The two articles by Eugene Field which follow here are not to be taken as particularly illuminating examples of his literary art or style.  For those the reader is referred to his collected works; especially those tales and poems published during his lifetime and to “The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac.”  These are given to illustrate the liberties Field took with his living friends and with the verities of literary history.  There was no such book as the “Ten Years of a Song Bird:  Memoirs of a Busy Life,” by Emma Abbott; and “The Discoverer of Shakespeare,” by Franklin H. Head, was equally a creation of Field’s lively fancy.  I reproduce the latter review from the copy which Field cut from the Record and sent in pamphlet form to Mr. Head with the following note: 

DEAR MR. HEAD:  The printers jumbled my review of your essay so fearfully to-day that I make bold to send you the review straightened out in seemly wise.  Now, I shall expect you to send me a copy of the book when it is printed, and then I shall feel amply compensated for the worry which the hotch-potch in the Daily News of this morning has given me.

  Ever sincerely yours,

  EUGENE FIELD. 
  May 21st, 1891.

  WHO DISCOVERED SHAKESPEARE?

Mr. Franklin H. Head is about to publish his scholarly and ingenious essay upon “The Discoverer of Shakespeare.”  Mr. Head is as enthusiastic a Shakespeare student as we have in the West, and his enthusiasm is tempered by a certain reverence which has led him to view with dismay, if not with horror, the exploits of latter-day iconoclasts, who would fain convince the credulous that what has been was not and that he who once wrought never existed.  It was Mr. Head who gave to the world several years ago the charming brochure wherein Shakespeare’s relations and experience with insomnia were so pleasantly set forth, and now the public is to be favored with a second essay, one of greater value to the Shakespearian student, in that it deals directly and intimately and explicitly with the earlier years of the poet’s life.  This essay was read before the Chicago Literary Club several weeks ago, and would doubtless not have been published but for the earnest solicitations of General McClurg, the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, Colonel J.S.  Norton, and other local literary patrons, who recognized Mr. Head’s work as a distinctly valuable contribution to Shakespeariana.  Answering the importunities of these sagacious critics, the author will publish the essay, supplementing it with notes and appendices.

Of the interesting narrative given by Mr. Head, it is our present purpose to make as complete a review as the limits afforded us this morning will allow, and we enter into the task with genuine timidity, for it is no easy thing to give in so small a compass a fair sketch of the tale and the argument which Mr. Head has presented so entertainingly, so elegantly, and so persuasively.