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 A FEW THOUGHTS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 EEAD AT A MEETING OF THE 
 
 STOUEBEIDGE LITERARY & SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 1855. 
 
 BY LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS MELLARD, G8, HIGH STREET.
 
 -, (JIUC ^ 
 
 rh*'^"
 
 A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 You may remember that verse towards the end of the 
 Book of Proverbs, " The conies are but a feeble folk, yet 
 "make they their houses in the rocks/' (i) An article in a 
 Eeview, on the different Editions and Critics of Shakspeare, 
 which I read long ago, ended with these words, '^ On the 
 " whole we must conclude that these Commentators are but 
 "a feeble folk, and that they have no business to make 
 "their houses in the rocks which support the everlasting 
 "monument of Shakspeare/' 
 
 I have no ambition whatever to add to the number of these 
 coney-commentators. I have only attempted to set down a 
 few reflections, with no pretensions to completeness or origin- 
 ality, which have occurred to me in reading Shakspeare : 
 together with a few illustrations and comparisons from other 
 writers. 
 
 In both these respects I have felt a continued sense of 
 _______
 
 imperfection, from my limited acquaiutance with litera- 
 ture, and especially with the great language and writings of 
 Germany. In some regards T hardly regret my ignorance 
 of German. I have a strong sympathy with an ancient 
 Pellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, whom 1 well remem- 
 ber, who on being asked whether he had been to a book-sale, 
 replied " The book-sale ? No : I have not yet got through 
 " the Public Library." So, I feel so oppressed by the hope- 
 lessness of ever getting through half of the books worth 
 reading in the languages that I do know, that I feel some 
 satisfaction in being sheltered by the floodgates of ignorance 
 from the additional inundation of that vast German ocean. 
 But with regard especially to my present subject, I am 
 well aware that this is a loss, as I have said, both as 
 to poetry which may compare with Shakspeare, and criticisms 
 which have expounded him. It seems generally acknowledged 
 that the German commentators on Shakspeare are better 
 than those of his own country. Indeed it has been said of 
 Tieck and Schlegel that they have probably found many 
 things in the great poet which he himself never meant to put 
 there. Such a thing is not impossible. It is said to have 
 occurred recently in the kindred art of painting, with respect 
 to a very remarkable picture of the Pre-Raphaelite School, by 
 Mr. Hunt, called "The Light of the World." The cele- 
 brated Mr. Ruskin, who acts as a sort of nurse to that infant 
 and promising school of art, being displeased at the ignorance 
 and neglect with which the picture seemed to him to 
 be treated in some quarters, wrote concerning it in the
 
 newspapers a long, striking, and ingenious description 
 of the object and intention of every part of the picture; a 
 description which must have greatly enlightened the public, 
 and may have been all the more gratifying to the painter, as 
 it was in great measure new to him. 
 
 Such a supposition, however, would be most rash, touching 
 a genius so vast as that of Shakspeare. 
 
 Now, I am not about to enter on any general definition of 
 poetry. But I will refer to one which has been made, note- 
 worthy both in itself and from the authority which has given 
 it, and which I quote because it bears in a special manner 
 on my subject. It is in an article in a Review, understood 
 to have been written by Mr. Keble. I am obliged to refer to 
 it from memory, but the substance of it was very nearly this : 
 " Poetry is the expression of feelings congenial to the nature 
 "of him who utters them, but which the circumstances of 
 "his time and position debar him from indulging in his 
 " outward life." I remember mentioning this to my friend 
 Mr. Woods!:ate : who with that sas-acitv in such matters of 
 the pure intellect which distinguishes him, at once remarked 
 "That seems a good accidental definition;" meaning that it 
 was an intimation of what very often accompanies true 
 poetry, but is not of its essence. The origin of this definition 
 seems clear: it was in Mr. Keble's own circumstances, as 
 must be evident to all who are familiar with the Christian Year, 
 which is throughout an expression of the longing of the writer
 
 6 
 
 for a purer state of the Church than was reahzcd around him. 
 The article suggests many apposite instances, such as 
 might occur to any one upon consideration. I will mention 
 only the obvious one of Walter Scott. Including his novels, 
 which are in truth poetical conceptions, nothing can be 
 plainer than that the whole bent of his imaginative feelings 
 was towards the days of chivalry and romance: and that 
 those days being long since passed away, never to return, 
 the rare powers of his mind turned themselves to the 
 reproduction of them in those forms of endless beauty and 
 variety which we find in his works. 
 
 But that^ this is no essential definition of poetry, is at 
 once most evident by the single case of Shakspeare, not to 
 mention many others. What do we know of the bent of his 
 mind? What were his predominant feelings, or longings 
 which could not be realized in action? 
 
 Not only can no answer be given to these questions, but it 
 would be destructive of that which is Shakspeare^s great and 
 transcendent glory if there could. This touches on the main 
 subject, a well known one indeed, on which I intend to dwell. 
 
 We know hardly anything of Shakspeare. I lately found 
 a curious remark about this, in the very excellent work 
 entitled " Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics :" (2) 
 
 (2) IV. 443, Srd'Edition.
 
 by a Roman Catholic gentleman, the late Mr. Charles Butler, 
 whom I cannot name without a word of admiration for his 
 eminent moderation, candour, and gentleness. I never read 
 a book which gave more favourable impressions of its writer. 
 The words are these : 
 
 " May the writer premise a suspicion which, from internal 
 "evidence, he has long entertained, that Shakspeare was a 
 *'Eoman Catholic? Not one of his works contains the 
 " slightest reflection on Popery : or any of its practices : or 
 " any eulogy on the Reformation. His panegyric on Queen 
 " Elizabeth is cautiously expressed : while Queen Catherine is 
 *' placed in a state of veneration : and nothing can exceed the 
 " skill with which Griffith draws the panegyric of Wolsey. 
 ''The ecclesiastic is never presented by Shakspeare in a 
 " degrading point of view. The jolly monk, the irregular 
 "nun, never appears in his drama. Is it not natural to 
 " suppose that this topic, on which, at that time, those who 
 " criminated Popery loved so much to dwell, must have often 
 " attracted his notice, and invited him to employ his muse 
 " upon them, as subjects likely to engage the attention both 
 " of the Sovereign and the public? Does not his abstinence 
 " from them justify a suspicion that a Catholic feehng withheld 
 " him from them? Milton made the Gunpowder Conspiracy 
 " the theme of a regular poem : Shakspeare is altogether silent 
 " upon it. This conjecture acquires additional confirmation 
 " from the indisputable fact, that John Shakspeare, the father
 
 8 
 
 " of the poet, lived and died in communion with the Church 
 "of Rome." 
 
 This may or may not be a probable opinion. But what 
 I would particularly notice is this: the extremely slight and 
 negative evidence on which it is founded, and on which alone it 
 could be founded; and how different it would be in the case of 
 other great writers. Even setting aside directly controversial 
 matter, no one could fail to see from their works, had they 
 no other evidence, that Dante was a Eoman Cathohc, 
 that Milton was a Protestant, that Byron was an infidel. 
 And this, as I said, is a part only of the general 
 proposition. It is not an exaggeration: we know nothing 
 of Shakspeare from his writings. 
 
