Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Speeches of George Dawson on Shakespeare
Out of the parlour, all those detestable, mutilated and altered versions of Shakespeare, which were a disgrace to the nation. A mutilated Shakespeare, a Shakespeare made moral according to tattlers and tea drinkers they abhorred and despised, and they were resolved to do what in them lay to set forth his excellences, and so to criticise his works, and so to got'them represented in the proper place for them - the stage - as by degrees to turn out all those base, spurious, and foul alterations, improvements and changes which made our literature disgraceful On that night they invited ladies because for men alone to celebrate the Tercentenary of Shakespeare, would be one of the most um gracious, ungrateful, unthankful and barbarous things possible. If when he was alive William Shakespeare had been invited to an entertainment where there were to be no women, he Would have been the last to come and probably, the first to go away. For among the excellences of his mighty and unfathomable mind, one of the chief was, if women only knew it thoroughly, that this man was their best friend, because he understood them better than any man who ever lived. 'they had reason to mar vel how he knew all the passions of men, but how he knew all the passions and changes of woman's heart passed all under standing, and must remain one of the mysteries which a future world only could clear up. Shakespeare was a man for woman to love. Those who knew him well called him gentle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.