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NOTICE OF THE SHAKSPEARE TERCENTEIARY. 
 
 I Communicated by "Wilxiam Reed Deane, to the N. E. Historical and Genealogical 
 Register for April, 1865.] 
 
 Tercentenary Celebration of the Birth of Shakspeare, by the Nefo Eng- 
 land Historic- Genealogical Society at Boston, Mass., April 23, 1864. 
 Boston : Printed for the Society by George C. Eand & Avery. 
 1864. Svo. pp. 71. 
 
 Lowell Shakspeare Memorial. Exercises at the Ter- Centenary Celebration 
 of the Birth of William Shakspeare, April 23, 1864, by the Citizens 
 of Lowell, Mass. Lowell: Stone & Hnse. 1864. Svo. pp. 51. 
 
 The above are the only celebrations on this continent of the Tercentenary of the Birth 
 pf Shakspeare wbose proceedings we have met with in book form. It would seem 
 ,that as time goes on, this universal genius is more and more appreciated. At one period 
 hislight had almost gone out. " The course of thought," says Mr. Clarke, " in regard 
 tp our poet has been like the course of his own brook — falling at one time over rough 
 jebbles and hard critical rocks, but again resuming its sweet and placid course with an 
 ever deepening, ever enlargiijg volume of water. The opinion of the world, under the 
 ■guidance of the greatest thinkers, has tended more and more to this result — that Wil- 
 liam, Shakspeare stands at the summit of human intelligence." 
 
 . . The appreciation of his genius is spreading throughout the world. It is "for aU 
 .tune " and every country. The lines originally applied to the dust of Wickliffe which 
 was cast upon the surface of the little brook called the Swift that runs into the Avon, 
 may well apply to Shakspeare's words as emblematical of their spread into all the coun- 
 tries' and Isuiguages of the world : 
 
 " The Avon to the Severn runs, 
 The Severn to the sea j , . 
 And ShakBpeare*B words shall spread abroad 
 Wide as the waters be." 
 
 "We quote the foUowing from the introduction of the Boston celebration by the 
 New England Historic-Genealogical Society : — 
 
 " At the time Shakspeare wrote, probably the whole number of people who spoke 
 the English Language did not exceed those now speaking it in a single State in our 
 Union ; and nearly all were in that ' little world,' that ' sceptred isle ' of England. 
 This number has increased from about four millions to more than sixty millions. 
 
 " 'In the new world,' says Lord John Russell in his Life of Thomas Moore, 'mil- 
 lions are added every year to those whose government and institutions are American, 
 but whose literature is English ; and in these millions there will be communities holding 
 aloft the literature of England through the ocean of time— who will neither be subject 
 to conquest by a superior state, like the Greeks, nor exposed to the invasion of barba- 
 rians, like the Romans.' " » o, , 
 
 In this country there were celebrations of the Tercentenary of the birth of Shaks- 
 peare in several States in our Union — and one or more were observed on the very 
 borders if not in the lines of our army. On that day there was a German celebration 
 of this anniversary in Philadelphia — a foundation for a monument was laid in New 
 York— there was one or more celebrations at the "West— and one in Norfolk, "Va., by 
 Union men, on what was recently claimed as secession territory, beside the celebrations 
 
at Boston and at Lowell, as the titles of the volumes descriptive of them at the head 
 of this article denote. 
 
 Even in the midst of our present conflict it was appropriate that we should pitch 
 our tents for a day, and pay due homage to Shakspeare, fix his name more indelibly 
 upon our standard, and draw strength, courage and inspiration from his burning words, 
 that we may the more reverently and worthily bear aloft and onward the litera- 
 ture of the language in which he wrote to the countless millions who are to come 
 after us on this great western continent. 
 
 We find the Tercentenary of Shakspeare's birth in Boston recorded in a type and 
 style worthy of the character celebrated, and the addresses there printed. This record 
 will be thus pleasantly preserved, and we doubt not that if some youth of 1864 should 
 have his life lengthened to a Pare with old Thomas, he will find a copy extant on 
 the anniversary a hundred years hence. Twenty-five copies were printed on large and 
 elegant paper, ^nd were eagerly taken by Bibliophilists who are calculating confidently 
 upon a large advance in their value by the next centennial celebration. Eev. Dr. 
 Clarke and Mr. Sheppard had a few copies of their productions printed separately. 
 
 We happen to have learned of the great appreciation of this volume from several 
 sources of high authority. — Rev. Dr. Osgood writes of Mr. Clarke's address: — "It 
 is a gem of thought ;" and William CuUeu Bryant, that it is " one of the ablest and 
 most entertaining things of the kind that I have ever read." Dr.' Clarke is truly poeti- 
 cal and poetically true in his masterly scanning of the intellect and genii^j of Shaks- 
 peare. We would gladly quote largely from his words, but we should hardly know 
 — had we room — where to begin or where to end. We rejoice that the Society were 
 able to celebrate the occasion in so appropriate a manner, and to clothe the words of 
 the authors — Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Mr. Sheppard the Librarian, and Rev. F. 
 W. Holland — with a dress so inviting. 
 
 Lowell, that city of spindles, which has grown up in forty years from a wilder- 
 ness — one of the wonders which Shakspeare's philosophy never dreamt of— also cele- 
 brated the Tercentenary of his birth. The principal address upon that occasion was 
 by Rfev. William S. Bartlet, of Chelsea. Mr. Bartlet was one of the earliest to suggest 
 the celebration of the anniversary in Boston. There is much to commend in his ad- 
 dress. He considers Shakspeare to be almost the creator of the language in which he 
 wrote and which he used with the utmost skilfulness. He dwells upon the wide range 
 cf his observation ; his great versatility ; his identifying himself with his characters ; 
 his strong common sense ; his deep knowledge of human nature'; and upon the 
 facts that the words of no writer have been so incorporated into the English language 
 as those of Shakspeare ; that he delineates the course of events and the experience of 
 individuals with a truthfulness almost startling ; that he is when thoughtfully studied 
 the truest and sternest of all uninspired moralists ; that he never palliates vice or ridi- 
 cules virtue, and that therefore, while our language shall last, Shakspeare must remain 
 unobscujred and immortal. 
 
 The services at Lowell commenced with opening remarks by the President, Hon. 
 Elisha Huntington, singing and prayer, preceding the oration. The festivities of the 
 day were closed by a dinner, toasts and a humorous song or two, and after-dinner 
 speeches by some of its distinguished citizens, several of which are printed in this 
 " Lowell Shakspeare Memorial." 
 
!ERCENTEMRY 
 
 ^ELEBEATION 
 
 d\ nl Sjal^im^^, 
 
 Mew-En^tanb Mistoric-lSencato^ical Soctef^, 
 
 Boston, Mass., April 23, 1864. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRINTED FOH THE SOCIETY, 
 By GEOKGE C. RAND & AVERr, No. 3, CORXHILL. 
 
 MDCCqLXIT. 
 
Py^l^^J] 
 
 " Sbakspeare should be regarded not merely as » wonderful genius, but as a 
 providential man, wbo was sent to do a work for God and humanity in the new 
 and marvellous age that we call modern. Luther opened the Bible; but Sbak- 
 speare unsealed human life, and brought the broad play and inmost mind of its 
 scenes, events, characters, passions, and principles, into full light and air, and did 
 not a little to interpret the Word and Spirit and Kingdom of God to the world." — 
 Speech of liev. Samuel Osgood, D.D., at "The Centv/ry," New -York City. 
 
 26 Copies, Large Paper. 215 Copies, Shall Paper. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the y«ar 1740, one hundred" and twenty-four years after the decease of 
 Shakspeare, a monument was erected to his memory, at the public expense, 
 in Westminster Abbey. The trustees for the public on this occasion were 
 the Earl of Burlington, Dr. Richard Mead, Alexander Pope the poet, and 
 Charles Fleetwood. In 1769, David Garrick instituted a jubilee, in honor of 
 Shakspeare, at Stratford on Avon, — commencing Sept. 6, and lasting three 
 days; during which time, entertainments of oratorios, concerts, pageants, 
 fireworks, &c., were presented to a numerous and brilliant company assembled 
 from all parts of the kiligdom. Previously to this, only a flat stone* and a 
 mural monument had been erected to his memory in the parish church at his 
 native place. At this jubilee, or soon after, Garrick erected a statue of Shak- 
 speare in a niche in the wall of the town-house, facing the street, in Stratford. 
 On the 23d of April, 1816, the Second Centenary of Shakspeare's death 
 was observed in London, when some of the pageants at Garrick's jubUee were 
 
 * The inscription on the plain free-stone slab in the chancel of the parish church 
 over the remains of Shakspeare has been many times printed, and in no work have we 
 seen it correct, except in James Orchard Halliwell's great edition of Shakspeare, where 
 it is engraved. In addition to the erroneous orthography and punctuation, it has, with 
 the above exception, we believe, been distorted by the incorrect admixture of small 
 and large letters. We are now enabled, by the kindness of George Livermore, Esq., 
 of Cambridge, who visited Stratford some years since, and took a rubbing of the 
 inscription, thus obtaining a perfect facsimile^ to furnish an exact copy, correctly punc- 
 tuated. The letters, large and small, single and double, which are all capitals, are 
 here accurately repiesented: — 
 
 Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, 
 to digg tie dvst encloased peare : 
 Bleb's be ^ man ^ spares tes stones, 
 
 and CVRST be he ? MOVES MY BONES . 
 
reproduced, and the ode written by him for that occasion was repeated, in 
 which the great Babd is described by the following lines : — 
 
 " Oh I from his Muse of Are 
 Could but one spark be caught. 
 Then might these humble strains aspire 
 To tell the wonders he has wrought ; ' 
 To tell Bow, Bitting on his throne, 
 Unaided and alone, 
 In dreadful state, 
 The subject Passions wait ! 
 Who, though unchained, and raging there, 
 He checks, inflames, or turns their mad career, 
 
 With that superior skill 
 Which winds the flery steed at will : 
 He gives the awful word, 
 And they, all foaming, trembling, own him for their lord." 
 
 For several months previous to the tercentenary of Shakspeare's birth ( the 
 23d of April, 1864), preparations were making for its observance at Stratford 
 on Avon. A correspondent of one of our newspapers, writing from there 
 in January of the present year, says, " In a little over two months, we shall 
 see Shakspeare's three-hnndredth birthday ; and on that day, or rather for a 
 week, there are to be here a series of festivities, rejoicings, shows, pageants, and 
 literary performances, such as the world has probably never seen on a similar 
 occasion. The object or objects' of this grand ceremonial maybe reckoned 
 under three heads, — honor to the wokld's geeatest poet, means to 
 erect a substnntial monument to his memory, and the rational enjoyment of 
 the living." 
 
 The monument was to be on a more magnificent scale than any heretofore 
 erected. E. T. Flower, Esq., Mayor of Stratford on Avon, who spent his 
 youth in Illinois, and is thoroughly American in sentiment, in answer to a let- 
 ter addressed to him some weeks previously, says, — 
 
 " I quite agree with your remarks upon the estimation in which the works of Hhsik- 
 speare are held in America, and from personal experience I can judge of the great in- 
 terest and feeling shown by Americans in every thing connected with his name and 
 memory; and I know how large la the number who annually visit his birthplace 
 and tomb. ... I imagine, if the subject were taken up by your literary men, it 
 would not only materially aid us in erecting a suitable, nay, a magniUcent memorial, 
 but it would also be a source of the greatest gratification that we were associated in 
 our work with poets of the reputation and genius of Bryant and Longfellow, with 
 
critics and soholarB like Bancroft, E. P. Whipple, Richard Grant White, and H. N. 
 Hudson, and with actors like Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Forrest, all of whom, and 
 many others, have gained for themselves and American literature a European repu- 
 tation." 
 
 At the time Shakspeare wrote, probably all the people who spoke the 
 English language did not exceed in number those now speaking it in a single 
 State in our Union; and nearly all were in that "little world," that "sceptred 
 isle " of England. This number has increased from about four millions to 
 more than sixty millions. 
 
 " In the New World," says Lord John Bussell in his Life of Thomas Moore, " mil- 
 lions are added every year to those whose government and institutions are American, 
 but whose literature is English ; and in these millions there will be communities hold- 
 ing aloft the literature of England through the ocean of time, — who will neither be 
 subject to conquest by a superior State, like the Greeks, nor exposed to the invasion of 
 barbarians, like the Romans." 
 
 In the latter part of January, 1 864, Erederic Kidder, of Boston, a member 
 of the New-England Historic-Genealogical Society, suggested to some other 
 members the propriety of celebrating this anniversary by the Society ; and 
 at an informal meeting held at its rooms, Feb. 6, Mr. Kidder was requested 
 to write Eev. Erederic W. Holland, of Cambridge, upon the subject. In 
 Mr. Holland's reply of Eeb. 10, he urged the observance of the day. 
 
