A speaker at the annual dinner of the Royal Society of St. George asked what would Shakespeare think of us for sitting at melodramatic and sentimental moving pictures.

Had movies come in Shakespeare's day
   He'd probably have said, "God wot,
It likes me not, this silent way
   Of dealing with a goodly plot.
But one must move, sirs, with the times.
   I will bethink me of some means
To pack my periods and rhymes
   Into some brief but lurid scenes.
Then let my courage now take arms.
   A pirate picture might I make
Full of excursions and alarms,
   With Raleigh in the lead, or Drake."

Had talkies come in Shakespeare's day
   He'd likely have remarked, "Mine ear
Is sore assaulted by the way
   They thpeak upon the thilver thkreen.
The abthenth of their thibilanth
   Will murder all my lines, my fame.
And yet, methinks, I see a chance
   To make some money at this game.
Alack, that poor posterity
   Shall never know my plays, not one.
And now, to be or not to be....
   What's that?  A million dollars? Done!"

"Den"
Herald, 24 April 1929, p6