It is only one and a small proof of Shakespeare's "myriad-mindedness" that _Punch_ throughout his career has drawn more freely from his plays for subjects for cartoons than from any other source. Shakespeare, as a modern writer puts it, "has always been there before." It was partly no doubt due to _Punch's_ distrust of the national capacity to organize and carry out picturesque demonstrations that led him to treat the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebrations in 1864 with scant respect. But an honourable jealousy for the repute of our greatest writer was enough to warrant his dissatisfaction. There were wide divergences of opinion and considerable friction among the members of the National Memorial Committee, a huge unwieldy body representing all professions and interests, and containing, along with many great and honoured names, not a few thrusting notorieties and even nonentities. The festival at Stratford was a _fiasco_, and the grandiose schemes of the promoters came to little practical result. One is indeed tempted to draw the conclusion that it is almost unnecessary to attempt a special celebration of one who is being celebrated every day and all the time. [Illustration: SHAKESPEARE AND THE PIGMIES] As a critic of letters _Punch_ is subjected to more searching ordeal in his references to living and rising than to dead or risen authors. His recognition of James Montgomery--the author of one of the very few fine modern hymns--has been noticed elsewhere. There was chivalry as well as appreciation in his defence of Alexander Smith when the charge of plagiarism was brought against the "City Poems" by the _Athenæum_. The ridicule of the "Spasmodic" school in Aytoun's brilliant burlesque drama _Firmilian_ was a much more damaging criticism, but in recognizing Smith's force and originality _Punch_ ranges himself on the side of Clough and Matthew Arnold, John Forster, Arthur Helps and G. H. Lewes--in other words, the most enlightened and best equipped critics of the time. Though Tennyson had been Laureate for several years, he was still regarded--surprising and even painful as it may seem to the neo-Georgian reader--with a certain amount of suspicion by austere critics bred up in eighteenth century traditions. Both as regards matter and manner he was considered to be an innovator. _Punch's_ admiration for Tennyson was already an old story. He had lent him the hospitality of his pages in 1846 to reply to Bulwer Lytton's defamatory abuse in _The New Timon_. But in some quarters judgment was still suspended, and Tennyson was not yet held to have completed the period of probation. So when in 1859 the bust of the Laureate was denied admission to the Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the ground that the honour was premature, _Punch_ printed a satirical "Fragment of an Idyll" in which the poet's detractors were rebuked in his own manner. [Sidenote: _A Wonderful Three-penny-worth_]