 About the same time, Rev. William S. Bartlet of Chelsea, another mem- 
 ber, who was unaware of Mr. Kidder's suggestion, spoke to several other 
 members on the subject, and expressed a strong desire to have the day 
 observed. At the monthly meeting of the directors, Tuesday, March 1, the 
 subject was brought before that Board by John Ward Dean, chairman pro 
 tempore ; and the next day, at the monthly meeting of the Society, Eev. Mr. 
 Bartlet introduced it by the following remarks : — 
 
 "Mk. Pkesident, — With your permission, I intend to bring before this meetinga 
 matter which I believe to be of interest to this Society. It is known to us all that the 
 three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Shakspeare takes place on the 23d day of 
 April of the current year. It is understood that appropriate notice of this event will 
 be taken in England. But I have yet to learn that any measures. have been inaugu- 
 rated in this country for the celebr.ition of that day. Should it T)e suffered to pass by 
 without something being done by way of commemoration in this Western World, the 
 neglect cannot fall, in my opinion, to cause us disgrace. 
 
 " England was, it is true, the birthplace of the greatest writer in our language ; but he 
 belongs to us as much as to the land of his nativity. There are probably fifty readers 
 
6 
 
 of liim in the United States to one reader in Great Britain. I have been Informed by 
 a bookseller, that he has frequently sold new copies of Shakspeare's works for one 
 dollar and twenty five cents each. Does any one suppose that this book has ever been 
 on sale in England at five or six shillings sterling ? 
 
 " The question very naturally arises, Whose business is it to provide for the celebra- 
 tion suggested ? 
 
 " Boston has long claimed to be the literary emporium, the Athens, of America. 
 There are now, as there always have been, among us, scientific and literary men, 
 poets (perhaps), poetasters certainly, who in their own estimation, and that of their 
 friends, are deserving of high honor. One would think that some of these would 
 move in the matter. Veneration for the mighty dead, a deep appreciation of his 
 matchless powers, gratitude for what they have learned from him, and even an esprit du 
 corps, would, we should suppose, have prompted them to take measures that the birth- 
 day of Shakspeare should not pass unnoticed. But, as yet, all is still in that quarter. 
 Perhaps it is as well. Should some of them attempt to commemorate him in song, 
 the words which the object of their rhyme puts into the mouth of one of his charac- 
 ters might be applicable : — 
 
 * 1 had rather be a kitten, and cry " Mew I " 
 Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers i 
 I had rather hear a brazen car. stick turned, 
 Or a dry wheel grate on an axletree ; 
 And that wonld set my teeth nothing on edge. 
 Nothing so much as mincing poerry : 
 'Tis like the forced gate of a shufBing nag.* 
 
 " If, then, those upon whom it might seem to be incumbent to do this will not move, I 
 would suggest that this Society should do something. Our title indicates the objects 
 of our labors to be history and genealogy. Both of these are so closely connected with 
 English antecedents, that we cannot separate them if we would. English history is 
 our history till within less than two hundred and fifty years; it is measurably our his- 
 tory till within less than a century ; and even now we have no small sympathy in the 
 public movements of our father-land. Our genealogy, however much it has become 
 spread out over this "boundless continent," finds its source on English territory. 
 Shakspeare lived in an age when maritime discovery was active. One of his warmest 
 triends and most munificent benefactors was that Earl of Southampton whose name 
 appears in one of the 'early patents of the rejfion in which we dwell. The poet's 
 works are marked by mention of places discovered in his time, and are illustrated by 
 tales brought home by eai'ly American voyagers. 
 
 " These acts, and others which might be named, seem to render it proper that this 
 Society should celebrate in some way the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth ; 
 and should it so happen that ours should be the only celebration, of this event in 
 America, or even in New England, it will redound much to the credit of this Society, 
 and be a pleasant thing in our annals for posterity to read. 
 
'* On account of personal reasons, Mr. President, I submit no motion, but would beg 
 leave to suggest that a committee be raised at this meeting, with full powers to make 
 the necessary arrangements for the celebration wliioh has been spoken of." 
 
 Remarks by other members were made ; after which it was voted to refer 
 the matter to the Board of Directors, with full power to act. A meeting of the 
 Board was held the following afternoon, to which time the regular meet- 
 ing was adjourned for further consideration of this subject, when it was voted 
 to observe the day ; and an invitation was extended to Rev. James Freeman 
 Clarke, D.D., of Boston, to deliver an address on the occasion. A committee 
 of arrangements was also appointed, to whom the details were committed, 
 who afterwards invited Mr. Sheppard the Librarian, and Rev. Mr. Holland, to 
 take part in the exercises. The committee, judging that the celebration might 
 properly be held in the State Capitol, applied to the House of Representatives, 
 then in session, for the use of their hall, which was readily granted. They 
 afterwards issued the following invitation to persons known to be interested in 
 the subject, besides giving a public invitation in the papers of the day; — 
 
 " He ioas not of an age, but for all time." 
 
 The Nbw-England Historio-Genbalogioal SocietV will observe the ter- 
 centenary of Shakspeare's birth on Saturday, April 23, In the hall of the House of 
 Representatives, at the State House. An Address will be delivered by Eev. James 
 Freeman Clarke, D.D., followed by an original Ode, and remarks from other gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 The hall will be open at half-past two o'clock, and the exercises will commence at 
 precisely three o'clock, p.m. You are solicited to be present, with such friends — 
 ladies or gentlemen — as you may be inclined to invite. 
 
 WiNSLOW Lewis, 1 
 
 Wm. B. Towne, j 
 
 Caleb Davis Bkadlee, }. Committee. 
 Frederic Kidder, I 
 
 Wm. R. Deane, J 
 
 BOSTON, April 18, 1864. 
 
 In af cordance with the foregoing arrangements, on the afternoon of the 23d 
 the hall was filled with a distinguished and brilliant audience. The exercises 
 commenced punctually at the hour named. Winslow Lewis, M.D., President 
 of the Society, and Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, called the 
 meeting to order, and stated that he was gratified to announce that the Society 
 was honored by the presence of one of its most distinguished members, — the 
 
Governor of the Commonwealth. "You all know," continued Dr. Lewis, 
 " his readiness to do any required act of kindness to all. I therefore cordially 
 invite him to assume the chair, and thereby confer upon me a great personal 
 obligation, and on the Society the prestige of his eminent social position and 
 excellence." 
 
 Hon. John Albion Andrew, LL.D., Governor of Massachusetts, then took 
 the chair, remarking that he had to assume easy and simple duties ; namely, 
 to introduce the gentlemen whose addresses, and the gentleman whose ode, 
 would form the attractions of the day. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Bt Rev. James Feeeman Ciaeke, D. D. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 We meet to-day, my friends, as members of the great 
 family which speaks the Enghsh tongue, to commem- 
 orate the three-hundredth birthday of the man who, 
 in pure intellect, stands at the head of the human 
 race. But how little do we know of Shakspeare, ex- 
 cept in his works! We do not know how to spell 
 his name correctly. We cannot tell the day he was 
 born, but are obliged to assume this on probable 
 grounds. Whether he went to school, or not, is un- 
 certain. The business of his father is uncertain. His 
 life, till he was married, is a blank. After that date, 
 we only know that he had three children ; that he 
 went to London, became an actor, then a writer of 
 plays, then a joint proprietor of the theatre ; that he 
 was comparatively wealthy ; returned to Stratford, 
 and died at the age of fifty-two. 
 
 If, therefore, it should be thought desirable, by 
 the critics of the twentieth century, to treat Shak- 
 speare as critics have treated Homer, Moses, and 
 Christ, and deny his existence, they have an excellent 
 opportunity and ample means for their destructive 
 analysis. As they have proved to their satisfaction 
 that the books of Moses are composed of innumerable 
 
12 
 
 independent historical fragments carefully joined to- 
 gether, and so are a Mosaic work only in the artistic 
 sense ; as they have taken away Homer, and left in 
 his place a company of anonymous ballad-singers, 
 so that we are able to settle the dispute between 
 the seven cities which claimed to be his birthplace 
 by giving them a Homer apiece, and having several 
 Homers left; as these able chemical critics have 
 analyzed the Gospels, reducing them to their ele- 
 ments of legend, myth, and falsehood, with the 
 smallest residuum of actual history : so, much more 
 easily, can they dispose of the historic Shakspeare. 
 
 See, for example, how they might proceed. They 
 might say, " How can Shakspeare have been a real 
 person, when his very name is spelt at least in two 
 different ways, in manuscripts professing to be his 
 own autograph ; and when it is found in the manu- 
 scripts of the period spelt in every form, and with 
 every combination of letters which express its sound 
 or the semblance thereof? One writer of his time 
 calls him ' Shake-scene ; ' showing plainly the mythical 
 origin of the word. He is said to have married, at 
 eighteen, a woman of twenty-six, — which is not 
 likely ; and her name also has a mythical character, 
 — 'Anne Hathaway,' — and was probably derived 
 from a Shakspeare song addressed to a lady named 
 Anne, the first line of which is ' Anne hath a way, 
 Anne hath a way.' If he were a real person, living 
 in London in the midst of writers, poets, actors, and 
 eminent men, is it credible that no allusion should 
 be made to him by most of them ? He was contem- 
 porary with Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, 
 
IS 
 
 Lord Bacon, Coke, Cecil Lord Burleigh, Hooker, 
 Queen Elizabeth, Henry IV. of France, Montaigne, 
 Tasso, Cervantes, Galileo, Grotius; and not one of 
 these, though so many of them were voluminous 
 writers, refers to any such person, and no allusion to 
 any of them appears in all his plays. He is referred 
 to, to be sure, with excessive admiration, by the 
 group of play-writers among whom he is supposed 
 to move ; but as there is not, in all his works, the 
 least allusion in return to any of them, we may pre- 
 sume that the name Shakspeare was a sort of nom 
 de plume to which was referred all anonymous plays. 
 If such a man existed, why did not others, out of this 
 circle, say something about his circumstances and 
 life ? Milton was eight years old when Shakspeare 
 died, and might have seen him, as he t6ok pains to 
 go and see Galileo, who was born in the same year 
 with Shakspeare. Oliver Cromwell was seventeen 
 years old when Shakspeare died ; Descartes, twenty 
 years old ; Rubens, the artist, thirty-nine years old. 
 None of them have heard of him ; though Rubens 
 resided in England, and painted numerous portraits 
 there. Spenser, it is true, has two stanzas, in one of 
 his poems, that seem undoubtedly to refer to this 
 mythological person : — 
 
 ' He, the man whom Nature's self had made 
 To mock herself, and Truth to imitate. 
 With kindly counter under mimick shade, — 
 Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late ; 
 With whom all joy and jolly merriment 
 Is also deaded, and in dolour drent.' 
 
 But this only proves more clearly the mythical 
 
14 
 
 character of Shakspeare ; since the poem, in which 
 he is said to be 'lately dead/ was published by Spen- 
 ser in 1591, when Shakspeare is stated to have been 
 twenty-seven, — twenty-five years before the date 
 given for his death. The believers in a personal 
 Shakspeare say, indeed, that Spenser means that he 
 is dead to literature, having left off writing; and 
 quote the following stanza to support this view, in 
 which Spenser thus continues : — 
 
 ' But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen 
 Large streams of honey anij sweet nectar flow, 
 Scorning the boldness of such base-born men 
 Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw, 
 Doth rather choose io sit in idle cell, 
 Than so himself to mockery to sell.' 
 
 But, unfortunately for this theory, so far from leaving 
 off writing, Shakspeare had hardly begun to write 
 th«n, and did not print his first work till two years 
 after." 
 
 In this way, the critic might argue to prove the 
 non-existence of any personal Shakspeare. He might 
 add, that there is something quite suspicious in his 
 being said to have been born and to have died on 
 the same day of the month, — April 23 ; and in the 
 fact that Cervantes was said to die the same day as 
 Shakspeare, — April 23,1616; and Michael Angelo 
 in the same year. The year of his birth, he might 
 add, seems to have some mythical significance ; . since 
 Calvin is said to have died, and Galileo to have been 
 born, each in 1564. The critic might add, that many 
 great events occurred in his supposed lifetime, to 
 none of which he has alluded, — as the battle of Le- 
 
15 
 
 panto ; the Bartholomew Massacre ; the defeat of 
 the Spanish Armada ; the first circumnavigation of the 
 world ; the Gunpowder Plot ; the deliverance of Hol- 
 land from Spain; the invention of the telescope, 
 and the discoveiy thereby of Jupiter's satellites. In 
 an era of great controversy between the Roman and 
 Protestant religions, no one can tell from his works 
 whether he was Catholic or Protestant. "Unlike 
 Dante, Milton, and Goethe, he left no trace on the 
 political or even social life of his time." And, finally, 
 our twentieth-century critic may say, that already, 
 in 1857, an American writer (Miss Delia Bacon) pub- 
 lished a book to show that Shakspeare's plays were 
 not written by Shakspeare, but by Lord Bacon. 
 
