Our object has not been, however, to give the history of that criticism, but rather to select those points in it, which it was advisable to clear up, in order to confirm the judgment that we propose and defend. If erroneous positions of criticism serve by their opposition to arouse correct thoughts relating to the poet, others, which are not erroneous, lead directly to them. In addition to the pages of older writers, always worthy of perusal (though devoted to problems of different times), such as those of Herder, Goethe, Schlegel, Coleridge and Manzoni, the student will find among those with whom he will like to think among the Dowdens, the Bradleys, the Raleighs of to-day. These will inspire in him the wish to continue thinking on his own account about the nature of the great poetry of Shakespeare. CHAPTER XII SHAKESPEARE AND OURSELVES Shakespeare (and this applies to every individual work) had a history, but has one no longer. He had a history, which was that of his poetical sentiment, of its various changing notes, of the various forms in which it found expression. He had also (we must insist), an individual history which it is difficult to identify united with that of the Elizabethan drama, to which he belongs solely as an actor and provider of theatrical works. The general traits, which, among many differences, he shares with his contemporaries, predecessors and imitators (even when these are more substantial than theatrical imitations, conventions and habits) form part of the history of the Renaissance in general and of the English Renaissance in particular, but do not of themselves constitute the history that was properly speaking his own.