 No doubt there is a difference between dramatic writers, 
 whose business it is not to show themselves, and others. 
 But this by no means does more than somewhat modify the 
 question. To take some of the greatest names, it seems 
 easy enough to form a general notion of the characters of 
 ^Eschylus and Euripides, Eacine and Corneille, from their 
 dramas. And to take an extreme case, one often contrasted 
 with that of Shakspeare, there is no part of Byron's writings 
 more intensely impregnated with his own individuality, than 
 his wonderful tragedy of Manfred. 
 
 Now this, as I said, belongs to that which constitutes 
 Shakspoare's real preeminence. Inhere are several of the
 
 elements of real poetry in one or other of which, not indeed 
 in their combination, he may have been excelled by others. 
 Mr. Hallam has expressed it thus : (s) 
 
 "Others may have been as sublime, others may have been 
 " more pathetic, others may have equalled him in grace and 
 " purity of language, and have shunned some of his faults : but 
 ''the philosophy of Shakspeare, his intimate searching out of the 
 "human heart, whether in the gnomic form of sentence, 
 "or in the dramatic exhibition of character, is a gift peculiarly 
 " his own." 
 
 To the positive part of this judgment about Shakspeare I 
 shall hereafter return : at present I would say in more detail, 
 that in one or other of sach points as these, sublimity, 
 grandeur, fancy, melody of rhythm, gracefulness, and others, 
 there may be many passages in Homer, many in the Georgics, 
 many in Horace, very much in Dante, in Milton, a few in 
 Wordsworth, not a few in Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, and 
 probably in some others, which may excel any similar passage 
 in Shakspeare. To verify this would be endless: I take, 
 merely as an instance, one stanza, unsurpassed as 1 believe and 
 unsurpassable, from those in Childe Harold on the death of 
 the Princess Charlotte: {^) 
 
 '' Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made: 
 " Thy bridals fruit is ashes : in the dust 
 " The fair-hairM Daughter of the Isles is laid, 
 (3) IntroductiontotheLiteratureofEurope, III. 575. (4) IV. 170.
 
 10 
 
 " The love of millions ! How we did intrust 
 
 "Futurity to her! And though it must 
 
 '' Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd . 
 
 "Our children should obey her child, and blessM 
 
 " Her and her hop'd for seed, whose promise seemM 
 
 " Like stars to shepherds' eyes — ^twas but a meteor beam'd." 
 
 I cannot hesitate to say that in its kind, a kind easily 
 understood without any attempt to describe it, this passage 
 cannot be equalled in Shakspeare. Again, as to sublimity 
 in poetry, it has been said by a clever though eccentric 
 writer, Mr. De Quincey, that Milton is, as he calls it, 
 'sole sitting' — the sublime poet of the world. This claim 
 may not be admitted to the full extent, but it seems not very 
 far from the truth, or at least that Dante alone should be 
 placed on the same elevation. 
 
 I have said that in fancy there are others who may please us 
 more than Shakspeare. I distinguish the fancy from the 
 imagination, according to the rule adopted by the late 
 Mr. Coleridge, and which those who can master that very 
 difficult writer may see set forth at great length in his works. 
 I will, however, quote, not from him but from his nephew 
 Mr. H. Nelson Coleridge, who has to some extent popularized 
 his uncle's doctrines : as this point is of some interest, and 
 as Mr. Coleridge's illustrations are drawn from Shakspeare. 
 He says, (s) quoting from Eomeo and Juliet: "I conceive 
 
 (5) Introduction to the Greek Classic Poets, Part I. p. 10. 1st edit.
 
 ]1 
 
 " tbe following passage to be an instance of pure Fancy, as 
 "contradistinguished from Imagination: 
 
 " then, I see Queen Mab has been with you. 
 
 "She is the fairies* midwife: and she comes 
 
 " In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 
 
 " On the fore-finger of an alderman; 
 
 " Drawn with a team of little atomies 
 
 "Athwart men's noses as they He asleep; 
 
 " Her waggon-spokes made of long spider's legs; 
 
 "The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; 
 
 "The traces, of the smallest spider's web; 
 
 "The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams; 
 
 "Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash of film; 
 
 "Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat 
 
 "Not half so big as a round little worm 
 
 "Prick'd from the lazy finger, of a maid; 
 
 " Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, 
 
 " Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, 
 
 " Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers, (e) 
 
 "But the mode and direction of the profound madness of 
 " Lear flow from the Imagination of the Poet alone. 
 
 " KenL Will you lie down and rest on the cushions? 
 ^^ Lear, I'll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence. 
 " Thou robed man of justice, take thy place, 
 
 (6) Rom. and Jul. I. 4.
 
 12 
 
 " And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, 
 
 "Bench by his side. You are of the commission, 
 
 '' Sit vou too. 
 
 " Edgar, Let us deal justly. 
 
 "Lear. Arraign her first; 'tis Goneril. I here take 
 " my oath before this honourable assembly, she kicked the 
 ''poor king, her father. 
 
 "Fool. Come hither, mistress; is your name Goneril? 
 
 "Lear. She cannot deny it. 
 
 " Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint stool. 
 
 " Lear. And here's another, whose warped looks proclaim 
 " "What store her heart is made of. Stop her there ! 
 " Arms, arms, sword, fire ! Corruption in the place ! 
 " False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape ? 
 
 "Edgar. Bless thy five wits! 
 
 " Lear. The little dogs and all, 
 " Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see they bark at me ! 
 
 " Edgar. Tom will throw his head to them. 
 
 " Lear. Then let them anatomize Eegan : see what breeds 
 "about her heart: is there any cause in nature that makes 
 " these hard hearts ? (7) 
 
 "In the first of these passages the images taken from 
 " objects of nature are presented as they are ; they are neither 
 "modified nor associated: they are in fact, so many pretty 
 "shows passed through a magic lantern, without any con- 
 " nexion with the being and the feelings of the speaker or the 
 (7) King Lear IUTg.
 
 13 
 
 " poet impressed upon them: we look at them, but cannot for 
 " a moment iee\/or or witk them. In the second, the images 
 '' are transfigured ; their colours and shapes are modified: one 
 " master-passion pervades and quickens them : and in them 
 " all it is the wild and heart-stricken Eather-king who speaks 
 ^' alone. The first is Pancy : the last is Imagination. The one 
 " aggregates, the other associates ; that presents a spectacle, 
 *' and presents it only ; this projects the man into the object, or 
 " attracts it to the man, with a vivifying, humanizing, imper- 
 " sonating energy. In a word. Fancy collects materials from 
 " the visible world, and arranges them for exhibition, but it 
 " imparts to them no touch of human interest : Imagination 
 "takes and moulds the objects of nature at the same moment: 
 " it makes them all speak the language of man, and renders 
 " them instinct with the inspired breath of human passion." 
 