 So little has been learned in the last three centu- 
 ries concerning this miracle of the human mind. A 
 whole pack of Shakspeare scholars have been on his 
 track with the sagacity and perseverance of sleuth 
 hounds. Every trace of Shakspeare has been exam- 
 ined with microscopic care ; every muniment>-room, 
 with its mound of musty paper, has been dug over and 
 sifted, as men sift the sands of Australian rivers in 
 search of gold ; and with what result ? Two or three 
 autographs of his name, spelt in two or three differ- 
 ent ways, and half a dozen allusions to him by his 
 contemporaries. It has been discovered that his father 
 was named John, and was either a glover, a farmer, a 
 butcher, or a dealer in wool ; that his father married 
 a daughter of the gentry, — Mary Arden, — and lost 
 his property in his latter days ; that there is good 
 reason for thinking that Shakspeare himself was well 
 acquainted with Latin, Greek, Italian, and French ; 
 
16 
 
 good reason also for thinking that he was not. The 
 story of his stealing the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy is 
 believed by Richard Grant White ; who, however, says 
 that " we know nothing positively of Shakspeare from 
 his birth till his marriage ; and, from that date, noth- 
 ing until we find him an actor in London about the 
 year 1589, he being then twenty-five years of age. 
 Here he became actor, afterwards dramatic writer, 
 and finally also proprietor of one of the theatres. 
 The success of his plays was immediate and great : 
 they filled the theatres, — ' cockpit, galleries, boxes,' 
 says a contemporary. In 1597, when thirty-three 
 years old, he was able to purchase the finest house 
 in Stratford ; and, in the same year, invested in the 
 securities of his town a sum equal to about thirteen 
 thousand dollars." * Nothing is known of his inter- 
 
 * " But Shakspeare continued to hold his property in the theatre. In 1608, 
 the corporation of London again attempted to interfere with the actors of the 
 Blackfriars ; anil, there being little chance of ejecting them despotically,' a ne- 
 gotiation was sot on foot for the purchase of their property. A document 
 found by Mr. Collier amongst the Egerton Papers at once determined Shak^ 
 speare's position in regard to his theatrical proprietorship. It is a valuation, 
 containing the following item : — 
 
 "'Item. — W. Shakspeare asketh, for the wardrobe and properties of the 
 same playhouse, £500 : and for his four shares, the same as his fellows Burbidge 
 and Fletcher; viz., £933. 6s. Sd, — £1,433. 6s. 8d.' 
 
 " With this document was found another, unquestionably the most interest- 
 ing paper ever pulilished relating to Shakspeare. It is a letter from Lord South- 
 ampton to Lord EUesmere, the lord-chancellor; and it contains the following 
 passage : — 
 
 " ' These bearers are two of the chief of the company : one of them by name 
 Richard Burbidge, who humbly sueth for your lordship's kind help ; for that 
 he is a man famous as our English Roscius, one who iitteth the action to the 
 word, and the word to the action, most admirably. By the exercise of his 
 quality, industry, and good behavior, he hath become possessed of the Black- 
 friars Playhouse, which hath been employed for plays since it was built by his 
 father, now near fifty years ago. The other is a man no whit less deserving 
 
17 
 
 course with actors, or men of letters, except the 
 admiration expressed for him by Ben Jonson, the 
 praise of Chettle, and a few vague rumors. He 
 gave up the stage about 1604, when forty years 
 old, and returned to Stratford to live when about 
 forty-six. He was said to have been " a handsome, 
 well-shaped man." From all the portraits, and the 
 bust, it is evident that his head, like those of Homer, 
 Plato, Napoleon, and Goethe, was fully developed, 
 and a fit dome of thought; probably the noblest head, 
 in its shape, of which we have any artistic record. 
 
 But, though the Shakspeare scholars do not furnish 
 us with much beside this " tombstone information," 
 they have helped us to form a picture of his life by 
 showing the character of the times. 
 
 Shakspeare lived in that period known as the Re- 
 naissance, — the new birth of the human intellect. 
 The great wave of mental hfe which rolled over Italy 
 in the previous century at last reached the shores of 
 England. Europe had discovered that there was 
 
 favor, and my especiar friend, till of late an actor of good account in the com- 
 pany, now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of our best English plays, 
 which, as your lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Queen Eliza- ■ 
 beth, when the company was called upon to perform before her majesty at 
 court at Christmas and Shrovetide. 
 
 '"His most gracious majesty King James also, since his coming to the 
 crown, hath extended his royal favor to the company in divers ways and at 
 sundry times. 
 
 " ' This other hath to name William Shakspeare : and they are both of one 
 county, and indeed almost of one town ; both are right famous in their quali- 
 ties, though it longeth not to your lordship's gravity and wisdom to resort unto 
 the places where they are wont to delight the public ear. Their trust and suit 
 now is, not to be molested in thoir way of life whereby they maintain them- 
 selves and their wives and families (beingboth married and of good reputation), 
 as well as the widows and orphans of some of their dead fellows.' " — Knight's 
 English Cijdopmdia, art. "Shakspeare." 
 3 
 
18 
 
 knowledge outside of the Church formulas. The lii> 
 eratures of Greece and Rome had been unlocked ; 
 and, instead of a barren theology and a dead philos- 
 ophy, the intellect of ihankind bathed in the pure 
 waters of Hellenic and Latin knowledge. It was the 
 fashion with all men and women to read Homer and 
 Plato, Sophocles and Euripides, Virgil and Tacitus and 
 Cicero. In England, at this time, the drama was the 
 vehicle of instruction and entertainment. It took 
 the place now occupied by newspaper and novel. 
 The land swarmed with strolling players. Every 
 great nobleman had his private company of actors. 
 In London, in spite of the opposition of the corpora- 
 tion and the Puritans, several theatres had been 
 opened. Fourteen of them we find existing at the 
 same time, in and near London, during Shakspeare's 
 life. They were named the Theatre, the Curtain-, 
 the Globe, Blackfriars, Paris Garden, Whitefriars, 
 Salisbury Court, the Fortune, the Rose, Hope, the 
 Swan, Newington, the Red Bull, Cockpit, and Phenix. 
 The top was open to the sun and rain : the people 
 stood in the pit, and sat on benches in the rooms and 
 boxes, and also on the stage itself There were few 
 properties, and little scenery : sometimes they had to 
 hang up a placard, on which was written, in large 
 letters, "A Castle," "A Country House," "A Temple," 
 " A Ship ; " and the audience were thus requested to 
 imagine themselves in presence of these objects. 
 The dining-hour in London being twelve, the plays 
 began at three, and lasted two hours : admission at 
 first, a penny ; by and by, sixpence. Those who sat 
 on the stage had a three-legged stool, and paid a shil- 
 
19 
 
 ling. The rage for new plays was great. Every 
 theatre had some authors at work, writing new plays : 
 they wrote sometimes as many as a hundred. Thomas 
 Heywood says he wrote part or the whole of two 
 hundred and twenty. Philip Henslowe, whose diary 
 has been recently discovered, a proprietor or manager 
 of one of the theatres, states that he purchased a 
 hundred and i;en new plays between 1591 and 1597 ; 
 and, in the next five years, a hundred and sixty 
 more. People wanted a new play then, just as they 
 now wish for a fresh newspaper or novel: the old 
 ones did for yesterday ; but others are needed to-day. 
 The prices paid for them varied from five pounds to 
 twelve. Before 1600, eight pounds was the highest ; 
 which would be equal to about two hundred and fifty 
 dollars at this time. When plays had been thus pur- 
 chased, they became the property of the theatre, and 
 the authors abandoned all care of them. As there 
 was no copyright to be had, the theatre could only 
 keep them by not printing them. Even then, they 
 were sometimes printed by emissaries from rival 
 theatres, who " copied by the ear." Thomas Heywood 
 says, " Though some have used a double sale of their 
 labors, — first to the stage, and after to the press, — 
 I here proclaim myself faithful to the first, and never 
 guilty of the last." 
 
 We see how it was that Shakspeare did not print 
 his plays himself in his lifetime. It was not because 
 of any ostrich-like indifference to them, but simply 
 that they did not belong to him. He had sold them 
 to the theatre. We see also one reason of the cor- 
 ruptions of the text, — many of them had been 
 
20 
 
 pirated, and were printed from copies taken by the 
 ear, and, as Heywood says of his, were " so corrupt 
 and mangled, that I have been as unable to know 
 them as ashamed to challenge them." 
 
 That Shakspeare knew the worth of his plays, we 
 cannot doubt. He must have been intensely conscious 
 of their vast superiority. But literary fame, in the 
 common sense, they did not bring at first. His liter- 
 ary works were " Venus and Adonis " and " Lucrece." 
 Plays, as yet, had not become a part of literature. 
 After this, Ben Jonson was universally ridiculed for 
 calling a collection of his dramas his "Works." 
 When genius flows into any new channel, and appears 
 in a new form, it takes some half-century before it 
 can be recognized. But at last its day comes, very 
 certainly and inevitably, though very mysteriously ; 
 and the world learns to love a great poet, much as 
 Shakspeare himself describes the growth of a youth- 
 ful affection : — 
 
 " The idea of his life shall sweetly creep 
 Into its study of imagination ; 
 And every lovely organ of his mind 
 Shall come apparelled in more precious habit, 
 More moving, delicate, and full of life, 
 Into the eye and prospect of its soul." 
 
 In this deficiency of information concerning the 
 life of the great Poet of Humanity, recourse has been 
 had to his sonnets, which have been supposed to be 
 a journal of his inmost soul. Some persons, indeed, 
 think these wonderful poems to be the mere play of 
 fancy ; but others believe them to be, as Wordsworth 
 
21 
 
 says, " the key with which he unlocked his heart." 
 There can be no doubt that the last view is the 
 true one. It has been no unusual thing for poets 
 to put their deepest life into their poems, and keep a 
 private journal in verse. Horace says of Lucilius, 
 " that he committed the secrets of his soul to his 
 books, as to faithful friends ; going to confide in them 
 his joy and his grief: so that the whole life of the 
 old man appears painted in his poems as in votive 
 pictures." Goethe also says of himself, that, " in 
 prose, no one willingly confesses himself; but in 
 poetry we trust ourself sub rosd, as in a true confes- 
 sional. 
 
 Youthful grief and riper wrong 
 
 In my stanzas echo long : 
 
 Joy and pain both turn to song." 
 
 So, when we read these sonnets, we seem to stand 
 by the door of the confessional, and listen to the 
 most secret secrets of the heart of Shakspeare. 
 These mysteries are veiled in a language so wonder- 
 fully delicate, that it at once tells all, and tells noth- 
 ing. Shakspeare, so wholly objective in his dramas ; 
 with such absolute impersonality passing into one and 
 another of his characters ; so impartial, so inclusive, 
 giving every side of life its due ; ranging through 
 such a compass of notes, from the deep organ diapa- 
 son of " King Lear " to the wild melody of " The 
 Tempest " and airy carols of the " Midsummer Night's 
 Dream," — here, in his sonnets, comes to himself ; is 
 all personality ; is wholly subjective. As no writer 
 who ever lived left himself so entirely out of his 
 
22 
 
 works as Shakspeare does in his plays, so no writer 
 ever gave us himself so purely and personally as 
 Shakspeare does in his sonnets. 
 
 In saying this, we have not forgotten the son- 
 nets of Petrarch. The difference between these 
 and Shakspeare's comes from the circumstance, that 
 Petrarch's give us the picture of a lover possessed 
 by his love. It is the agitated surface of a mind 
 swept by winter storms of passion, or sleeping in the 
 summer calms of purely emotional repose. But from 
 how much deeper a depth does the life of Shakspeare 
 flow into his ! It is not passion, but active devotion. 
 It is love, so purified by truth from merely selfish 
 emotion, that it might be felt by one angel in 
 heaven for another. Somehow it is perfectly real 
 yet ideal too. It seeks no earthly gratification ; it 
 does not try to seize and hold its object : there is no 
 jealous monopoly in it, no self-delusion. He sees all 
 the faults of his friend ; he tells him of his vices. 
 His love does not claim any return : it is sufficient 
 for itself We may all agree with Mr. Alger, in the 
 view expressed by him in his recent admirable arti- 
 cles in the " Christian Examiner," that these sonnets 
 mainly describe the friendship of Shakspeare for a 
 noble and wonderful young man, — perhaps William 
 Herbert, or perhaps the Earl of Southampton. Some 
 lines of Ben Jonson describe well the character of 
 this friendship of Shakspeare : — ' 
 
 " 'Tis not a passion's first access, 
 Ready to multiply; 
 But, like Love's calmest state, it is 
 Possessed with victory : 
 
23 
 
 It is like Love to truth reduced, 
 
 All the false values gone i 
 
 Which were created or induced 
 By fond imagination." 
 
 Such a friendship has not been often known : and 
 yet something like it was felt by Goethe and Schiller ; 
 and, in our time, we have almost a parallel to the 
 hundred and twenty-six sonnets addressed by Shak- 
 speare to his boy-friend in the hundred and twenty- 
 nine poems addressed by Tennyson to his lost friend, 
 Arthur Hallam. Allowing for the difference of times 
 and customs, the tone and spirit of these two collec- 
 tions are strikingly the same. 
 
