Not all those depositories, it is to be admitted, have yet been fully
explored, and in some of them a more thorough search than has yet been
undertaken may be expected to throw new light on Shakespeare's
biography. Meanwhile, instead of mourning helplessly over the lack of
material for a knowledge of Shakespeare's life, it becomes us to
estimate aright what we have at our command, to study it closely in
the light of the literary history of the epoch, and, while neglecting
no opportunity of bettering our information, to recognise frankly the
activity of the destroying agencies which have been at work from the
outset. Then we shall wonder, not why we know so little, but why we
know so much.
IV
PEPYS AND SHAKESPEARE[14]
[Footnote 14: A paper read at the sixth meeting of the Samuel Pepys
Club, on Thursday, November 30, 1905, and printed in the _Fortnightly
Review_ for January, 1906.]
I
In his capacity of playgoer, as indeed in almost every other capacity,
Pepys presents himself to readers of his naive diary as the
incarnation, or the microcosm, of the average man. No other writer has
pictured with the same lifelike precision and simplicity the average
playgoer's sensations of pleasure or pain.
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