MANY of our readers have probably seen in The Nation a notice of the new Shakspere* Society lately formed in England, Germany, and this country. From a notice of the Society sent out by Mr. Furnivall, its founder, we gather a few facts not yet generally known, in the hope that Harvard students may not be backward in appreciating the value of an effort "to do honor to Shakspere, to make out the succession of his plays, and thereby the growth of his mind and art." Mr. Furnivall complains that there are no such students of Shakspere in England as may be found in Germany, and gives as a reason the narrow way in which Englishmen have devoted themselves to the mere text, instead of striving for a comprehensive view, through his plays, of the man Shakspere himself, both in his youth and riper years. To carry on this broader study it is necessary to arrange the plays in true chronological order, which the Society proposes to do by an examination of the gradual change in Shakspere's versification through his life; and, for any one anxious to understand the poet, it cannot fail to be interesting to read the familiar plays under the light thrown on them from time by the papers and discussions of this Society. It is pleasant to know that the founders of the Society do not intend to confine its benefits to the number, necessarily small, of those who make a study of Shakspere occupy a large part of their time, but that the "Society's work is essentially one of popularization; of stirring up the intelligent study of Shakspere among all classes in England and abroad," and for this reason cheap editions of the Society's works are to be published. There is not wanting a good deal of interest in reading Shakspere at Harvard, and it is pleasant to mention a small society in one of the classes last year which met once a week for the study of his plays. It may not, then, be too much to hope that a branch society may be formed here, especially as "to such societies proofs of the papers to be read in London will be sent in advance, so that each branch society can, if it pleases, read at each of its meetings the same paper that is read at the parent society on the same night." In closing we would say that the sum of $6.50 sent to Professor F. J. Child (Honorary Secretary for the United States) entitles any one to membership and the Society's publications for the year, among the first of which will be the first two quartos of Romeo and Juliet, Greenes Groatesworth of Wit, (1596) 'Kind-Harts Dreame' (1593), 'Englandes Mourning' Garment' (1603), Ancient Mysteries, with a Morality, etc.

*This spelling of the great poet's name, which seems so strange at first sight, is that in the only signatures (five in number) which we know to be undoubtedly his.