 The history of opinion in regard to Shakspeare 
 is one of the most interesting records of the progress 
 of human ideas. He stands in the flowing current 
 of thought, as the NHometer in the Nile ; and the 
 level of taste and intelligence at any time is shown 
 by its relation to him. As far up as it reaches on 
 the mind of Shakspeare, so high is the rise of human 
 thought. In his own day, he was the most popular 
 of writers. " The common people heard him gladly." 
 Whenever his plays were performed, the Globe 
 Theatre was full, — in the pit, box-rooms, galleries. 
 But the literary men, though they loved him, rather 
 treated him de haut en has. His immense popularity 
 with the people they could not ignore : and Meres, 
 in 1598, -^hen Shakspeare was thirty-six years old, 
 mentions twelve of his plays by name; compares 
 him with Ovid ; calls him " honey-tongued Shak- 
 speare ; " speaks of " his sugared sonnets among his 
 private friends;" and concludes, that, if the Muses 
 
24 
 
 spoke English, they would use his "fine-filed phrase."* 
 A letter of the Earl of Southampton to Lord EUes- 
 mere, found among the Egerton Papers, calls him 
 "my especial friend," "late an actor of good ac- 
 count," " now a sharer in the company," and " writer 
 of some of our best English plays, which, as your 
 lordship knoweth, were singularly liked of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and also his most gracious majesty King 
 James." That King James liked Shakspeare was 
 then counted to Shakspeare's honor : now it is a 
 great thing for King James, and saves him. from 
 being thought only a pedant. Always those who 
 believed they were judging Shakspeare, were, in 
 fact, only judging themselves. 
 
 In truth, these plays were not thought at first to be- 
 long to literature at all. The drama, in England, was 
 a newly created form of art. Now, every new form 
 
 * "As the Greek tongue is made famous and eloquent by Homer, Hesiod, 
 Euripides, JEschylus, Sopliocles, Pindarus, Phocylidcs, and Aristophanes; 
 and the Latin tongue by Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Silius Italicus, Lucanus, Lu- 
 cretius, Ansonius, and Claudianus : so the English tongue is mightily en- 
 riched, and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and resplendent habiliments, 
 by Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakspeare, Marlow, 
 and Chapman. 
 
 " As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the 
 sweet, witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspeare : 
 witness his ' Venus and Adouis,' his ' Lucrece,' his sugared sonnets among 
 his private friends, &c. 
 
 " As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy 
 among the Latins ; so Shakspeare, among the English, is the most excellent 
 in both kinds for tlie stage : for comedy, witness his ' Gentlemen of Verona,' 
 his ' Errors,' his ' Love's Labor's Lost,' his ' Love's Labor's Won,' his 
 ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' and his ' Merchant of Venice ; ' for tragedy, 
 his ' Richard II,,' ' Richard III.,' ' Henry IV.,' ' King John,' ' Titus Androni- 
 cus,' and his ' Romeo and Juliet.' 
 
 " As Epius Stola said that the Muses would speak with Plautus's tongue if 
 they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would speak with Shak- 
 speare's fine-flled phrase if they would speak English." 
 
25 
 
 of art is first enjoyed without being admired ; after- 
 ward it is admired without being enjoyed. It comes 
 up to meet a popular desire or a real want ; comes 
 to be used, not to be looked at. Literary criticism 
 has not reached it; considers it, in fact, below its 
 level. Shakspeare himself appears to have thought 
 his " Venus and Adonis " and " Lucrece " his firsi> 
 written literary works ; though, when these were 
 published, he had already composed many of his 
 dramatic master -pieces. So Shakspeare's contem- 
 poraries loved him very tenderly, — " this side idola- 
 try," says Ben Jonson. They called him " pleasant 
 Willy" and other endearing epithets. They very 
 much enjoyed his plays ; but as works of art — no, 
 they were too irregular for that. 
 
 So, all through the next century, Shakspeare was 
 regarded as a wild, irregular genius, — very agreea- 
 ble, but not very authentic in a literary point of 
 view. Even Milton's best allusion to him says, — 
 
 " Sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, 
 Warbles his native wood-notes wild'' 
 
 William Bosse, in 1621, requests Spenser, Chaucer, 
 and Beaumont to lie a little nearer to each other in 
 their graves, to make room for the " rare tragedian, 
 Shakspeare." And, in the same style, Holland and 
 Digges and Jasper Mayne, Davenant and Shirley, and 
 the hke, eulogize his wild fancy and irregular genius ; 
 till good Dr. Johnson comes, and gives us the picture 
 of " Time " toiling after him, and losing Ms breath 
 trying to overtake him. Pope informs us that Shak- 
 speare wrote for gain, and " became immortal in his 
 
26 
 
 own despite." Gray calls him "Nature's darling." 
 Churchill says that "a noble wildness flashes from 
 his eyes;" till at last Voltaire arrives, and gives us 
 the iiUimalwn of this sort of criticism in his famous 
 account of Hamlet : — 
 
 " It is a gross and barbarous piece, which would not be 
 endured by the vilest populace of France or Italy. Ham- 
 let goes crazy in the second act; his mistress goes crazy 
 in the third. The prince kills the father of his mistress, 
 pretending to kill a rat. They dig a grave on the , stage. 
 The grave-diggers say abominably gross things, holding 
 the skulls of the dead in their hands. Hamlet rephes in 
 answers no less disgusting and silly than theirs. During 
 this time, Poland is conquered by one of the actors. 
 Hamlet, his mother and father-in-law, drink together on the 
 stage : they sing, quarrel, fight, and kill each other. One 
 would think this play the work of the imagination of a 
 drunken savage." 
 
 Shakspeare may be said to have been rediscovered 
 in Germany, — first by Lessing, afterward by Goethe 
 and his friends. Gervinus, whose work, lately trans- 
 lated, gives us the whole literature of the matter in 
 two large volumes of exhaustive criticism, says that 
 Lessing was the man who first valued Shakspeare 
 according to his true desert, and Goethe the first 
 who gave an example of the true method of criti- 
 cism. Then Schlegel and Tieck in Germany, Cole- 
 ridge and Lamb in England, assisted in the re- 
 habilitation of Shakspeare. They proved that he 
 was as much of an artist as of a genius ; that he is 
 as full of wisdom as 'of fancy; that his supposed 
 faults are often his greatest merits ; and that no one 
 
27 
 
 is quite great enough yet fully to know him. Take 
 an example, from Coleridge, of this generous style of 
 viewing our poet : — 
 
 " Read ' Romeo and Juliet:' all is youth and spring, — 
 youth with its follies, its virtues, its precipitancies ; spring 
 with its odors, its flowers, and its transiency : it is one 
 and the same feeling that commences, goes through, and 
 ends the play. The old men, the Capulets and the Mon- 
 tagues, are not common old men : they have an eagerness, 
 a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of spring. With 
 Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and 
 his rash death, are all the effects of youth ; whilst, in Juliet, 
 love has all that is tender and melancholy in the nightin- 
 gale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is 
 sweet in the freshness of spring : but it ends with a long, 
 deep sigh, like the last breeze of an Italian evening. This 
 unity of feeling and character pervades every drama of 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 " It seems to me that his plays are distinguished from 
 those of all other dramatic poets by the following charac- 
 teristics : — 
 
 " 1st, Expectation in preference to surprise. It is like 
 the true reading of the passage : ' God said. Let there be 
 light, and there was light; ' not, there was light. As the 
 feeling with which we startle at a shooting-star, compared 
 with that of watching the siinrise at the pre-established 
 moment, such, and so low, is surprise compared with ex- 
 pectation. 
 
 " 2d, Signal adherence to the great law of Nature, that 
 all opposites tend to attract and temper each other. Pas- 
 sion in Shakspeare generally displays libertinism, but in- 
 volves morality. 
 
 " And so it is in Polonius, who is the personified memory 
 of wisdom no longer actually possessed. 
 
 "3d, Keeping at all times in the high road of hfe. 
 
28 
 
 Shakspeare has no innocent adulteries, no interesting in- 
 cests, no virtuous vice : he never renders that amiable 
 which religion and reason alike teach us to detest; or 
 clothes impurity in the garb of virtue, like Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, the Kotzebues of the day. 
 
 " 4th, Independence of the dramatic interest in the plot. 
 The interest in the plot is always, in fact, on account of the 
 characters, not vice versd as in almost all other writers : the 
 plot is a mere canvas, and no more. 
 
 " 5th, Independence of the interest on the story as the 
 groundwork of the plot. Hence Shakspeare never took 
 the trouble of inventing stories : it was enough for him to 
 select from those that had been already invented. 
 
 " 6th, Interfusion of the lyrical — that which, in its very 
 essence, is poetical — not only with the dramatic, as in the 
 plays of Metastasio, — where, at the end of the scene, 
 comes the aria as the exit speech of the character, — but 
 also in and through the dramatic. 
 
 " 7th, The characters of the dramatis personce, like those 
 in real life, are to be inferred by the reader: they are not 
 told to him. 
 
 "Lastly, In Shakspeare the heterogeneous is united; as 
 it is in nature." 
 
 The effect on literature of this new-6orn love for 
 Shakspeare was most beneficial. The dead, dry liter- 
 ature of the eighteenth century came to life when 
 the body of Shakspeare touched it, as the corpse 
 revived, and stood on its feet, when it touched the 
 bones of Elisha. Thus the course of thought in re- 
 gard to our poet has been like the course of his own 
 brook, — falling at one time over rough pebbles antl 
 hard critical rocks, but again resuming its sweet and 
 placid course with an ever-deepening, ever-enlarging 
 volume of water : — 
 
29 
 
 '' The current that with gentle murmur glides, 
 Thou knowest, being stopt, impatiently doth rage ; 
 But, when his fair course is not hindered, 
 He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones, 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 Ho overtaketh in his pilgrimage : 
 And so, by many winding nooks, he strays; 
 With willing course, to the wild ocean." 
 
 So the opinion of the world, under the guidance of 
 the greatest thinkers, has tended more and more to 
 this result, — that William Shakspeare stands at the 
 summit of human intelligence ; that of all mankind, 
 since creation, his is the supreme intellect. But, if 
 so, this conclusion follows, — that the imagination is 
 the highest intellectual faculty ; for, in him, all others 
 were subordinate to that. That power of creation, 
 almost divine, which most likens man to God, was 
 supreme in him. Compare him with other thinkers ; 
 with great metaphysicians, like Plato, Aristotle, Des- 
 cartes, Spinoza, Bacon ; and how poor does their analy- 
 sis seem by the side of his majestic synthesis ! They 
 can take a man to pieces : he can create new men. 
 Consider great mathematicians and naturalists, like 
 Newton, Galileo, Leibnitz, Pascal : they can observe 
 the laws of Nature which are the skeleton of the 
 universe ; but Shakspeare brings before us the uni- 
 verse itself, vitalized and harmonious in every part. 
 AH master intellects make use of the imagination : 
 nothing can be done in the world without it. Even 
 a carpenter cannot build a house properly unless he 
 has before him the idea of the whole house while 
 working on its details. A physician can do nothing 
 for a patient till he can throw himself by imagination 
 
30 
 
 into the patient's state, feel as he feels, and partake 
 of his very disease. A great general must, above all 
 things else, have this power of imagination, by which 
 he puts himself into the position of his enemy, and 
 foresees what his enemy must do in each position of 
 the campaign and battle. Imagination is thus the 
 most practical of all the intellectual faculties : it col- 
 lects all the broken and scattered knowledges of 
 the mind into one complete picture. But in most 
 thinkers, even in great thinkers, it is the servant of 
 other faculties. The one distinction between Shak- 
 speare and all others is this, — that in him all other 
 faculties were subordinated to this : he was, as he 
 describes his poet, "of imagination all compact." 
 Observation, reason, memory, wit, humor, the analytic 
 judgment, the critical understanding, — all were its 
 willing servants ; all brought their gifts of gold and 
 silver, iron and stone, gems and pearls, to be used by 
 this imperial faculty. No matter what is the special 
 theme and spirit of his subject : it comes immedi- 
 ately and submissively under the rule of its king and 
 chief In his historic plays, or histories, memory is 
 the chief servant of the imagination. It brings the 
 characters, events, costume and tone, of a past age, 
 taken bodily out of books or previous plays; but 
 they are all immediately harmonized and vitalized by 
 the creative idea. We are carried back to the streets 
 of Rome in the days of Caesar. Faithfully taking 
 his facts from Plutarch in Thomas North's translation 
 (1579), he places us, behind the scenes; shows us 
 Rome as it looked to the eyes and mind, first of 
 Brutus, then of Csesar, then of Antony. All the 
 
31 
 
 minutest details he accepts' from Plutarch : he copies 
 the text with a servile fidelity, and then, by this won- 
 derful power, breathes life into this dry dust of history. 
 If we had been in Rome at the time of Caesar's death, 
 we should not have known as much of it as we can 
 now know through the mediation of Shakspeare. 
 
