As we have said, it has not seemed superfluous to repeat these statements, because in the first place, the silent and tenacious, though erroneous conviction, as to the unity and identity of the two histories, the practical and the poetical, or at least the obscurity as to their true relation, is the hidden source of the vast and to a large extent useless labours, which form the great body of Shakespearean philology. This in common with the philology of the nineteenth century in general, is unconsciously dominated by romantic ideas of mystical and naturalistic unity, whence it is not by accident that Emerson is found among the precursors of hybrid biographical aesthetic, and the romanticizing Brandes among its most conspicuous supporters. These labours are animated with the hope of obtaining knowledge of the poetry of Shakespeare in its full reality, by means of the discovery of the complete chronology, of biographical incidents, of allusions, and of the origin of his themes. The ranks of the seekers are also swollen by those who are animated with like hopes and wish to exhibit their cleverness in the solution of enigmas, or are urged by the professional necessity of producing dissertations and theses. Unfortunately, the documents and traditions relating to the life of Shakespeare are very few. All or nearly all, relate to external and insignificant details. We are without letters, confessions or memoirs by the author, and also without authentic and abundant collections of facts relating to him. Although almost every year there appears some new _Life of Shakespeare,_ it is now time to recognise with resignation and clearly to declare that it is not possible to write a biography of Shakespeare. At the most, an arid and faulty biographical chronicle can be composed, rather as proof of the devotion of posterity, longing to possess even a shadow of that biography, than as genuinely satisfying a desire for knowledge. Owing to this lack of documents, the above-mentioned philological literature consists, almost altogether, of an enormous and ever increasing number of conjectures, of which the one contests, impugns, or varies the other, and all are equally incapable of nourishing the mind. It suffices to glance through a few pages of a Shakespearean annual or handbook, to hear of the "Southampton theory," the "Pembroke theory," and of other theories, in relation to the _Sonnets;_ that is to say, whether the person concealed beneath the initials W. H. in the printer's dedication, is the Earl of Southampton, or the Earl of Pembroke, or a musician of the name of Hughes, or even William Harvey, the third husband of Southampton's mother, or the retail bookseller, William Hell, or an invention of the printer, or a joke of the poet, who should thus indicate himself (William Himself); and so on, with the "Fitton theory," the "Davenant theory," and the like, that is to say, whether the "dark lady,"