 I do not know whether the phraseology of this distinction 
 between Fancy and Imagination has been fully adopted by 
 subsequent writers : but what I have quoted may sufficiently 
 shew that two different things are meant, and, to follow 
 common usage, it might do nearly as well to speak of the 
 higher and lower kinds of imagination. And it is in the 
 lighter kind that we may consider some, especially some 
 modern poets, such as Shelley, Moore, and Tennyson, to 
 ha've a charm beyond Shakspeare. In the higher faculty, as 
 described in the last sentence I have taken from Mr. Coleridge, 
 and to which I would call particular attention — in this it is 
 that Shakspeare has so unapproachable a preeminence.
 
 14 
 
 It is not, then, that Shakspeare was without any one of 
 the poetical qualities which I have named, or which I 
 could name. He had them all : and if one and another have 
 sometimes excelled him in these separate gifts, few have 
 equalled him at least in the abundance and profuseness even 
 of them singly, and certainly none have approached him in 
 the combination of them all. And this variety alone would 
 no doubt place him in the foremost rank of poets; but still it 
 remains true that the sovereign crown of Shakspeare is this, 
 that he is the poet of reality : of the human heart and nature, 
 according to what has just been quoted from Mr. Coleridge. 
 The feelings of one who after revelling in the unearthly 
 splendours of Shelley, or the mazy kaleidescope of Lalla 
 Kookh, turns to the vigorous realities of Shakspeare, may 
 be hkened to those imagined by Mrs. Hemans, in the gazer 
 at the marvels of a sunset sky and sea, who descries afar in 
 the ocean a small ship : (s) 
 
 " Bright are the floating clouds above, 
 
 "The glittering seas below: 
 " But we are bound by cords of love 
 
 " To kindred weal and woe. 
 "Therefore, amid this wide array 
 
 " Of glorious things and fair, 
 " My soul is on that bark's lone way, 
 
 " Tor human hearts are there." 
 
 (8) The Distant Ship. Poems, 434. (1849.)
 
 15 
 
 The beautiful or fantastic visions of Ariel, or Caliban, or 
 Titania and Puck, or the witches in Macbeth, all the 
 cloudland of the Midsummer Night's Dream, all the airy 
 little songs that dance through so many of the plays — all 
 these are the overflowings of a genius which could do what- 
 ever man had done: but it is the men and women and 
 children, whether historical or created, Henry and Hotspur, 
 Eichard and Catherine and Wolsey, Coriolanus and Antony, 
 Talstaff, Shylock, Lear and Cordelia, Othello and Desdemona 
 and lago, and Hamlet, and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, 
 and so many more whom we could all name, it is these 
 which have made Shakspeare what he is to England and to 
 the world. All human nature, in its every form, the 
 highest and the lowest, the best and the worst, and all that 
 intervenes between them, the simplest and the strangest, all 
 lay bare and open before him : and the characters which he 
 moulded out of that over which he had this mastery speak to 
 us as of themselves, not of him. Compare, in this respect, 
 with his, the language which we read in other dramatists. 
 No doubt there are differences in the characters they have 
 portrayed. But in the main the heroes of JEschylus 
 speak JEschylean, of Sophocles Sophoclean, those of the 
 contemporaries of Shakspeare in their manner; and again 
 to take the great contrast of Lord Byron, not only are all his 
 personages substantially the same, but there is hardly one 
 of them behind and through which we do not see the gloomy 
 and self-tormenting figure of the poet himself: so that as
 
 16 
 
 Mr. Carlyle has said, (9) the general title of his works might 
 be, " The Sorrows of Lord Byron." But Shakspeare has 
 no one style or manner, but is as various as human nature 
 itself. Except in so far as human nature is one with itself, 
 we can never say that such and such a thought or character 
 is after the manner of ShaJcs^eare. 
 
 One special point of variety, perhaps the rarest though 
 not the most admirable, is the equal excellence of Shakspeare 
 in comic and serious writing. It is said indeed as a meta- 
 physical truth, that humour always coexists with genius. But 
 I am not speaking in this philosophical way, but in the popular 
 sense of fun: facetious or laughter-moving powers. And if 
 ever Shakspeare is treated as Homer has been, by those critics 
 whom no amount of evidence could ever induce me to beheve— 
 those who say that Homer was not one but many — such 
 notions about him might be more plausibly supported than 
 ever those of the destroyers of the unity of Homer have 
 been, by the improbability that Palstaff and Othello, 
 Dogberry and Lear, Dame Quickly and Miranda, Macbeth 
 and the Comedy of Errors, could have been the offspring of 
 the same brain. 
 
 In this respect, Antiquity is a perfect blank : though there 
 
 may be a few indications in Aristophanes that he might, 
 
 had he chosen, have excelled at least in graceful and elegant 
 
 poetry, (lo) Wit of the severe or serious kind is no doubt 
 
 (9) Sartor Resartu3 164. (10) See for instance Nub. 276—290.
 
 17 
 
 often united with different powers, as in Juvenal and Pope : 
 but of the union which I am now speaking of, instances are 
 not to be found in the classics, most rare among moderns. 
 Swift could not touch the lofty in writing: Lord B}Ton 
 aimed at the facetious, and attained to the fiendish or 
 infernal. There is much excellence of this kind among living 
 writers, but on them I do not dwell. 
 
 Now the vast superiority of Shakspeare when compared 
 with any other man, as to this creative power, is palpable if 
 we think how many other characters, from other writers, in 
 poetry or fiction, have become famiHar to us and part of the 
 very furniture of our minds, as those have done to which I 
 have above alluded. If some of the Homeric characters are 
 fully equal to those of Shakspeare, siill Achilles, Agamemnon, 
 Priam, Hector and Andromache, Nestor, Diomed, Ulysses, 
 and a few more, are soon enumerated. A single character 
 has made the fortune of Le Sage: two, of Cervantes; half-a- 
 dozen, of Fielding and Moliere. Compare this with the 
 profusion of Shakspeare. And in many poets, for example 
 the two great French tragedians whom T before named, 
 Corneille and Racine, it is not so much the reality and life- 
 likeness of the persons which we admire, as the leauty of 
 the things which they say, and which might as well have 
 been said by any one else, (n) 
 
 Again acknowledging my defective means of judging, from 
 (11) Scott's Life of Dryden, 71.
 
 18 
 
 ignorance of the German writers, especially Goethe, who I 
 know has been likened to Shakspeare in this respect, I must 
 avow my impression that with the single exception of Homer, 
 it is in recent times that we must look for the uearest 
 approach to him in this power of living representation. As 
 far as I know, I beheve Walter Scott in his novels is the 
 nearest to him both in power and in copiousness. Now of 
 him, compared with Shakspeare, Mr. Carlyle has said with 
 his peculiar expressiveness : (12) " Neither in the higher and 
 " highest excellence, of drawing character, is he at any time 
 " altogether deficient : though at no time can we call him, in 
 
 " the best sense, successful It were a long 
 
 ''chapter to unfold the difference in drawing a character 
 "between a Scott, a Shakspeare, a Goethe, let it is a 
 "difference literally immense: they are of different species; 
 " the value of the one is not to be counted in the coin of the 
 " other. We might say in a short word, which means a 
 "long matter, that your Shakspeare fashions his characters 
 "from the heart outwards: your Scott fashions them from 
 "the skin inwards, never getting near the heart of them. 
 "The one set become living men and women: the other 
 " amount to little more than mechanical cases, deceptively 
 "painted automatons." 
 