 In these histories, his imagination is served by 
 memory ; but, in such dramas as the " Tempest " and 
 the " Midsummer Night's Dream," another faculty — 
 namely, fancy — is called up to show its loyalty to 
 the same chief. As memory, uncontrolled by imagi- 
 nation, gives only dry and dead facts, showing the 
 mere outside of things, details unconnected by any 
 law ; so fancy, uncontrolled by imagination, gives no 
 clear picture, but only kaleidoscopic changes. We 
 have enough of wUd fantastic fairy tales, extrava.- 
 ganzas where no law restrains the wilfulness of fancy ; 
 but Shakspeare's fairies — like Ariel, like Puck, like 
 Oberon, hke Titania — are persons. Though the 
 whole scene is in Dreamland, yet here Dreamland 
 becomes a reahty, has laws of its own, a unity per- 
 vading and restraining all its wildest variety ; show- 
 ing that one idea is steadily in the master's mind, 
 polarizing all details toward itself 
 
 Then take another class of plays, — the reflective 
 dramas, like " Hamlet," like " Lear," or " Othello." 
 Here the characteristic faculty at work throughout is 
 reason, — and analytic reason. These master-pieces 
 are strictly philosophic studies of human nature. 
 The human mind is searched to the core, tried by 
 every test and re-agent, — shocked by terror, melted 
 by passion, dissolved in grief and pity, put into the 
 
32 
 
 fiery crucible of terrible anguish, subjected to the 
 question by torture, till every element of human 
 nature is disclosed. And yet, during all this most 
 destructive analysis, the central life of each person 
 remains : the personal identity is not reached. Ham- 
 let, Lear, Othello, do not fall apart into abstractions 
 of jealousy, rage, misanthropy : they remain persons, 
 and their lives are the real lives of men. 
 
 Then there are the social dramas, — charming 
 scenes of daily life. Refined social intercourse; 
 brilliant dialogue ; development of character by con- 
 versation, not by events, in the absence of any story, 
 — make the staple. The faculty which prevails in 
 these plays is that which we call wit, especially that 
 more refined order of wit which appears in the con- 
 versation of brilliant women. "Much Ado about 
 Nothing," "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Twelfth 
 Night," are dialogue -plays of this sort. The main 
 6lement in all is dialogue. " As You Like It," "The 
 Winter's Tale," and " Love's Labor Lost, " differ from 
 these only in having more of nature. In the first, 
 the out-door life of the woods, inhabited by dukes 
 and lords, gives a picnic tone to the conversation. 
 In the "Winter's Tale," a more rustic and wilder 
 rural society of shepherds and clowns, and the air of 
 the hills, cause nature to predominate over man. 
 But, in each of these pieces, the ideal power masters 
 the subject-matter; and we may say of each and 
 every play, as Ovid says of the golden palace of the 
 gods,— 
 
 " Materiam superabat opus." 
 
 To each there is one tone, one spirit, one life. Some 
 
33 
 
 of the plays are so purely poetical as to be almost 
 lyrics, as " Ronieo and Juliet " and the " Midsummer 
 Night's Dream." Some are saturated with humor, 
 as the " Merry Wives of Windsor," the " Comedy of 
 Errors," and "Twelfth Night." But whether the 
 element of the piece is comedy, is poetry, is philos- 
 ophy, is fancy, is history, is outward nature, each 
 one has its own pervading life, is a unit, is a whole, 
 because of the steady mastery of that grand imag- 
 inative faculty which always keeps one idea supreme, 
 and subordinates to that all details. 
 
 This creative, unifying power of imagination also 
 causes Shakspeare's characters to differ from those 
 of all other writers. His unfold from a living centre : 
 theirs are moulded from without. His grow like a 
 plant from its seed : theirs are carved like a statue 
 from a block of marble. Therefore Shakspeare's 
 characters are like so many real human beings added 
 to mankind. We refer to them as illustrations of 
 human nature, as examples of human conduct, just 
 as we should to real beings. In one sense, he has 
 created another world, and peopled it with another 
 race of men and women. Were Shakspeare's charac- 
 ters obliterated, we should lose about as much as if 
 so many of Plutarch's heroes were annihilated. 
 
 It is not so with the creations of any other writer. 
 Take the characters of Scott, of Schiller, of Goethe : 
 they are not quite persons. They are abstractions : 
 they owe something to costume, to circumstances. 
 Take an every-day man, and educate him in the 
 middle ages as a knight, and you have Ivanhoe ; 
 take the same man, and let him be brought up in 
 
34 
 
 Scotland in the days of John Knox, and you have 
 Halbert Glendinning. In all Goethe's characters, you 
 get a glimpse of Goethe himself; in all of Scott's, 
 you catch the twinkle of the sheriff's eye. Tasso is 
 only Goethe as he might have been if he had been 
 an Italian in his Werther-period. So it is with the 
 dramatists of Shakspeare's own day. Massinger's 
 villains only pretend to be villains : the nobleness of 
 Philip Massinger shines out of their generous faces 
 presently. Ben Jonson's whole dramatis j)ersonce 
 are all variations of that sturdy, hard-working, crab- 
 bed, poetic, prosaic, ill-adjusted great man. But 
 each one of Shakspeare's men and women are as 
 distinctly, though often as slightly, individualized as 
 the two leaves of neighboring trees, — almost the 
 same, yet forever immutably different. Especially 
 does this appear in his women. Read Mrs. Jameson's 
 work on his female characters, and notice how each 
 of the lovely creatures is her own sweet self, though 
 like enough to the others to be their sister : — 
 
 '' Facies non omnibus una, 
 Nee diversa tamen, qualis deeet esse sororum." 
 
 Thus there is something of the lay figure in the 
 work of other authors, even the greatest. They are 
 built up from without. Take away what is due to 
 the times, to their situation, to their education, and to 
 certain external habits, and they lose all individuality. 
 But Shakspeare's grow from within. Shylock is not 
 merely a Jewish miser, imbittered against Christians 
 by ill usage : he is, first of all, Shylock himself 
 Falstaff is not merely a glutton, a drunkard, a 
 
35 
 
 buffoon: back of all these habits is the individual 
 man. Othello is not a picture of jealousy only; 
 lago, of cruel intellectual malice : they are persons 
 to whom these habits of mind, and states of feeling, 
 have come. 
 
 And consider the most marvellous of them all, — 
 Hamlet ; the most wonderful, because in this the 
 artist has gone wholly out of his own age and 
 century, and come down to ours. Hamlet belongs, 
 not to the sixteenth-century period of vernal and 
 luxuriant growth, but rather to an epoch in which 
 reflection often outweighs action. Hamlet is one sick 
 of life before he has begun to live ; to whom " all 
 the uses of the world seem stale, flat, and unprofit- 
 able;" "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
 Over-thought has paralyzed the will-power in Hamlet. 
 He is in a condition of moral catalepsy ; seeing and 
 knowing every thing, but incapable of motion, — 
 staying in any position in which he happens to be. 
 This moral torpor of Hamlet gives its gray tone to 
 the whole play. How different is the character of 
 Macbeth ! Here Shakspeare, instead of throwing 
 himself forward three centuries, has gone back five. 
 Macbeth hesitates over his deeds, as Hamlet does, but 
 not from the same cause. His indecision comes from 
 too little power of reflection, not from too much. 
 Hamlet is like a man dazzled by too much light ; 
 Macbeth, like one groping in the dark. A wild, 
 rude, half-savage stream of life rushes like a moun- 
 tain torrent through one play; a languid stream, 
 half hidden with fogs, creeps through the other. 
 
 The conclusion to which we are brought by these 
 
36 
 
 studies of Shakspeare's genius is, that man is really 
 what the ancients called him, — a microcosm, a little 
 world. Though it is evident that the powers of 
 observation in our poet were extraordinary, yet ob- 
 servation could never have given him this knowledge 
 of man and life. The soul of man has unexplored 
 depths of latent knowledge, which the imagination 
 uses in these creations. Look at the figm-es in the 
 Sistine Chapel : hundreds of human forms in every 
 position and attitude, of human faces with every 
 expression of thought and feeling, all drawn in two 
 years by Michael Angelo. Does any one pretend 
 that he had observed the human face in all these 
 states ; that he had noticed the human j&gure in all 
 these attitudes; and so only copied what he had 
 seen ? No ; but he, the Shakspeare of art, created 
 new men and women as Nature herself would have 
 created them. He did not remember how they had 
 been : he created them as they ought to be. And 
 so Shakspeare created his hundreds of persons, each 
 such an individual soul as Nature would herself have 
 created, if she had reason for it; not by putting 
 together this trait and that which he had noticed in 
 men and women, but out of some " pattern shown 
 him in the mount," some instinctive inborn famiUarity 
 with Mother Nature's original types and methods. 
 
 No doubt, the imagination, in its full activity, 
 kindles the memory. We see examples of this in 
 our dreams, where this creative spirit prepares a 
 stage, scenery, actors, and introduces us as one of the 
 persons in a tragedy or comedy in which we take a 
 part, without knowing beforehand what the denoue- 
 
37 
 
 ment is to be. Awaking from such a dream, we have 
 noticed that the characters in it were well preserved 
 throughout, and that it had a plot of its own, though 
 we did not ourselves know what it was to be ; and 
 yet we had arranged it ourselves. And how perfect 
 the pictures of persons and places, how exact the 
 scenery, which our sleeping memory had furnished 
 to our imagination ! No such vivid pictures could 
 we create by any effort of our waking memory. 
 Coleridge says, that, in his dream, every man is a 
 Shakspeare. At all events, we see by our dreams 
 somethiag of the nature of that commanding fac- 
 ulty, in its unconscious action, which in Shakspeare 
 worked consciously, in full harmony with all the 
 other powers of thought, and which every other 
 power of that kingly intellect served with a most 
 loyal allegiance. 
 
 Mr. Emerson, in his wise and charming Essay on 
 Shakspeare, qualifies him as - " The Poet." We do 
 not usually fancy tha discrimination of the definite 
 article, apphed so copiously at the present time, in 
 titles, to men and events ; but ShakspeaJre is, emphal^ 
 ically, THE poet, — the poet of mankind, — poet in 
 the highest sense, combining both classic and roman- 
 tic definitions, — jrotr/Ti^g, or " maker ; " Trovatore, 
 or "finder." He is the great maker, the master- 
 artist, who forms men and women of the clay. He 
 is also the Troubadour, "the finder;" the soul to 
 which every thing comes ; who discovers as well as 
 forms. In a word, he is both purely passive, and 
 open to the universe to receive ; wholly active, self- 
 possessed, and diligent to use what he sees. He is, 
 
38 
 
 therefore, the perfect synthesis of the classic and the 
 romantic school ; the Persian Gulf, into which these 
 twin-rivers of thought, this Tigris and Euphrates, 
 running so long side by side, at last mingle their 
 waters in a sweet consent. He disregarded the 
 unities, did he ? — therefore was not classic ? But 
 what is the unity of all unities in art but the bring- 
 ing into harmony the wildest variety, the most an- 
 tagonist forms ? It is the unity of the spirit, not of 
 the letter. The narrow and limited genius, whether 
 in poetry, architecture, or painting, seeks unity 
 through dilution and emptiness. Let your picture 
 contain only a single figure ; let there be no con- 
 trasts of color, no accidental Hghts, no long-reaching 
 perspectives, no gradation of tints : certainly you 
 attain a sort of unity ; notably that of monotony. 
 It is like the expression of a dead man's face. So in 
 architecture : you may have a symmetrical unity just 
 as monotonous, — three windows on one side, and 
 three on the other; but who does not prefer the 
 unity born of infinite variety in the groupings of a 
 Gothic minster or the spire of Strasburg? The per- 
 fect unity of each Shakspearian drama is, that it has 
 its own tone, spirit, life, all through, amid its wildest 
 freedom and extremest contrasts of incident and 
 character. 
 
 And, in that other chaixa of poetry which consists 
 in music and melody, our great master is still unsur- 
 passed. "We have had other exquisite lyrical writers, 
 but no such lyrics as his. Whoever has had the 
 pleasure of hearing Mrs. Kemble read these perfect 
 
39 
 
 gems of song, knows that nothing else resembles 
 them. There is no such music, no such language : — 
 
 " When he speaks, 
 The air, a chartered libertine, is still. 
 And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears 
 To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences." 
 
 If the primal, central element of every poem is its 
 Idea, which gives it its unity, that in which it ulti- 
 mates itself is the Word. Language is fluent with 
 our master. Words cease to have any arbitrary or 
 conventional character: they take the meaning he 
 chooses to give them. There are no phrases in 
 Shakspeare ; no conventionalisms ; no words obdurate 
 to the fiery facult}' which fuses them all, and then 
 gives them new forms and uses. It may, perhaps, be 
 said, that all his language is suggestive and figurative. 
 There is no mathematical or logical use of words, — 
 no use which allows them to retain a definite sense. 
 Every word is vital, and therefore capable of a new 
 expression in every new position which it may 
 occupy. This alone gives the absolute mastery of 
 language to the creative faculty ; and thus Shak- 
 speare, among all writers, is never the servant of his 
 own words. 
 
 To illustrate my meaning here, I will take the first 
 example that comes : — 
 
 " There are a kind of men whose visages 
 Do cream and mantle like the standing pool." 
 
