It is, we repeat, no reproach to Mr. Rossetti, who has distinguished himself in more important studies than the production of scholastic text-books, that he should have failed in an undertaking which happened to require peculiar qualifications. Indeed, our respect for Mr. Rossetti and our sense of his useful services to Belles Lettres would have induced us to spare him the annoyance of an exposure of the deficiencies of this work, had it not illustrated, so comprehensively and so strikingly, the disastrous effects of the severance of the study of English Literature from that of Ancient Classical Literature at our Universities. ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITIES[10] III. TEXT BOOKS [Footnote 10: _Shakespeare--Select Plays. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_ (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. MDCCCXC.)] More than a century and a half has passed since Pope thus expressed himself about philologists,-- “‘Tis true on words is still our whole debate, Dispute of _Me_ or _Te_, of _aut_ or _at_, To sound or sink in _Cano_ O or A, To give up Cicero or C or K; The critic eye, that microscope of wit, Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit; How parts relate to parts or they to whole, The body’s harmony, the beaming soul, Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse shall see, When man’s whole frame is obvious to a _Flea_.” We need scarcely say that we have far too much respect for Dr. Aldis Wright and for his distinguished coadjutor to apply such a description as this to them as individuals, for no one can appreciate more heartily than we do their monumental contribution to the textual criticism of Shakespeare, but we can make no such reserve in speaking of this edition of _Hamlet_. A more deplorable illustration, we do not say of the subjection of Literature to Philology, for that would very imperfectly represent the fact, but of the absolute substitution of Philology, and of Philology in the lowest sense of the term, for Literature it would be impossible to imagine. Had it been expressly designed to prove that its editors were wholly unconscious of the artistic, literary, and philosophical significance of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, it could scarcely have taken a more appropriate form.