 This assertion of a difference in kind, I consider very far 
 from doing justice to Scott. I fully believe that many of 
 his personages, Louis XI and James 1st and Elizabeth, 
 
 (12) Essays, V. 297, 2ud Edition.
 
 19 
 
 Ravenswood, Rebecca, Jeanie Deans, Yarney, many others, 
 are worthy to be ranged near to Shakspeare^s, and have a 
 similar hold on the minds of men. But in the first place, 
 prose, though it may embody poetical conceptions, is not 
 poetry : and next, though Mr. Carlyle's remark seems 
 greatly exaggerated, it seems true to say, that the difference, 
 though not fundamental and essential, is still very con- 
 siderable in degree. 
 
 I have heard it said that our living favourites, Dickens 
 and Thackeray, are pushing Walter Scott from his stool. 
 I do not think so. They have yet the test of time to stand: 
 and I cannot but think that many of their characters, 
 Mr. Dickens^s especially, are rather curious variations upon 
 human nature than really modelled upon it. 
 
 It is of course from this power of living creation, that 
 Shakspeare could venture on the marvellous simplicity of 
 language which we find in so many of his finest passages. 
 Tor we talk of poetical language, whereas in truth all 
 language may be poetical when drawn from the depths of 
 nature, and touching the universal sympathies of the heart 
 of mankind. But the plainness of words which we find in 
 Shakspeare is indeed sometimes so intense as to be hardly 
 conceivable beforehand. Take the lines,' some of which you 
 may have seen this year inscribed under Mr. Herbert^s picture, 
 very worthy of its subject, entitled "Lear and Cordelia:" they 
 are the words of Lear on beginning to recognize his daughter :
 
 20 
 
 " Pray do not mock me : 
 "I am a very foolish fond old man, 
 " Fourscore and upward : and, to dea] plainly, 
 " I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. 
 " Methinks 1 should know you, and know this man : 
 ''Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant 
 " What place this is : and all the skill I have 
 "Eemembers not these garments: nay, I know not 
 " Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me : 
 " For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
 "To be my child Cordelia.'' 
 
 To which she replies : 
 
 " And so I am, I am.-" (is) 
 
 Again, from the same wonderful play, the last words of 
 TiCar while holding his dead child in his arms : 
 
 " Do you see this ? Look at her, look on her lips, 
 " Look there, look there." (u) 
 
 And so he dies. 
 
 Or before, when the first shuddering dread of madness 
 comes over him : 
 
 (13) King Lear, IV. 7. (15) King Lear, V. 3.
 
 21 
 
 " let me not be mad, sweet heavens, not mad ! 
 "Keep me in temper: I would not be mad." (is) 
 
 Or look at every word of Desdemona in her dying scene: 
 the love, the innocence, the natural fear of dying, all clothed 
 in the same absolute simplicity. I do not quote the whole, 
 but the chief part of it. 
 
 " Othello. Have you prayed to-night, Desdemona ? 
 
 " Desdemona, Aj, my Lord. 
 
 " Othello: . If you bethink yourself of any crime 
 "UnreconcilM as yet to heaven and grace, 
 " Solicit for it straight. 
 
 ''Desdemona. Alack my Lord, what may you mean by 
 "that? 
 
 *' Othello. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by : 
 " I would not kill thy unprepared spirit ; 
 "No — Heaven forefend ! — I would not kill thy soul. 
 
 " Desdemona. Talk you of killin^c ? 
 
 " Othello. Ay, I do. 
 
 " Desdemona. Then heaven have mercy on me ! 
 
 " Othello. Amen, with all my heart. 
 
 '' Beidemona. If you say so, I hope you wiU not kill me. 
 
 " And yet I fear you : for you're fatal then, 
 
 " When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear, I know not 
 
 " Since guilt I know not : yet I feel, I fear. 
 
 (15) King Lear, I. 5.
 
 22 
 
 " Othello. Think on thy sins. 
 
 " Besdemona. They are loves I bear to you. 
 
 " That death's unnatural, that kills for loving. 
 " Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip ? 
 " Some bloody passion shakes your very frame : 
 " They are portents : but yet I hope, I hope, 
 '' They do not point at me. 
 
 " Othello. Peace, and be still. 
 
 '^Besdemona. I will so: what's the matter? 
 
 " Othello. That handkerchief, 
 " Which I so loved, and gave thee, thou gav'st Cassio. 
 
 " Besdemona. No, by my life and soul : send for the man 
 *'And ask him. 
 
 " Othello. Sweet soul, take heed, take heed of perjury : 
 " Thou art on thy death bed. 
 
 "Besdemona. Ay, but not yet to die. 
 
 " Othello. Thou art to die. 
 
 " Besdemona, Oh heaven have mercy on me ! 
 
 " Othello. I say, amen. 
 
 "Besdemona. And have you mercy too ! I never did 
 " Offend you in my life : never lov'd Cassio, 
 " But with such general warranty of heav'n, 
 " As I might love : I never gave him token. 
 
 " Besdemona. Oh banish me my Lord, but kill me not. 
 
 Kill me to-morrow, let me live to-night. 
 " Othello. Nay, if you strive —
 
 23 
 
 " Besdemona, But half an hour. 
 *' Othello. Eeing done, there is no pause. 
 ^^ Besdemona. But while I say one prayer. 
 " Othello It is too late." 
 
 And then the untruth at the close : 
 
 " Besdemona. A guiltless death I die. 
 " Emilia. Oh., who hath done this deed ? 
 " Besdemona. Nobody, I myself : farewell : 
 " Commend me to my kind Lord : Oh, farewell." (le) 
 
 Again, Prince Arthur to Hubert, when about to put out 
 his eyes : and observe not merely the simplicity, but the 
 childhkeness : 
 
 '' Arthur. Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes ? 
 
 " Hubert. Young boy, I must. 
 
 " Arthur. And will you ? 
 
 "Hubert. And I will. 
 
 "Arthur. Have you the heart? When your head did 
 "but ache, 
 " I knit my handkerchief about your brows, 
 " (The best 1 had, a princess gave it me), 
 " And I did never ask it you again : 
 " And with my hand at midnight held your head ; 
 " And hke the watchful minutes to the hour, 
 
 (16) Othello V. 2. '
 
 24 
 
 ''Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time, 
 "Saying, what lack you? And where lies your grief? 
 " Or what good love may I perform for you ? 
 " Many a poor man's son would have lain still, 
 " And ne'er have spoken a loving word to you ; 
 " But you at your sick service had a prince. 
 
 " Alas, what need you be so boist'rous-rough ? 
 
 " I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound. 
 