 The rigid, self-satisfied stupidity in the face of the 
 pompous blockhead first creams, then mantles. The 
 interior self-complacency comes to the surface in a 
 
40 
 
 standing smile like cream. But it is a mantle too. 
 It does not express thought: it merely hides the 
 absence of all thought. And then it is "like the 
 standing pool," — at once you see the green surface 
 of the pool, with no ripple, no flow. A second-rate 
 genius, having hit on such a simile, would have spent 
 twenty lines in elaborating it. Shakspeare touches 
 it, and passes on. He gives, in two lines, three dis- 
 tinct pictures, yet all in harmony, and each carrying 
 farther the thought suggested by the other. Thus 
 words become vital in his treatment. 
 
 When we speak of the great moral influence of 
 Shakspeare, we do not intend any Puritanic, scholastic, 
 or pedantic morality. We do not mean morality after 
 the letter, bu,t after the spirit. We do not mean that 
 his plays wind up with a moral, that each one teaches 
 a distinct ethical proposition, or that they are con- 
 structed on the plan sometimes called moral, — of 
 rewarding the good by earthly success, and punishing 
 the wicked with temporal losses. Shakspeare's moral 
 influence is of a far higher order than this. It lies in 
 his firm persuasion that this world is God's world; 
 that all things, therefore, have a divine and sacred 
 meaning ; that nobleness tends upward, and sin down- 
 ward. That influence is most moral which most 
 inspires us with love for goodness ; which makes faith, 
 integrity, generosity, purity, seem infinitely charming 
 and lovely ; and shows sin, however successful in ap- 
 pearance, to be a miserable failure. Whatever makes 
 us love goodness, and hate sin, is most moral ; and 
 this is what Shakspeare always does. 
 
41 
 
 There is another important element of morality in 
 literature. Goethe says that the only kind of moral 
 tale is that which shows us, that, beside appetite and 
 passion, there is a power within us able to deny and 
 control them ; that we need not be conquered by our 
 lower nature, but can always conquer it. Those 
 books are the most immoral books, therefore, which 
 (like Balzac's novels, for example) assume that it is 
 a matter of course for people to go wrong, to follow 
 usage, to yield to temptation. A man who tries to 
 persuade you to do wrong is not so much of a Satan 
 as the man who assumes, as a matter of course, that 
 you are going to do wrong. For the first admits that 
 there is another way, by trying to induce you to go 
 his way : by urging you to go wrong, he admits that 
 there are motives which may lead you to go right. 
 But the most dangerous, subtle, and successful of all 
 tempters is he who ignores the existence of any other 
 way than the wrong one ; or who treats wrong-doing 
 as a merry joke, that it would be sUly and ridiculous 
 to consider seriously. Just so Shylock persuades 
 Antonio to consent to his frightful proposition by 
 treating it as a jest: — 
 
 " Go with me to a notary ; seal me there 
 Your single bond ; and in a merry sport, 
 If you repay me not on such a day, 
 In such a place, such sum or sums as are 
 Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit 
 Be nominated for an equal pound 
 Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken 
 In what part of your body pleaseth me." 
 
 Nothing could be more unnatural than for Antonio 
 to consent to such a proposal, if made seriously, — 
 
42 
 
 nothing more likely (if put in the ofF-hand way, as 
 a mere joke, — to be consented to, of course) than 
 for him to say as he does, — 
 
 " Content, in faith : I'll seal to such a bond, 
 And say. There is much kindness in the Jew." 
 
 Shakspeare's writings are the most moral influence 
 in aU literature, when considered in these two lights. 
 He never makes evil fascinating. His villains, his 
 vicious persons, are often sagacious, and highly intel- 
 lectual, like lago ; often very droll and witty, like 
 Falstaff : but they are neiier made attractive ; we 
 never like them, nor what they do. Did ever any 
 temperance orator hold up such a picture of the evils 
 of a debauched life as we have in the last days of Sir 
 John Falstaff, drivelling, silly, fallen from the society 
 of princes into that of Pistol, Dame Quickly, and Doll 
 Tearsheet? The successful ambition of Macbeth, 
 forcing its way up to the royalty of Scotland, might 
 seem, if wicked, yet full of energy and courage. But 
 Shakspeare draws the veil, and shows us how weak, 
 vacillating, cowardly, and empty is such ambition and 
 such success. Not a word of moralizing meantime : 
 he shows us the moral ; he does not tell us of it. 
 
 So the substance of his works is eminently moral ; 
 for it is reality, truth, beauty, love. If these are 
 moral, he is so. 
 
 " Fair, kind, and true is all my argument, — 
 F^ir, kind, and true, varying to other words ; 
 And in this change is my invention spent, — 
 Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.'' 
 
 Perhaps the one feature of Shakspeare which gives 
 
43 
 
 most purity to his works is his real respect for 
 woman. He had seen bad women ; there is reason 
 to think that he was not happy in his own marriage ; 
 he was not immaculate in his own private life ; some 
 of his sonnets are addressed to a married woman 
 doubly faithless and forsworn, whose thousand errors 
 he notes, but says that his five senses, seeing those 
 errors, cannot "dissuade his one foolish heart from 
 serving her." Whoever knows the corrupt, cynical 
 tone in which woman and love were spoken of by 
 Shakspeare's predecessors and successors, must won- 
 der at his perception of woman's purity, truth, and 
 nobleness. He could paint wicked women, like Lady 
 Macbeth ; fraU women, like Cressida ; unpoetic wo- 
 men, hke Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford ; .Vulgar women, 
 like Dame Quickly; and a fine lady, like Beatrice. 
 But he most loved to draw, with delicate pencil 
 dipped in celestial tints, characters of the snowy 
 purity of Imogen, the saintly grace of Isabella, the 
 briUiant intelligence of Portia, the poetic soul of 
 Miranda, the devoted tenderness of Desdemona. 
 Never was such an offering of reverence Md at 
 the feet of woman as Shakspeare has presented in 
 characters like these. And, to complete the ex- 
 pression of his infinite admiration and homage, he 
 has brought forward his most satanic creation, — 
 the one who neither believed in God nor man, 
 — and put into his mouth that kind of contempt 
 toward the whole sex which folly and wicked- 
 ness have in every age hastened to utter, thereby 
 uttering their own condemnation. It is lago; who 
 says he never saw a man who knew how to love 
 
44 
 
 himself; who says of virtue, "Virtue! — a fig. Our 
 bodies are our gardens, our wills the gardeners. Plant 
 nettles, or sow lettuce, as you choose." It is lago; 
 who thinks that the Moor is of a free and open 
 nature, " and will as tenderly be led by the nose as 
 asses are : " lago ; who, when Roderigo speaks of 
 Desdemona's "blessed disposition" of soul, replies, 
 " Blessed fig's-end ! " and, when Cassio is dismissed 
 in disgrace for his misconduct, says, " Are you hurt, 
 lieutenant?" — Cassio replying, " Ay, past all surgery. 
 I have lost my reputation, — the immortal part of 
 myself; my reputation, lago, — my reputation." 
 lago .then says, " As I am an honest man, I thought 
 you had received some bodily wound : there is more 
 sense in that than in reputation ! " This is the man, 
 this bitter cynic, the man who has no faith in virtue ; 
 this cold materialist ; this man to whom a ruined 
 character seems a less evil than a broken head, — 
 this is the one whom Shakspeare has selected to 
 utter the stock satires, the regulation witticisms, 
 against woman ; and he could not show his reverence 
 for woman more than by thus making lago her libel- 
 ler. Therefore, if the happiness and virtue of the 
 world, and the progress of society, depend, as they 
 do, on the position which woman occupies, and the 
 esteem in which she is held, Shakspeare's influence 
 may be considered as one of the chief motors in 
 Christian civilization. 
 
 Of course, this being his view of woman, his idea 
 of love is high and noble. Coleridge says, " There 
 is not a vicious passage in Shakspeare, though many 
 gross ones ; for grossness belongs to the age." The 
 
45 
 
 license and coarseness of Dryden's plays is a hundred 
 times worse than Shakspeare's. Many of these can- 
 not be read. But Dryden says that one play of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher contains more indecency than all 
 his put together. Yet the plays of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher were described by their contemporaries by 
 the words " chaste," " pure," " too sainted to be called 
 plays." This was said of them by a bishop, — Dr. 
 Earle ; by an Oxford professor, and doctor of divin- 
 ity; and by a minister who was called a second 
 Chrysostom. 
 
 Shakspeare's drama, amid such associates, was like 
 the Lady in " Comus " among the obscene and rioi> 
 ous company around her. The love he described 
 was of the soul. The reasons his heroes give for 
 loving are such as these: — 
 
 " For she is wise, if I can judge of her ; 
 And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true ; 
 And true she is, as she hath proved herself: 
 And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true. 
 Shall she be placed in my constant soul." 
 
 The lowest fascination of love he describes thus, in 
 lines which do not contain one feeling which is not 
 spiritual and refined : — 
 
 " Except I be by Silvia in the night. 
 There is no music in the nightingale ; 
 Unless I look on Silvia in the day. 
 There is no day for me to look upon. 
 She is my essence ; and I leave to be 
 If I be not by her fair influence 
 Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive." 
 
 And how noble is Portia's confession of her affection 
 
46 
 
 for Bassanio, and the pure womanly surrender of 
 herself, her possessions, her high position, as the 
 princely heiress of Belmont ! Mrs. Jameson, quoting 
 the passage, says it has a consciousness and tender 
 seriousness approaching to solemnity : — 
 
 " You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
 Such as I am. But the full sum of me 
 Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised ; 
 Happy in this, — she is not yet so old 
 But she may learn ; and happier than this, 
 She is not bred so dull but she may learn ; 
 Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit 
 Commits itself to yours, to be directed 
 As from her lord, her governor, her king." 
 
 But that for which, most of all, we remember Shak- 
 speare's birth to-day with gratitude, is his wisdom. 
 He saw the laws which govern the world. " He is 
 inconceivably wise," says Mr. Emerson ; " the others 
 conceivably." Of the word of God, which speaks 
 in Nature to man, to warn, instruct, direct, reprove, 
 encourage, he is the best interpreter. The follow- 
 ing passage in Ben Jonson's " Poetaster," which I read 
 twenty years ago, seemed to me at that time rather 
 meant to describe Shakspeare, though professing to 
 refer to Virgil; and now I see that Gervinus says 
 the same thing. TibuUus says, — 
 
 " That which he hath writ 
 Is with such judgment labored and distilled 
 Through all the needful uses of our lives, 
 That, could a man remember but his lines, 
 He should not touch at any serious point 
 But he might breathe his spirit out of him.'' 
 
 Then Horace replies : — 
 
47 
 
 " His learning savors not the school-like gloss 
 Which most consists in echoing words and terras, 
 But a direct and analytic sum 
 Of all the worth and first effects of art ; 
 And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life, 
 That it shall gather strength of life with being, 
 And live hereafter more admired than now." 
 
 His wisdom is for all times. He possessed knowl- 
 edge of man, in each of its three forms, more than 
 any other writer. He knew human nature, or the 
 common soul with its depths and heights, — those 
 universal principles the same in all. Then he knew 
 man as an individual, — not the same, but various ; 
 each one himself, no one like another. And, thirdly, 
 he knew mankind, — man in action, the social man ; 
 that is, he knew man in repose, man in personal de- 
 velopment, and man in society. 
 
 This last knowledge is what we name Wisdom, as 
 the first is Philosophy, and the second is Dramatic 
 Genius. The wisdom of Hfe, the same in all ages ; 
 the proverbial wisdom of Solomon, of Saadi, of JEsop, 
 of Dr. Franklin ; the sayings which guide men in all 
 affairs great and small, — this is what makes him our 
 teacher, the common teacher of all thinking men 
 in all ages. England and America especially, whose 
 tongue he speaks, have both been taught by him, — 
 the one for three centuries, the other for two. Per- 
 haps they never needed his teachings more than now. 
 
 For example, in this terrible civil war, when we of 
 the North have heard of new disasters to our arms, 
 and territory slipping out of our hands, we might 
 have said to our Congress, idling its time at Wash- 
 ington, what the messenger in " Henry VI." says to 
 the English nobles : — 
 
48 
 
 " MesK. My honorable lord8, health to you all. 
 Sad tidings bring I to you out of France, — 
 Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture : 
 Guienne, Rouen, Champaign, Rheims, Orleans, 
 Paris, Guysons, Poiotiers, are all quite lost. 
 
 Exeter. How were they lost ? What treachery was used ? 
 
 Mess. No treachery, but want of men and money. 
 Among the soldiers, this is muttered, — 
 That here you all maintain your several factions ; 
 And, whilst a field should be despatched and fought, 
 You are disputing of your generals. 
 One would have lingering wars, at little,cost ; 
 One. would fly swift, but wants the power of wing ; 
 A third man thinks, without expense at all. 
 By guileful fair words, peace may be obtained." 
 
 More than one great battle has been lost by us 
 because our army corps-commanders, jealous of each 
 other, have delayed marching when they ought. 
 Shakspeare describes the same thing. Talbot and his 
 troops are sacrificed by Somerset's neglect to march, 
 when ordered, to their relief. Then Somerset says, — 
 
 " It is too late ! I cannot send them now. 
 This expedition was by York and Talbot 
 Too rashly plotted : 
 'Tis an unheedful, desperate, wild adventure." 
 
