There is nothing mysterious in genius, any more than that one man should have a stronger arm than another. Genius is a superior power in certain faculties of the mind; and the man who has the greatest power bestowed on the greatest number of his mental faculties, must be the greatest natural genius. Still, so Still, so gifted a being possesses the means only, which, like hoards of riches, may be misdirected, or altogether unemployed. Those means are not knowledge, as a piece of money is not bread—but the power of acquiring knowledge, not one atom of which is given by nature. To shine forth a bright intellectual star, and not a faintly-glimmering, a beclouded, or a fallen one, genius must add the world's experience to its own; ponder and deeply meditate over the records of humanity, while it scans its own instincts, feelings, and passions: it must grasp at every species of knowledge, carefully sifting the bran from the nourishing wheat; and, above all, apply its utmost energies to one sole object, with a constant and unwearied purpose of benefitting mankind. In this view, and this view alone, can we be truly grateful to Shakespeare; not for his natural genius, but for his noble cultivation of it.

Then, in respect to that peculiar faculty of a poeta superior imagination-it must be founded on reality, and produced from a series of inferences, or it is nothing but the dream of a madman. If it has the power, which I am disposed to deny, of describing anything uncongenial to the world of nature, which neither touches our sympathies nor antipathies, neither appeals to our feelings nor our reason, it would be as

uninteresting as a painting by Raphael to a flock of sheep or a shoal of fishes. The more imaginative the work, the more necessary is knowledge, in all its varied forms.

Less study, less experience in human nature, less mental acquirements of every kind, I conceive were employed on Macbeth, wonderfully as the whole character is displayed before us, than on those imaginary creations, the three weird sisters, who haunt his steps, and prey upon his very being. Holinshed gave the groundwork equally for both: from him the poet created a merciful man, goaded on by his wife's and his own ambition, and solicited by supernatural agency, to deeds of startling cruelty, a mighty subject! and, at the same moment, arose the witches, -a mightier subject still! Not only are their forms, but their passions are human; both, indeed, hideous, yet not too revolting, at the distance where they are placed, to be seen or listened to with pleasure. In their relationship to ourselves, in their absolute identity with our malignant passions, we cannot withhold a fearful fellow interest. The art of investing them at once with all the evil that is within us, and with superhuman power, renders them appalling, awful. Their words, uttered by other lips, would raise our laughter, but from them they excite horror. Even the joy they express is serious, momentous, and unlawful. They are not the miserable wretches dragged to the bar of one of our ancient criminal courts, for they came we know not whence, and vanish at their will into thin air, and they serve a mistress of the night, who is wafted on a "foggy cloud" up to "the

corner of the moon;" one who worships other unnamed spirits, whose powers are undefined. To represent these earthly, yet unearthly, agents, just within the verge of disgustful abhorrence, never to offend, but, on the contrary, to afford mental delight, is a task requiring more general knowledge, nicer metaphysical distinctions, a deeper insight into the feelings both of readers and spectators, than, I believe, were requisite for a Macbeth. Such beings are called the creations of a poet; perhaps they ought rather to be called his combinations, unless the former term is given on a principle like that of the Hindoos, who have but one word to signify carpenter and creator; but neither the poet nor the carpenter could create any thing without solid materials wherewith to work.

If the commentators were correct in tracing so many of his allusions, phrases, and expressions, from ancient English authors, and the current literature of his day, they have proved the wide extent and diversity of his reading. Indeed, it is hardly to be imagined that, as a literary man, he would be unacquainted with any author worthy his attention. His inquiring mind, as is evident from the tenour and complexion of his works, could not have been content with less. All his editors have agreed in this opinion. Yet, with the exception of historical facts, or fables, whereon to frame his plays, a passing anecdote, a local custom, a witticism, seized on for the sake of illustration, or the adoption of mere words, it does not appear that he copied anything; that is, he was not indebted to others for any part of the imagery or the philosophy of his poetry. He had his old English

authors, as well as ourselves, and his modern ones, a large and valuable collection; but they did no more than give to his writings their "form and pressure." This fact has been unnoticed by those who point out his freedom from imitation of the classics, as an argument against his learning. Truth is, he imitated nobody. Had he chosen to adopt the thoughts of the Greeks and Romans, it was not more difficult to arrive at them, than to read Chaucer and Spenser, even if he was entirely ignorant of the learned languages; as may be seen by Stevens' list of translations from the classics during the reign of Elizabeth; a list, which can scarcely be surpassed in number at the present day. His mind was too rich to need the grafting from a foreign stock. Reading, to him, was information, an exercise and sharpening of the intellect; themes to be controverted, or extended, or imbued with originality; models, good or bad, to be improved or avoided, according to his own judgment, in the composition of prose or verse. For the rhythm of the latter, I believe, he must have deeply studied his country's poets, before his varied and peculiar intonation of verse could have arrived at perfection; for surely there was much study, as well as practice, necessary to improve his lines, from his earliest to his latest works; nay, from the first poem, addressed to Wiiliam Herbert, to the fifth,—including a period of only three years.

With all their wealth of information and instruction, books can afford no more than the reflected minds of

other men. Some of these are glorious indeed; but if we are heedless or incapable of a right judgment,

we may often read and be deceived. We attain from books, when aided by our best discernment, nothing but a second-hand knowledge. In Shakespeare's works themselves, we cannot arrive at the ore; we must be content with what he has fashioned from it. All such knowledge is, in its nature, scattered and incomplete; but so, indeed, must also be our more valuable observation and experience,-more valuable, if we can profit by them to the full. The utmost of human knowledge can only rest on these three; and he who possesses the most of them, with a purpose of doing good, is the wisest man. In this sense, I call Shakespeare the wisest man, as well as the greatest poet. Fortunately for the world, his wisdom was not unproductive, as it might have been, if not invested with an imagination capable of immortalizing it, and with the power of bestowing enchanting eloquence on his acute and healthy distinction of all things pertaining to our nature and our moral duties; so that the same wise mind effectually communicated itself to its fellow-beings, to those then living, and to ages yet unborn:

"He was not of an age, but for all time."

This line from Ben Jonson, in his praise, together with the honest declaration in his Discoveries,-" For I love the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any,"-is ample satisfaction for any petulance he might, in his disappointed love of fame, have uttered against his friend and rival. Some there may be, who would not allow Shakespeare so much as a rival's praise. For them, but chiefly, I