 "Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away, 
 
 " And I will sit as quiet as a lamb ; 
 
 " I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a wcftd, 
 
 " Nor look upon the iron angerly ; 
 
 " Thrust but these men away, and Til forgive you, 
 
 " Whatever torment you do put me to."*' (i7) ■ 
 
 Once more, the profPer of gratuitous service to his 
 young master on his banishment, by the old servant, in 
 "As You Like It:" (is) 
 
 "But do not so : I have five hundred crowns, 
 " The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father, 
 " Which I did store to be my foster-nurse, 
 " When service should in my old limbs lie lame, 
 " And unregarded age in corners thrown : 
 " Take that : and He that doth the ravens feed, 
 (17) King John, IV. 1. (18) II. 3.
 
 25 
 
 " Yea^ providently caters for the sparrow, 
 "Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; 
 " All this I give you: let me be your servant; 
 " Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty : 
 *' For in my youth I never did apply 
 " Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood; 
 " Nor did not "vvith unbashful forehead woo 
 " The means of weakness and debility : 
 " Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
 "Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you: 
 *'ril do the service of a younger man 
 " In all vour business and necessities." 
 
 When we read these passages, we can agree ^ith Mr. H. 
 Taylor, who on a remark of an Editor of Shelley, that 
 "more than any other poet of the present day, every line 
 " and word he wrote is instinct with peculiar beauty," gives 
 this very sound warning : " Let no man sit down to write 
 " with the purpose of making every line and word beautiful 
 " and peculiar." (19) 
 
 Beautiful and peculiar passages, however, no doubt there 
 are in Shakspeare in abundance: and on an occasion like 
 this, it may be expected that some such should be quoted. 
 But there is some difficulty in doing this. In the first 
 place it must be repeated that it is injustice to Shakspeare's 
 peculiar greatness to detach any of the sayings of his chief 
 (19) Preface to Philip Van Artevelde.
 
 26 
 
 characters from the rest. It is the whole conception and "^ 
 presentation of the characters that has engrained them in 
 the memory of men: they dwell there as distinct and 
 complete wholes. The effort of genius is in the conception: 
 the person wlien conceived speaks, not mostly in the 
 language of Parnassus, hut in that which such a person 
 would really use. The idea of the character may be as 
 marvellous as human nature is. Hamlet, for instance, is a 
 creation about which psychological philosophers have written 
 page after page. But no quotation from what he says 
 would do any justice to his character. I cannot read out 
 the whole of the great plays: of course any approximation 
 to it would be impossible. The most vigorous part perhaps 
 of Hamlet, to take the same example, is the scene between 
 him and his mother: which can neither be quoted nor 
 abridged. 
 
 And in the next place, of the passages that would bear 
 ■extracting, almost all, and all the best, are so well-known, 
 in fact so hackneyed, that one would be ashamed to quote 
 them. 
 
 Bearing, however, all this in mind, and that we necessarily 
 exclude almost all upon which the title of Shakspeare to the 
 veneration of mankind really rests — an exclusion not to be 
 lamented if it should lead any one to a more extended 
 accquaintance with the poet himself — some few passages 
 may be read, without any attempt at particular classification,
 
 27 
 
 which seem remarkable for what are commonly felt as 
 poetical beauties. Time would only allow of a few: and 
 this too is a reason why these quotations must only be 
 regarded as very scanty and imperfect specimens from a 
 boundless store. Better selections no doubt might be made. 
 
 For descriptive, picturesque, and fanciful writing, take the 
 address of Iris to Ceres, in the Masque in the Tempest : (20) 
 
 *' Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas, 
 
 "Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats and peas: 
 
 "Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, 
 
 " And flat meads thatcliM with stover them to keep : 
 
 " Thy banks with peonied and twilled brims 
 
 " AYhich spongy April at thy best betrims, 
 
 " To make cold nymphs chaste crowns : and thy broom groves^ 
 
 " Whose shadow the dismissed batchelor loves, 
 
 '^ Being lass-lorn: thy pole-clipt vineyard: 
 
 " And thy sea-marge, rocky, and steril-hard, 
 
 "Where thou thyself dost air: The queen 0' th' sky, 
 
 " Whose wat'ry arch, and messenger am I, 
 
 " Bids thee leave these: and with her sovereign grace, 
 
 " Here on this grass-plot, in this very place, 
 
 "To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain; 
 
 " Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.'" 
 
 Again, Titania to Oberon : (21) 
 
 (20) lY. 1. (21) Mids. N. Dream, II. 2.
 
 28 
 
 (cr\ 
 
 These are the forgeries of jealousy: 
 " And never^ since that middle summer's spring, 
 " Met we in hill, or dale, forest or mead, 
 " By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, 
 " Or on the beached margent of the sea, 
 " To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, 
 "But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. 
 " Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, 
 " As in revenge, have sucFd up from the sea 
 "" Contageous fogs : which falling in the land, 
 " Have ev'ry pelting river made so proud, 
 '' That they have over-borne their continents. 
 " The ox hath therefore stretchM his yoke in vain, 
 "The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn 
 *^Hath rotted, ere his youth attained a beard: 
 " The fold stands empty in the drowned field, 
 " And crows are fatted with the murrain flock : 
 " The nine-men's morrice is filled up with mud, 
 "And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, 
 'Tor lack of tread, are undistinguishable : 
 " The human mortals want their winter here, 
 " No night is now with hymn or carol blest. 
 " Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, 
 " Pale in her anger, washes all the air, 
 " That rheumatic diseases do abound. 
 " And, thorough this distemp'rature, we see 
 " The seasons alter : hoary-headed frosts 
 "Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose :
 
 29 
 
 '' And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown, 
 " An odorous cliaplet of sweet summer buds 
 " Is, as in mockery, set :" 
 
 One of the songs may be quoted : 
 
 " Orpheus with his lute made trees, 
 "And the mountain-tops, that freeze, 
 
 "Bow themselves when he did sing: 
 " To his music, plants and flowers 
 "Ever sprung, as sun and showers 
 
 " There had made a lasting spring. 
 
 " Everything that heard him play 
 "E'en the billows of the sea, 
 
 " Hung their heads, and then lay by. 
 " In sweet music is such art : 
 " Killing care and grief of heart 
 
 "Eall asleep, or, hearing, die." (22) 
 
 Or take that curious passage put into the mouth of that 
 poor shadow of a king, Henry YI; which gives us a better 
 notion of him than all the history : that unhappy and mis- 
 placed man, whom we can imagine, like Louis XVI and so 
 many others, as leading a peaceful and henpecked existence, 
 had the Eates put him in some quiet rural manor-house, 
 instead of on a throne. He is sitting on a hill, aside from 
 the battle-field: 
 
 (22) Hen. 8, III. L
 
 30 
 
 *^ Would IJwere dead! if God's good will were so! 
 
 *' For what is in this world, but grief and woe ? 
 
 *'0 God! methinks it w^ere a happy life, 
 
 "To be no better than a homely swain: 
 
 " To sit upon a hill, as I do now, 
 
 " To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 
 
 " Thereby to see the minutes how they run ; 
 
 " How many make the hour full complete, 
 
 " How many hours bring about the day, 
 
 " How many days will finish up the year, 
 
 " How many years a mortal man may live. 
 