 Sir William Lucy enters, and says to Somerset, — 
 
 " While the honorable captain there 
 Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs. 
 You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honor, 
 Keep off aloof from worthless emulation." 
 
 Then Somerset replies, like our commanders : — 
 
 " York set him on : York should have sent him aid. 
 
 Lucy. And York as fast upon your grace exclaims. 
 Swearing that you withhold his levied host 
 Collected for this very expedition." 
 
49 , 
 
 So Somerset says, at last, he will send the cavalry ; 
 but the rescue comes too late. 
 
 But England has as much to learn as we, in these 
 days, out of Shakspeare. She tells us that we never 
 can be re-united with the South after this civil war ; 
 forgetting that Shakspeare has described those long 
 civil wars that raged in England, and yet have left no 
 trace there ; beside those after civil wars of Puritan 
 and Cavalier which followed his day. 
 
 Moreover, our English cousins can find, if they 
 will, a very pretty picture of our Southern people 
 in Shakspeare's account of Jack Cade. Jack Cade 
 called himself a Mortimer, and professed to come of 
 high descent : while, in fact, his father, instead of ' 
 being a Mortimer, was a bricklayer ; and his mother, 
 not a Plantagenet, but a peddler's daughter. So the 
 rebels assured the English that they are gentlemen, 
 and the sons of gentlemen ; they are the children of 
 Cavaliers; they are of Norman blood, — pur sang. 
 But, when we go among them, we find a society 
 often brutal, cruel, ignorant, debased by slavery, with 
 the manners of peddlers, and the spirit of pirates. 
 The Virginia gentlemen who claim to a descent from 
 Mortimers and Plantagenets, are, many of them, the 
 grandchildren of convicts shipped from England, as 
 they were afterward shipped to Austraha. 
 
 These Southern gentlemen have always shared Jack 
 Cade's hatred of schools and learning, — from that 
 early governor of Virginia who thanked God there 
 were no free schools in his State, down to pious Gov. 
 Wise, who was equally grateful to the Almighty that 
 no newspaper could be published in Accomac County. 
 
50 
 
 That was the land where negroes were whipped for 
 learning to read, and the schoolmistress who taught 
 them was sent to prison. Should not we think that 
 it was Jack Cade's rebellion over again ? — 
 
 " Dich. The first thing we'll do, let's kill the lawyers. 
 
 Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is it not a lamentable thing that the 
 skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment; that parchment, 
 being scribbled over, should undo a man ? 
 
 [Enter some, bringing in the Clerk of Chatham.] 
 
 Smith. The clerk of Chatham : he can write and read, and cast ac- 
 counts. 
 
 Cade. Oh ! monstrous ! 
 
 Smith. We took him setting boys' copies. 
 
 Cade. Here's a villain. 
 
 Smith. He had a book in his pocket, with rod letters in it. 
 
 Cade. Then he's a conjurer ! " 
 
 The chief difference between the policy of the 
 North and South is this, — that the North has deter- 
 mined to have all its laboring population educated, 
 and the South has determined that theirs shall not be 
 educated. Now, England's sympathies have gone 
 with the South, so far as their ruling classes are con- 
 cerned. Their aristocracy has been on the Southern 
 side ; that is, on the side of Jack Cade and his ideas. 
 
 Afterward Cade reproaches Lord Say, exactly as 
 the Southerners reproach the Yankees : — 
 
 " Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in 
 erecting a grammar-school ; and whereas our fathers had no books, thou 
 hast, contrary to the king and his dignity, built a paper-mill. It will be 
 proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a 
 noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can 
 endure to hear." 
 
51 
 
 But we must bring these remarks to a close. Three 
 hundred years have passed since Shakspeare was 
 born; and, during those years, there has nothing 
 come into the world so great as he. He is the edu- 
 cator of the Enghsh, German, and American intellect. 
 His works are the university where the teachers of 
 our land are themselves taught. All the great in- 
 ventions which have come since his time, and have 
 revolutionized England and America, are of trivial 
 importance compared with his thought and speech. 
 Coleridge says of him, "I have been almost daily 
 reading him since I was ten years old. The thirty 
 intervening years have been unintermittingly and not 
 fruitlessly employed in the study of the Greek, Latin, 
 English, Italian, Spanish, and German helles-lettrists ; 
 and the last fifteen years, in addition, far more in- 
 tensely in the analysis of the laws of life and reason 
 as they exist in man : and upon every step I have 
 made forward in taste, in acquisition of facts from 
 history or my own observation, and in knowledge of 
 the different laws of being, and their apparent excep- 
 tions from accidental collision of disturbing forces, 
 — at every new accession of information, after every 
 successful exercise of meditation and every fresh pres- 
 entation of experience, I have unfailingly discovered 
 a proportionate increase of wisdom and intuition in 
 Shakspeare." 
 
 And Mr. Emerson, whose Essay resumes in itself all 
 that can be said concerning this great master, says, 
 "He wrote the airs for all our modern music; he 
 wrote the text of modern life, — the text of manners ; 
 he drew the man of England and Europe ; the father 
 
52 
 
 of the man in America ; he read the hearts of men and 
 women, their probity and second thought and wiles, — 
 the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which 
 virtues and vices sHde into their contraries ; he drew 
 the fine demarcations of freedom and fate ; he knew 
 the laws of repression which make the police of na- 
 ture ; and all the sweets and terrors of human lot lay 
 in his mind as truly, but as softly, as the landscape 
 lies in the eye." 
 
REMARKS AND ODE. 
 
 Bt John H. Sheppaud, A. M. 
 
R E M A E K S 
 
 PiSHEK Ames, in an eloquent eulogy on the death 
 of Washington, delivered before the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts on the eighth day of February, 1800, 
 speaking of the rarity of great men in history, re- 
 marks, "In aU this dreary length of way, they ap- 
 pear like five or six light-houses on as many thousand 
 miles of coast: they gleam upon the surrounding 
 darkness with an inextinguishable splendor, hke stars 
 seen through a mist ; but they are seen hke stars, to 
 cheer, to guide, and to save." 
 
 To men of this original character we owe the 
 moral improvement and intellectual grandeur which 
 have distinguished a few nations above all others. 
 Some by their discoveries, others by their inventions, 
 and here and there a transcendent genius whose writ- 
 ings have elevated and adorned our race, are among 
 these benefactors of mankind ; as though the Al- 
 mighty had specially created a superior being, and 
 given him an almost superhuman power to guide a 
 nation to a higher and happier destiny. Such were 
 Lord Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton ; and we may add 
 WiHiam Shakspeare, whose dramatic writings have 
 done more to improve public taste and embellish the 
 
56 
 
 arts of life than any uninspired author, ancient or 
 modem. 
 
 The home of childhood, where the eye of genius 
 first looks abroad upon the scenery of this beautiful 
 world, sometimes gives a coloring to all the future 
 life. It may have been so ' with Shakspeare ; for 
 Stratford upon Avon, where he was born, lies in the 
 midst of a picturesque country, and perhaps contrib- 
 uted to those ideal landscapes which have charmed 
 the world. We know but little of his early educa- 
 tion ; only that his advantages wei'e not superior to 
 those of thousands of other boys, — a few years at a 
 free grammar-school in his native town. Ben Jonson, 
 in a poem to the memory of his beloved William 
 Shakspeare, says, " Thou hadst small Latin, and less 
 Greek." Of his acquirements, however, we may form 
 some idea by a study of his writings. They afford 
 indubitable evidence that he was a great reader, 
 and had a most tenacious memory. The English 
 authors of the time, translations of the Greek and 
 Roman classics, works of history, voyages and travels, 
 poetry, and indeed all sources of knowledge, even the 
 dry technicalities of the law, must have come within 
 his mental grasp. lii this way he garnered up mate-, 
 rials for the future ingenuity of his pen. That he 
 had an exquisite ear for music, and a natural taste 
 for painting and sculpture, no diligent reader of his 
 plays can doubt ; and in them we can trace some 
 fruits of the seed sown in this grammar-school. But 
 the training of his mind went far beyond any human 
 tuition; as though there had been some invisible being 
 watching over his progress, like the Genius Loci, ac- 
 
57 
 
 cording to ancient superstition; for he was an ardent 
 lover of Nature. This round world, with its blue 
 mountains in -the distance, its green forests, vales, 
 and glens, lake, river, and ocean, the starry heavens 
 above, and the sun and moon in their glory, were 
 mirrored on his soul, as it were a photograph to look 
 upon when he wrote. No poet that ever lived equalled 
 him as a word-painter : his mind reflected the very 
 features and drapery of Nature herself 
 
 There was one intellectual attribute peculiar to 
 him, — original, striking, and of surpassing force ; 
 the ideal conception so well described by Dugald 
 Stewart in his " Philosophy of the Mind," — a power 
 not only of forming ideal creations, but of bringing 
 persons and places of distant ages before the mind's 
 eye, as though they were present. Walter Scott, in 
 his inimitable Waverley Novels, manifested, though 
 in a less degree, this marvellous faculty. On this ac- 
 count, the learned Dr. Arnold, in his Lectures on His- 
 tory, has observed, that in the " Fortunes of Nigel " 
 he presents the most life-like pictures of King James 
 that have been drawn by any historian. The view 
 of Rome in " Julius Caesar," and the isle of Prospero 
 in the " Tempest," might be offered in illustration, if 
 time would allow. 
 
 He seems at a very early age to have acquired a 
 knowledge of the world, — the precursor of his aston- 
 ishing development of the affections and passions. 
 Such knowledge is a fearful gift to the young; for 
 the sight of the human heart in its worst estate is 
 terrible. Take, for example, one of his deepest and 
 sublimest tragedies, — as " Othello " or " Hamlet " or 
 
58 
 
 "Lear" or "Macbeth," — and we shudder at the de- 
 pravity there . exhibited. This profound knowledge 
 of man is one of the pillars on which his ideal concep- 
 tions securely rest ; for he never violates good sense, 
 nor introduces characters inconsistent with the object 
 of his drama. 
 
 Shakspeare has been considered by a few persons 
 as a writer of lax morals, because sometimes a gross 
 allusion or piece of vulgar wit from some clown or 
 low fellow crops out in his plays; but most un- 
 justly, and without cause. There may be solitary 
 passages which offend prudish modesty : such excres- 
 cences belong rather to the age in which he lived 
 than to the taste of the great dramatist. Dr. Chal- 
 mers, the late divine of Scotland, read all his plays 
 at sixty-five, and remarked, "I look upon Shakspeare 
 as an intellectual miracle ; " and, at another time, " I 
 dare say Shakspeare was the greatest man that ever 
 lived ; perhaps greater than Sir Isaac Newton himself" 
 Let his tragedies and comedies be read, studied, and 
 reviewed, act by act, scene by scene, as a scholar 
 would read Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales " or Spen- 
 ser's " Faery Queen," and there would be no exception 
 to the exalted opinion which Dr. Chalmers, Goethe, 
 Hallam, and the late John Quincy Adams, entertained 
 of this wonderful man. 
 
 When Shakspeare, a few years before his death, 
 retired from the gayeties of London, he returned to 
 his native place, and there, with an ample fortune, 
 lived in elegance. He had seen enough of the world, 
 and cared but little for its honors or its applause. 
 
59 
 
 He took no pains even to collect his thirty-five plays 
 (for " Titus Andronicus " is thought to be spurious), 
 and to revise them, but left them to erudite critics to 
 discuss, and curious antiquaries to resolve, age after 
 age, to this day. He died in the meridian of his 
 talents ; some say, on the anniversary of his birth, 
 1616, at fifty-two years of age. Fortunately a por- 
 trait of him, taken from his bust, has come down to 
 us : it is a noble and magnificent face. Of his fig- 
 ure, Aubrey says, " He was a handsome, well-shaped 
 man." A more perfect model of a gentleman was 
 never drawn than in the advice of Polonius to Laertes, 
 wherein he says, — 
 
 " Be thou familiar, but. by no means vulgar.'' 
 
 There is reason to believe that Shakspeare was at 
 heart of a rehgious turn of mind. There are many 
 passages in his plays which evince his faith in a 
 special Providence, and there are often solemn allu- 
 sions to the spirit-world ; in the sweet words of Long- 
 fellow, — 
 
 " To the islands of the blest, 
 To the land of the hereafter." 
 
 And who but a believer in Christianity could have 
 written as he did of Christmas ? — a holy day, which 
 every year in this country seems more and more 
 recovering from past neglect : — 
 
 " Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes 
 In which our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
 The bird of dawning singeth all night long." 
 
 It is pleasing to meditate on places where extraor- 
 
60 
 
 dinary genius or illustrious merit has made a home. 
 Imagination lingers in the Vale of Vaucluse, where 
 Petrarch revived letters ; or in Abbotsford, dear to 
 aU the lovers of romance and minstrelsy; and in 
 Stratford upon Avon, where Shakspeare was born and 
 died. And who is there in our own beloved land 
 whose heart does not cling to those sacred precincts 
 where hved the Father of his Country, — Mount Ver- 
 non ; scarcely redeemed from all vulgar uses by the 
 eloquent Everett, and set apart as a hallowed spot, 
 before it was surrounded by the flames of civil war ? 
 May it be preserved by a kiad Providence from dese- 
 cration until we are again restored to union and 
 peace ! 
 
