{ 319} has no parallel in Shakspeare's works. To John Fletcher, indeed, at the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, these things were known; but scarcely to the attendant of Queen Katherine, who has but just narrated the circumstances, then newly happened, of Wolsey's fall. On maturer consideration, then, I am inclined to think that the whole of the scene (Act III. Sc. 2.) to which your correspondent refers, was originally written by Fletcher, although, as it now stands, it is strongly marked by the hand of Shakspeare. In the same category, also, I am inclined to place Scenes 3. and 4. of Act II. It will be observed that these changes are not inconsistent with the view I had previously taken; the effect being merely, that I am inclined to ascribe a little more than in the first instance to the hitherto unsuspected participator in the work. I am not sure, too, that I shall not be coming nearer to MR. SPEDDING; as, if I am not mistaken, it is in some of these scenes that he imagines he detects "a third hand;" a theory which, though I do not adopt, I certainly have not confidence enough to reject altogether. But this view affects so very small a portion of the play, that it is of very little consequence.
That great poets are sometimes obscure, needs no proof. That the greatest poets will necessarily be so to the ordinary reader, seems to me equally indisputable.
Not without effort can one enter into the spontaneous thought of another, or even of himself in another mood. How much more when that other is distinguished from his fellows by the _greatness_ and _singularity_ of his thoughts, and by the extreme subtilty of their connecting links. Obscurity is not a blemish but an excellence, if the pains of seeking are more than compensated by the pleasures of finding, the luxury of [Greek: mathêsis], where the concentrated energy of a passage, when once understood, gives it a hold on the imagination and memory such as were ill sacrificed to more diluted clearness.
_Grandis præfatio tenui incepto_--a sort of apology to Tennyson for implying that he needs illustration. Some time ago I made a few notes on particular passages in _Locksley Hall_, which I now enclose. Some of them are, I dare say, superfluous--some, possibly, erroneous. If so, they will stand a fair chance of being corrected in your valuable publication.