 *' When this is known, then to divide the time : 
 
 " So many hours must I tend my flock, 
 
 " So many hours must I take my rest, 
 
 *' So many hours must I contemplate, 
 
 "So many hours must I sport myself: 
 
 " So many days my ewes have been with young, 
 
 " So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean, 
 
 "So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: 
 
 " So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, 
 
 " Past over to the end they were created, 
 
 " Would bring white hairs into a quiet grave." (23) 
 
 This passage, as nearly all which I quote, might no 
 doubt have been added to those selected for simpHcity: but 
 that does not seem so remarkably prominent a feature in 
 them as others, as here, a fanciful pensiveness. 
 "^ (23) 3Hen. 6,Tir5l "~~
 
 31 
 
 The following^ of the two armies before Agincourt, in 
 Hen. Y., (24) is more purely descriptive: 
 
 " Now entertain conjecture of a time, 
 
 " When creeping murmur, and the poring dark, 
 
 " Eill the wide vessel of the universe. 
 
 " From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, 
 
 " The hum of either army stilly sounds, 
 
 "That the fixM sentinels almost receive 
 
 "The secret whispers of each other's watch: 
 
 "Fire answers fire: and through their paly flames 
 
 "Each battle sees the other's umber'd face: 
 
 " Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs 
 
 " Piercing the night's dull ear: and from the tents, 
 
 " The armourers, accomplishing the knights, 
 
 " With busy hammers closing rivets up, 
 
 "Give dreadful note of preparation. 
 
 " The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll : 
 
 " And the third hour of drowsy morning's nam'd." 
 
 Now let us turn to a very different style : and remember 
 throughout that the special wonder is, not that some man 
 should have written this or that passage, but that one man 
 should have written them all. This is the speech to King 
 Hen. VIII., of one of the most faultless of all Shakspeare's 
 characters. Queen Catherine: 
 
 " Sir, I desire you, do me right and justice :
 
 32 
 
 ^' And to bestow your pity on me : for 
 
 " I am a most poor woman, and a stranger, 
 
 " Born out of your dominions : having here 
 
 " No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance 
 
 " Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, Sir, 
 
 " In what have I offended you ? What cause 
 
 " Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure, 
 
 " That thus you should proceed to put me off 
 
 " And take your good grace from me ? Heaven witness 
 
 " I have been to you a true and humble wife, 
 
 "At all times to your will conformable: 
 
 " Ever in fear to kindle your dislike, 
 
 "Yea, subject to your countenance: glad or sorry, 
 
 " As I saw it inclinM. When was the hour 
 
 " I ever contradicted your desire? 
 
 "Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends 
 
 " Have I not strove to love, although I knew 
 
 " He was mine enemy ? What friend of mine, 
 
 " That had to him derived your anger, did I 
 
 " Continue in my liking ? Nay, gave notice 
 
 " He was from thence discharge. Sir, call to mind 
 
 " That I have been your wife, in this obedience, 
 
 " Upwards of twenty years, and have been blest 
 
 " With many children by you : if, in the course 
 
 " And process of this time, you can report, 
 
 " Ayid prove it too, against mine honour aught, 
 
 *' My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty 
 
 " Against your sacred person, in God's name
 
 33 
 
 " Turn me away : and let the fouFst contempt 
 " Shut door npon me, and so give me up 
 " To the sharpest kind of justice." (25) 
 
 For the pathos of hopeless and ungovernable grief, hear 
 the lament of Constance to the Cardinal, when believing 
 that her boy is to be imprisoned for ever, away from her : 
 
 " And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say 
 
 " That we shall see and know our friends in heav'n : 
 
 " If that be, I shall see my boy again ; 
 
 " For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, 
 
 " To him that did but yesterday suspire, 
 
 "There was not such a gracious creature born. 
 
 " But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, 
 
 " And chase the native beauty from his cheek, 
 
 "And he will look as hollow as a ghost, 
 
 " As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, 
 
 "And so he'll die: and rising so again, 
 
 " When I shall meet him in the court of heav'n, 
 
 " I shall not know him : therefore never, never, 
 
 " Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. 
 
 " Pan. Y ou hold too heinous a respect of grief. 
 
 " Con. He talks to me, that never had a son. 
 
 " Pan. You are as fond of grief, as of your child. 
 
 " Co7i. Grief fills the room up of my absent cliild, 
 "Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me: 
 
 (25) Hen. 8, II. 4.
 
 34 
 
 " Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
 " Eemembers me of all his gracious parts, 
 " Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form : 
 " Then have I reason to be fond of grief. 
 " Pare you well : had you such a loss as I, 
 " I could give better comfort than you do. 
 
 " Tiord ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! 
 
 " My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
 
 " My widow's comfort, and my sorrow's cure ! '' (26) 
 
 Now look at grief in another form: in the tremendous 
 execration of Queen Margaret, in Eichard III. (27) 
 
 " Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heav'n ? 
 
 " Why then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses ! 
 
 " Though not by war, by surfeit die your king, 
 
 '' As ours by murder, to make him a king ! 
 
 " Edward thy son, that now is prince of Wales, 
 
 ''Por Edward my son, that was prince of Wales, 
 
 "Die in his youth, by like untimely violence ! 
 
 " Thyself a queen, like me that was a queen, 
 
 ''Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self! 
 
 " Long may'st thou live, to wail thy children's loss ! 
 
 " And see another, as I see thee now 
 
 " Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine ! 
 
 "Long die thy happy years before thy death! 
 
 (26) King John, III. 4. (27) I. 3.
 
 35 
 
 " And after many lengthen^ hours of grief, 
 " Die neither mother, wife, nor England^s queen ! 
 " Eivers — and Dorset, — you were standers-by, 
 " And so wast thou, Lord Hastings — when my son 
 " Was stabbed with bloody daggers: God I pray him 
 " That none of you may live your natural age, 
 "But by some unlookM accident cut off!" 
 
 Then to Eichard: 
 
 " If heav'n have any grievous plague in store 
 " Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, 
 " O let them keep it, till thy sins are ripe, 
 "And then hurl down their indignation 
 " On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace ! 
 " The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul ! 
 " Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou Hv'st, 
 " And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends ! 
 " No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, 
 " Unless it be while some tormenting dream 
 " Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils ! 
 " Thou elvish-markM, abortive, rooting hog ! 
 "Thou that wast sealM in thy nativity 
 "The slave of nature, and the son of hell!" 
 
 And for the climax, which nothing can exceed, listen to 
 the last and conscious struggles of the failing reason of Lear: 
 
 " You heavens give me that patience, patience I need !
 
 36 
 
 " You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, 
 
 " As full of grief as age : wretched in both. 
 
 " If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts 
 
 " Against their father, fool me not so much 
 
 " To bear it tamely ! touch me with noble anger ! 
 
 '' let not women's weapons, water-drops, 
 
 " Stain my man's cheeks ! No, you unnatural hags, 
 
 " I will have such revenges on you both, 
 
 "That all the world shall^ — I will do such things — 
 
 " What they are, yet I know not — but they shall be 
 
 " The terrors of the earth. You think, Pll weep : 
 
 " No, ril not weep. I have full cause of weeping : 
 
 " But this heart shall break into a thousand flaws, 
 
 "Or e'er I'll weep. — O fool, I shall go mad." 
 
