Probably he believed in these things. Why not? Everybody else believed in them then. They suit our climate. As the Greek mythology suits the keen Attic sky, the fairies, indistinct and half-defined, suit a land of mild mists and gentle airs. They confuse the ‘maidens of the villagery;’ they are the paganism of the South of England. Can it be made out what were Shakespeare’s political views? We think it certainly can, and that without difficulty. From the English historical plays, it distinctly appears that he accepted, like everybody then, the Constitution of his country. His lot was not cast in an age of political controversy, nor of reform. What was, was from of old. The Wars of the Roses had made it very evident how much room there was for the evils incident to an hereditary monarchy, for instance, those of a controverted succession, and the evils incident to an aristocracy, as want of public spirit and audacious selfishness, to arise and continue within the realm of England. Yet they had not repelled, and had barely disconcerted our conservative ancestors. They had not become Jacobins; they did not concur—and history, except in Shakespeare, hardly does justice to them—in Jack Cade’s notion that the laws should come out of his mouth, or that the commonwealth was to be reformed by interlocutors in this scene. ‘_Geo._ I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the Commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap on it. _John._ So he had need, for ’tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never a merry world in England since gentlemen came up. _Geo._ O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in handycraftsmen. _John._ The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons. _Geo._ Nay more: the king’s council are no good workmen. _John._ True; and yet it is said, Labour in thy vocation; which is as much as to say, as let the magistrates be labouring men, and therefore should we be magistrates. _Geo._ Thou hast hit it, for there is no better sign of a brave mind than a hard hand. _John._ I see them! I see them!’