 The influence of Shakspeare's plays in England 
 and the United States has exceeded that of all other 
 writings except the Holy Scriptures. They are found 
 in almost every dwelling of taste, and their beauties 
 are familiar to every educated mind. Perhaps they 
 are more generally read in the United States than in 
 Great Britain, in consequence of our more numerous 
 schools and seminaries. As in his time our ancestors 
 generally belonged to England, we rightfully and cor- 
 dially claim Shakspeare as also our own sweet poet ; 
 and happy is the thought, that, on this anniversary 
 of his birth, the banner of St. George and the stars 
 and stripes of our Republic can wave in unison to 
 the memory of the same great man ! 
 
61 
 
 ODE ON SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 BY JOHN H. SHEPPARD, ESQ. ' 
 
 In Stratford upon Avon, 
 Where the silent waters flow, 
 The immortal Drama woke from sleep 
 Three hundred years ago : 
 Then, as the long, dark ages rolled away, 
 A light from heaven shone on Shakspearb's face. 
 Land of the illustrious dead ! with thee this day 
 We love to linger near that hallowed place ; 
 For wert thou not the father-land of our New-England race ? 
 
 Beyond the Rocky Mountains, 
 From the Golden Gate of fame. 
 Far east to Schoodic's misty shores, 
 , Is heard his honored name. 
 
 Live where we may, such life-like scenes he drew, 
 Arrayed in robes of beauty all his own. 
 Nature herself proclaims each picture true 
 To Albion's echoing hills : nor there alone ; 
 As e'en Niagara speaks in Prospero's thunder-tone. 
 
 Ah ! what a halcyon memory 
 Our school-boy days bring on, 
 When young Othello told us how 
 He Desdemona won ! 
 Where are the voices that once filled the air ? 
 Let not stern manhood deem the illusion wrong. 
 When the boy dreamed the enchanted isle was there 
 Near Academic grove, unknown to song. 
 Where Kennebec among the hills meandering glides along. 
 
 Not In the theatre alone 
 Is seen his wondrous power ; 
 Though some great actor tread the stage. 
 The pageant of an hour : 
 He visits many a humble home ; and, when 
 Some brave thought stirs the heart by sorrow riven, 
 We feel like heroes, though we live like men 
 n lowly lot ; for here full oft at even 
 The Bard of Avon sweeps the ^olian harp of heaven. 
 
62 
 
 England, with all thy glory 
 From the Druid days of old, 
 Not Creey's pride, nor Agincourt, 
 Nor Field of the Cloth of Gold, 
 Shines with such virtue- in all coming time 
 As genius, learning, minstrelsy, inspire : 
 They fill the ideal world with thoughts sublime ; 
 Guiding Ambition's eye to aim far higher 
 Than light the flames of civil war with strange, unholy fire ! 
 
 They gleam like stars in history 
 Along a dreary waste 
 Who first enlarged the bounds of mind. 
 Or raised the tone of taste. 
 Thus Bacon looms up in that glorious age 
 Of Spenser's lay and Jonson's critic eye ; 
 When a Promethean spark illumed the stage. 
 And Shakspbabk drew such scenes of time gone by. 
 That life a drama seems 'midst shadows of eternity. 
 
ESS AY. 
 
 By Rev. Feederio W. Hollahd, A.M. 
 
A STUDY OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 After so much has been said in eulogy of him 
 whose birth and death to-day commemorates, any 
 thing more may seem "the thricetold tale vexing 
 the dull ear." And yet a thought or two may con- 
 firm our impressions of this master-spirit, — master 
 not of the drama alone, but of English literature. 
 
 Though no record remains of his conversation, no 
 character of him by a contemporary, no letter he ever 
 wrote, and but one epistle written to him, yet we 
 know Shakspeare thoroughly through our sympathies. 
 It is one' of the greatest privileges some of us have 
 enjoyed to visit the sweet Avon, where his childhood 
 was passed; to worship in the church where his 
 ashes sleep ; to roam through the still-tenanted deer- 
 park, held, as of old, by the Lucy Family ; to read 
 the names most distinguished in literature traced 
 upon the walls of his birthplace ; to drink in the 
 fragrance of those wild flowers he loved so dearly; 
 to remember how those quaint lines — 
 
 " For eTesus' sake, forbear 
 To dig the dust enclosed here " — 
 
 have been reverently heeded 'until now, and will be 
 through all coming time. 
 
66 
 
 But infinitely more is it to have his recorded 
 thoughts on all great themes, — on wealth and 
 poverty, justice and oppression, virtue and crime, 
 love and hate, life and death ; to have in his sonnets 
 the opening of his inmost heart in friendship and 
 penitence, in hope and regret, in sentiments that he 
 shares with the humblest, and aspirations that unite 
 him with the highest. His historical dramas certainly 
 show how real the past was to him, with its sunny 
 heights of splendor, and its abysses of shame. Who 
 does not feel that all his plays reveal the many-sided, 
 sunny-souled man, delighting in friends, given to 
 hospitality, abhorring meanness as the lowest crime ? 
 We think, with Gervinus, that the sonnets of Shak- 
 speare testify to a strength of feeling and passion ; 
 a perfect inability to veil his thoughts or to dissemble ; 
 an innate capacity for allowing circumstances to act 
 with the utmost force upon his mind, and to re-act 
 upon them; in a word, the sonnets testify to a 
 nature truthful, genuine, and above the disguise of 
 art. 
 
 We know the fact of Shakspeare's father being in 
 danger of forfeiting the landed property of his wife, 
 in 1578, to a sort of Shylock, who would not release 
 the estate after the mortgage of forty pounds was 
 paid. If this was the time when his friend South- 
 ampton presented him a large sum, we have part of 
 the idea — the motive, we might say — of the 
 "Merchant of Venice." 
 
 The study of the sonnets, too, brings home the 
 conviction, which Gervinus dwells upon at great 
 length, that the dissipation of Henry V.'s youth was 
 
67 
 
 a mirror of Shakspeare's early excesses; that the 
 great poet designed to show that these youthful fol- 
 lies demonstrate the rich soil which teemed with such 
 exuberant growth, yet had strength enough to flower 
 forth, at the call of duty, in a truly noble manhood. 
 
 Finally, the sonnets show the working of repentr 
 ance* in the poet's soul. At the maturity of his pow- 
 ers, Shakspeare left the stage, which even his genius 
 could not redeem from degradation ; devoted himself 
 to dramatic composition; and finally returned to 
 Stratford, became one of the wealthiest landed pro- 
 prietors, won the esteem of his neighbors, practised 
 a generous hospitality, and died at length, evidently 
 lamented. 
 
 His pervading cheerfulness sends his inspiring 
 words and sunbeam thoughts beyond the bounds of 
 the EngHsh tongue, into and through all modern 
 Ut6rature, distinguished by this from most that pre- 
 ceded it. It is the first and the last impress Shak- 
 speare makes upon us, that he loved every thing, — 
 loved flowers, loved children, loved woman, loved 
 goodness, loved especially his own divine art. As 
 lawyers have asserted that he must have been bred 
 to their trade, and sailors that he knew every rope 
 in a ship, and butchers that he had tried his hand 
 certainly at their craft, and doctors that the insanity 
 
 * " Alas ! 'tis true I have gone here and there, 
 And made myself a motley to the view ; 
 Gored mine own thoughts ; sold cheap what is most dear ; 
 Made old offences of affections new. 
 Most true it is that I have looked on truth 
 Askance and strangely ; but, by all above, 
 Tliese blenches gave my heart another youth." 
 
68 
 
 in King Lear (so different from that of Optjelia or 
 Lady Macbeth) is a study in science : so critics have 
 called wit the pre-eminence of his genius ; have cited 
 Falstaff and his followers, Bottom and his company, 
 Dogberry and Verges, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek. And the tradition, that his word-combats 
 with Ben Jonson used to set the tavern-table in a roar, 
 makes us feel that his laughter was genial and whole- 
 souled; that he carried to his fireside an irrepressible 
 humor ; that he delighted to sport with his children 
 and grandchildren ; that, when a dark cloud hung 
 over him, he saw its silver lining ; that he looked 
 forward into the great to-morrow with unchilled 
 hope. At the Earl of Oxford's dinner-table, Pope 
 told the story of Sir William Davenant's being seen 
 running at the top of his boyish speed through 
 Oxford streets, as he said, "to see his godfather 
 William." — "There's a good lad," said the old towns- 
 man who stopped him ; " but see you don't take 
 God's name in vain." The child was bounding, as he 
 knew, into arms that would give him the warmest 
 welcome ; into a smile that flowed all around as 
 sunshine ; into a charmed circle of mirth, which the 
 gifted of England's greatest day loved to bask in, 
 at that Mermaid Inn where Faed has so finely 
 grouped him beside his friends Ealeigh and South- 
 ampton, Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker, Camden, 
 and Bacon, — a parliament of genius. 
 
 But it is nowise true that any one feature predom- 
 inated in Shakspeare's character or Shakspeare's 
 works. Two of his four greatest dramas flow over 
 with pidhos. Cordelia and Ophelia can hardly be 
 
69 
 
 read by any sensitive person, for the first time, with- 
 out tears. The tragic was just as wonderful in him 
 as the comic : because it is true what Hazlitt said, 
 that " the characteristic of Chaucer is intensity ; of 
 Spenser, remoteness ; of Milton, elevation ; of Shak- 
 speare, every thing." Perceptive, sensitive, creative 
 powers were so blended, there was such entire 
 absence of deficiency or excess, such perfect propor- 
 tion among his faculties, and such entire harmony 
 in their exercise, that whatever he is doing seems to 
 be his best ; you wish he might be always doiag that 
 alone : until, with the change of scene, you pass 
 to sopaething equally wonderful in as opposite a 
 strain, — from the description of Queen Mab to the 
 dying charge of Wolsey; from Othello's defence to 
 Gobbo's dispute with his conscience ; or, in the same 
 play, from the grave-digger's wit to the broken-hearted 
 despair of Ophelia's songs. If his master-pieces are 
 agreed to be "Hamlet" and "Lear," "Macbeth" and 
 '■ Othello," all tragedies, it is only because tragedy 
 is itself higher, deeper, grander than comedy. For 
 who else has produced any thing to compare with his 
 best in that line, — the " Merchant of Venice " ? Who 
 ever wearies of it as of later pieces of the kind ? 
 Who does not joyously claim, that with this alone, 
 nay, with those five wonderful lines. — 
 
 ' The quality of mercy is not strained ; 
 It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
 Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed, — 
 It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
 "Tis mightiest in the mightiest," — 
 
70 
 
 Shakspeare had written himself one of those "im- 
 mortal names that were not born to die"? 
 
 Hence it was that Coleridge called him " oceanic ; " 
 that the phrase " thousand-souled " is associated with 
 his name alone ; that intelligent critics are agreed 
 upon this universality of genius as peculiarly Shak- 
 spearian ; that every heart may find its own echo, 
 every emotion see its divinest, in him. 
 
 Hence a third trait, with which our study of him, 
 who, as Gervinus proves, occupies in the modern 
 drama that place of the revealing genius which 
 Homer holds in the epic, must close. He had no 
 pet characters ; no one idea which he would fasten 
 upon sympathetic readers ; no idolatry which he 
 bends all his art to inspire. He is terribly impartial ; 
 a witness who cannot abate one jot from the truth 
 he must let out. Nay, you do not think a moment 
 of the author as you do all the while in " Samson 
 Agonistes " or " Sardanapalus." You feel only the 
 reality of his creations : their creator has retired 
 behind the scenes, and left us alone, sometimes with 
 those fiends in female form, Goneril and Regan ; with 
 the wretch Oswald, the monster Richard, the villain 
 lago ; and yet still some trace of good in these ruins ■ 
 of humanity is like the remains of beauty lingering 
 around the broken columns of Paestum, the fractured 
 sphinxes of Karnak. What I mean is, that Shak- 
 speare's characters speak for themselves : they pos- 
 sess him for the time, and he is theirs, — their repre- 
 sentative, not their advocate. They are Nature in 
 all her fulness of being, with her variety of lights ; 
 mingling, as Hamlet does and Nature does, singular 
 
ll. 
 
 power with singular meekness ; mingling, as Eichard 
 III. does, noblest bravery with, remorseless cruelty ; 
 minghng, as Ariel does, the flightiness of a sprite 
 with the dutifulness of a child. Shakspeare does not 
 care to explain or harmonize their being ; he does 
 not set them up as his apologists ; does not let us 
 feel that he admired his handiwork : he leaves them 
 with that serene carelessness with which he suffered 
 his writings to shift for themselves, — leaves them, in 
 well-assured confidence, that, as coming ages would 
 sacredly treasure every line he had written, later and 
 profounder study would assure us no characters were 
 ever truer than his to nature and history, to provi- 
 dence and the soul. 
 
 " Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven, 
 No pyramid set off his memories 
 But the eternal substance of his greatness."