 And then, just before that cry of fearful simplicity " My 
 "wits begin to turn," after which he never again speaks 
 in his perfectly right mind, hear his words marked with the 
 extravagance of approaching frenzy, interrupted by one 
 short and convulsive effort to regain the balance of his mind : 
 
 " Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks ! rage, blow ! 
 
 " Ye cataracts and hurricanoes, spout 
 
 " Till ye have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks ! 
 
 " Ye sulph'rous and thought-executing fires, 
 
 " Yant-couricrs of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, 
 
 " Singe my white head ! And thou, all-shaking thunder, 
 
 " Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world !
 
 37 
 
 *' Crack nature's moulds : all germens spill at once 
 
 " That make ungrateful man ! 
 
 " Rumble thy belly-full ! Spit, fire ! Spout, rain ! 
 
 " Nor raio, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters ! 
 
 "I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness, 
 
 " I never gave you kingdoms, callM you children, 
 
 " You owe me no subscription : then let fall 
 
 " Your horrible pleasure : here I stand, your slave, 
 
 ''A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man: 
 
 " But yet I call you servile ministers, 
 
 " That will with two pernicious daughters join 
 
 "Your high engendered battles, 'gainst a head 
 
 " So old and white as this." 
 
 Then later : 
 
 "No, I will be the pattern of ail patience; I will say 
 " nothing." 
 
 And finally : 
 
 " Let the great gods 
 "That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads 
 " Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, 
 " That hast within thee undivulged crimes, 
 " Unwhipt of justice ! Hide thee, thou bloody hand ! 
 " Thou perjur'd and thou simular man of virtue 
 " That art incestuous ! Caitifi", to pieces shake,
 
 88 
 
 '^ That under covert and convenient seeming 
 
 "Hast practisM on man's life! Close pent-up guilts, 
 
 " Eive your concealing continents, and cry 
 
 " These dreadful summoners grace ! I am a man. 
 
 " More sinnM against than sinning." (ss) 
 
 Of course we should not attempt to panegyrize Shakspeare 
 indiscriminately. This extreme would indeed be much 
 easier to find than the other. Lord Byron, but probably 
 from mere affectation and waywardness, pretended to 
 consider Pope (truly the best of all satirists) to be the 
 greatest of all poets; and called Shakspeare a barbarian, 
 though he was perpetually quoting him. But a genuine and 
 very singular case of almost total rejection of Shakspeare is 
 that of Cobbett: a writer indeed of no general authority, but 
 who was indisputably a great master of pure and undefiled 
 English, and in whom therefore we might have expected a 
 strong appreciation of the poet. The last number of 
 Cobbett's Eegister is a curious production: among other 
 matters, because of the many things which he says he was 
 about to do, when in fact the sentence had already gone 
 forth, and before he could write another number, the rough 
 demagogue was to be called away from the scene of his 
 ephemeral triumphs. But besides what he was about to do, 
 he tells us of what, strangely enough, he never had done till 
 just before. In his old age he bethought himself of reading 
 Shakspeare. And he says of it, that while he found therein 
 
 (28y King Lear, III. 2.
 
 '^ 39 
 
 some things which delighted him very much, he found a 
 great deal which he did not like at all: and ends with saying 
 " In short I despised the book, and wondered how any one 
 "could like it." 
 
 The characteristic audacity of this avowal, in a popular 
 writer, knowing the almost sacred reverence which his 
 hearers had for Shakspeare, is no doubt equalled by its 
 absurdity. But still, any candid readers would admit that in 
 Shakspeare they have been much annoyed by frequent 
 inequalities and imperfections. 
 
 I do not so much allude to any misconstructions of the 
 plots of his plays. I cannot indeed quite agree with those 
 who think many of those plots to be models of arrangement. 
 But the fact is that, at least as poems to be read, if not as 
 plays to be acted, the reputation of great dramatists has not 
 very materially depended upon the skill of their plots. The 
 simple and inartistic construction of the great Greek 
 Tragedies has been well shown by Mr. Twining : (29) but it 
 has not prevented them from being ever considered among 
 the most admirable of human productions. And no amount 
 of correctness of arrangement, as for example, in Byron's 
 Sardanapalus, will avail, when other qualities are wanting, to 
 engage in any degree the attention of the world. 
 
 Nor. do I refer particularly to faults against the propriety 
 of the stage, though these are not unfrequent; as when both 
 
 (29) Notes on Aristotle on Poetry, 1789!
 
 40 
 
 the eyes of the Duke of Gloucester, one after the other at a 
 considerable interval, are plucked out on the stage: (so) con- 
 trary to Horace^s well-known canon, (si) and to the most 
 obvious dictates of what is suitable. 
 
 Undoubtedly the most vexatious of Shakspeare's defects 
 is his perpetual, most inconceivable, and most unhappy 
 fondness for playing upon words. Mr. Hallam (32) has 
 quoted one of the worst of these cases. Nothing could 
 be easier (but it were an ungrateful task, and I shall 
 not pursue it) than to make out an immense list of 
 them : indeed the difficulty would be to find any passage of 
 much length which is not so disfigured; and often the 
 greatest beauty is marred by those intolerable intruders. 
 They are often worse, too, than even the miserable conceits 
 of Cowley and his contemporaries : for very frequently they 
 are nothing but the vilest puns, the best of which in 
 these days would be scouted from the pages of Punch. 
 Dr. Johnson's criticisms on Shakspeare are held of small 
 value : but the following passage is as unhappily true as it is 
 forcibly expressed; 
 
 "A quibble is to Shakspeare what luminous vapours are 
 " to the traveller : he follows it at all adventures, it is sure 
 '' to lead him out of the way, and sure to engulf him in the 
 " mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its 
 '' fascinations are irresistable. Whatever be the dignity or 
 
 (30) King Lear III. 7. (31) Do Arte Poetica 182— 188. 
 
 (32) Introduction to the Literature of Europe, III. 577.
 
 41 
 
 "profundity of his disquisitioii, whether he be enlarging 
 "knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing 
 " attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense let 
 "but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work 
 " unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he 
 "will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his 
 "elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him 
 "such delight that he was content to purchase it by the 
 "sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was 
 " to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and 
 " was content to lose it."*' (33) 
 
 Of course, with regard to this last sentence, the retort on 
 the critic is obvious, that for the sake of a little point he 
 has indulged in a gross exaggeration : for if any one ever 
 gained the world instead of losing it, it is Shakspeare. 
 
 A not less frequent and more blamable fault in this great 
 poet is coarseness and immodesty. This, while it infects the 
 whole tissue of some of the plays, such as Measure for 
 Measure, All's Well that Ends Well, and even Cymbehne, 
 has ruined some characters which seemed to promise better 
 things, as Cressida, and slightly tainted some of the most 
 fascinating, as Eosalind and Juliet : and there are few of 
 the dramas which are wholly free from it. The worthy 
 Mr. Bowdler much deserves our thanks for his edition of 
 Shakspeare, which, while it preserves all that is worth 
 preserving, (for these blemishes are never material to the 
 (33) Preface to Shakspeare: Works II. 150. edit. 1806.
 
