeare in regard to some of the very questions which most interested Dante. It is an accepted theory of criticism that when an author reiterates certain ideas, these may be considered his own personal views; let us therefore choose ideas often repeated by Shakespeare. Inasmuch as both Dante and Shakespeare dealt especially with the problem of evil in the world, let us ask first what Shakespeare considered the cause of sin. Listen to Edmund in King Lear: "This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, —often the surfeit of our own behaviour,-we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.' Add the words of Cassius: Men at some time are masters of their fates: |