 42 
 
 poetry) makes him fit for family reading according to our 
 modern notions. In these last words is indicated the 
 excuse that is commonly made for this vice in Shakspeare 
 and in many other writers. It is said to be the fault of 
 their times. But in the first place this does not very 
 strongly apply to Shakspeare's days. You will remember 
 Mr. Macaulay's description (34) of the days of Charles II, 
 and of the reasons for their peculiar licentiousness. The 
 main point of it is, that it was a time of reaction from a 
 narrow and overstrained reUgious feeling. But Shakspeare's 
 time was, at least more than that of Charles, one of religious 
 revival and purification, in which better things might have 
 been expected. Of course, too, for a leader of the human 
 race, such a palliation is but an unworthy shelter. None 
 will dislike to be reminded of the magnificent sentence in 
 which Mr. Macaulay notices the signal exception of Milton 
 to the impurity of his age : " One mightier spirit, tried at once 
 '' by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, 
 " undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around 
 " him, a song so sublime and holy that it would not have 
 " misbecome the lips of those ethereal virtues whom he saw, 
 " with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging 
 "down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth 
 "and gold." (35) Now if Milton was thus superior to 
 Dryden, we may well complain that Shakspeare should not 
 bear a similar comparison with Ben Jonson. Again, is 
 
 (34) History of England I. 399—402, 1st edit. 
 (35) I. 401.
 
 43 
 
 there any reason why the corruption of the day should 
 infect a writer, which can be stated of the age of Shakspeare 
 and not of that of Dante? And among all the lofty 
 qualities of that great and solitary genius, there is none 
 more unmixed than his inviolable purity. There is one 
 passage, to which I will only just allude, where the nature 
 of the subject sets forth the more remarkably the pure and 
 mournful dignity with which it is treated. (36) 
 
 Mr. Hallam has mentioned (37) among Shakspeare's 
 defects his frequent difficulty and obscurity: for the sim- 
 plicity I spoke of is occasional, and in his happier moments. 
 It is no doubt an obstruction to our enjoyment of him: but 
 it can hardly be said to detract much from his fame. One 
 of the most difficult of all compositions, the Agamemnon of 
 jEschylus, has never been denied a place also among the very 
 noblest: and the still greater, indeed unequalled, incessant, 
 and really harassing difficulty of Dante, in no degree shakes 
 his peculiar and mysterious throne. 
 
 These may be spots in the disk of this great luminary. 
 How little they have diminished his dominion over the 
 hearts of mankind, will be felt by those who will apply to 
 him the proper test of a dramatic poet, by seeing him acted. 
 Macbeth is perhaps the best, certainly the most popular of 
 Shakspeare's plays. Let any one, with the most ordinary 
 knowledge of books and of English society, see Macbeth 
 (36) Inferno XY. (37) III. 577.
 
 44 
 
 acted : and I am in error if he will not be most powerfully 
 impressed with the feeling, how line after line, thought after 
 thought, in that great work, to the extent'of almost its greater 
 part, have become melted down, and through, and into the 
 very heart of the English people, so that their expressions 
 are as our common voice. Por this reason it is really 
 impossible to quote from it on such an occasion as this. 
 And such a practical verdict of a whole nation on one of its 
 own sons, is never wrong in the long run. 
 
 Such are a few thoughts, pretending neither to complete- 
 ness, nor to minuteness of analysis, nor to any comparative 
 estimation of Shakspeare's plays, which have occurred to me 
 in reading him. The study of the great English poet needs 
 not to be commended to any who ever read English 
 literature. But for myself I may, in conclusion, say more 
 generally, that T know no intellectual pleasure, no intellectual 
 solace, equal to the reading of the immortal writers of 
 former days. " Would," it has been said, '^ would that we 
 " could oftener turn aside from the dust and heat of our 
 "every-day paths, to bathe in these cool and perennial 
 "fountains!" I say, of former days. Not that the old 
 writers are necessarily better than the new : perhaps they are 
 not so. But many will always feel that they have a special 
 and incommunicable charm. As Mr. Milnes says, in a 
 very beautiful poem, much of which might be applied to 
 this view :
 
 45 
 
 " Spirits wandering to and fro, 
 " Rest upon the resting-time 
 
 " In the peace of long-ago/' (ss) 
 
 " Homer/' says Mr. Nelson Coleridge, speaking of the 
 patriarch of poets, "Homer stands by prescription alone 
 ''and aloof on Parnassus, where it is not possible 7iow that 
 ''any human genius should stand with him." (39) This is 
 much connected with our relation to the personal existences 
 of those ancients. We know so little of them — the meanness 
 and httleness which adheres to human nature is so effaced 
 from them by the haze of intervening years, that we come to 
 look at them as pure abstractions, dwelHng apart, serene 
 and still, and that the more, the more they recede into the 
 long night of ages, through which they shed upon us a soft 
 and steady light, as stars " for ever shining in the firmament 
 of fame." (40) 
 
 No doubt this is an illusion. Bishop Wilberforce, 
 speaking of our old divines, says, with great beauty, but 
 with a fallacy singular in a writer so practised and acute: 
 " The voice of the great and holy dead is of peculiar value. 
 "They are free from oiu' contentions: and the harmony and 
 " grandeur which dwell on their passionless and even judg- 
 "ments, remind us of the peacefulness with which their 
 
 (38) The Long Ago : Poems of Many Years 103. 
 
 (39) Introduction to the Greek Classics 68. 
 
 (40) Trench's Lines on the Alma.
 
 46 
 
 "spirits now embrace truth and one another in Paradise; 
 "and their voice will be heard, as from the depth of an 
 " oracle, above the strife and din of our jarring tumults. (41) 
 Whereas of course the truth is, that though free from our 
 contentions, they had their own. Ancient divines, ancient 
 poets, had their troubles and encumbrances, great and small, 
 paltry and ennobling. These are the illusions of the past : 
 and against these no less than those of the future, the 
 familiar lines may be read, 
 
 " 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
 " And robes the mountain in its azure hue." (42) 
 
 Or, as Mr. Milnes again : 
 
 " On that deep-retiring shore 
 " Frequent pearls of beauty lie, 
 
 " Where the passion- waves of yore 
 
 " Fiercely beat and mounted high." (43) 
 
 But it seems a harmless, nay a salutary illusion. And 
 we may well suppose that those old worthies themselves 
 would have been well content that it should be so : content^ 
 while leaving the world and bequeathing to us their im- 
 perishable works, that our knowledge of themselves should 
 decrease, while the works remained as they have done and 
 
 (41) Preface to Eucharistica. (42) Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, I. 7* 
 (43) Poems, &c. 105
 
 47 
 
 ever will do, to kindred spirits a lofty model for imitation, 
 to the sorrowing and laborious a wellspring of sure refresh- 
 ment, to the young a banner of progress, to the old a 
 companion of tranquil retrospect, to aU a perpetual and 
 imfailing treasure, an abiding portion of the common 
 heritage of mankind. 
 
 Thomas Mellard, Printer, Stourbridge.
 
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