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Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,
But in the less foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o' the top.

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If it be not evident from what I have written that Shakespeare's mind was filled with that assemblage of qualities which we call wisdom, the reader has only to study the plays to become possessed by the conviction. Meanwhile, had Shakespeare yielded obedience to the Delphic principle Know thyself'? Throughout his writings we seem, I think, to be communing with a mind which shows no disposition to succumb to any other, but puts forth its conclusions in the full persuasion that they can never be gainsaid. What his faults were he knew better than anyone else, and could have made out such a catalogue of them as might have startled his innocent worshippers. Yet looking upon his productions, one and all, he felt the unutterable delight of knowing that his mind had given birth to offspring which would thenceforward be the companions of the human race for ever. What was murmured two thousand years ago at Rome-non omnis moriar-he in the same spirit murmured to himself in London:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.

But why should his rhyme last? Is it not for the same reason that the springs of the desert are kept open by the Arabs? They drink of them, and are

refreshed, and are therefore careful not to blot out the tracks leading to them. That which is always fresh and pleasant cannot be suffered to die. If the reading of Shakespeare were a task, if it led to nothing but maxims and moralities, it would speedily be relinquished as a tedious occupation. Shakespeare had learned how to play on that most beautiful of all instruments-the human heart, and has brought forth from it the sweetest of all melodies. He is justified, therefore, in saying with the great historian, that he bequeaths mankind his works:

'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity,

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

But the ground on which he then built would have left his name stranded amid the formless ruins of oblivion, had not his genius piled upon those powerful rhymes something incalculably more powerful. In the confidence, however, of youthful genius, he deals in gorgeous promises to his friends:

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead;

You still shall live-such virtue hath my pen—

Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. If these lines were written before the completion of 'Romeo and Juliet,' he counted on what he hoped to do, not on what he had done; but when that play was finished he felt that he stood on a level with the greatest peers of intellect, and that the extinction of his fame could only take place when, in a more complete sense than that in which he used the phrase, All the breathers of this world are dead.'

ESSAY XVI

POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS

WHEN Shakespeare looked around him he could not fail to observe what was the prevalent mode of thought in political matters: in Elizabeth's reign everybody worshipped, or professed to worship, the Queen, not merely as sovereign, but as a woman. Not to regard her as wisest, discreetest, best; not to descant on her golden locks, her sweet voice, her imperial walk; not to maintain that in the arts of sway she was as just and as wise as Jove, and that her moderation and gentleness were equal to her wisdom, was almost to be guilty of treason. the happy phrase of

Vestal throned by the west,

Hence

and hence the prophetic outburst of Cranmer over her cradle, foretelling that when the baby lying there should be a woman the world would witness a return of the Golden Age. Still more tyrannous was opinion in James's reign. The King's political doctrines being in the highest degree arbitrary, his manners offensive, and his morals dissolute, it was almost understood to be a necessity to uphold 'the right divine of kings to govern wrong.'

Bacon and even Raleigh, whatever they may have thought secretly, bowed the knee to despotism, not awkwardly and grudgingly, but with apparent earnestness and delight. What less therefore could be expected of Shakespeare? They stood upon that high and pleasant mount, where he imagines Fortune to be throned, at the bottom of which, though as yet they knew it not, their career was to terminate. Shakespeare already stood on that low social level, condemned to live more or less by flattery, by vailing his lofty brow to every minion of fortune, by calling black white and white black, by suppressing in his soul every nobler sentiment, when he saw or suspected it might interfere with his bread and cheese.'

Never therefore did man with an intellect of vast capacity labour under more powerful temptations to fabricate an esoteric system of opinions, and to preserve their incognito through life. He probably prayed, in the words of Naaman the Syrian, 'When thy servant goeth into the house of Rimmon' etc., for assuredly he could not bow the knee voluntarily to the idols he pretended to admire and worship.2

'After the death of Elizabeth, Shakespeare spoiled Cranmer's prophetic speech by introducing a fulsome panegyric on this vilest of kings, to whom, and not to Raleigh, he attributes the founding of our colonial Empire:

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,

His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations.

2 Most persons have read or heard, whether they have profited by it or not, the story of the woman taken in adultery. Shakespeare had profited by it, and condemning the practice of his time, sought to recommend a more merciful system of morality than that which he saw in vogue. Unchastity is certainly an offence, but not in any case punishable by law, though the brutal notions of our ancestors

On questions of morals it was, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, no less imperative to conceal any tendency towards heterodoxy. Indeed, in all ages and countries there is, and has been, a certain ethical pattern set up after which everybody is expected to fashion his proceedings, as well as his ideas, of what is right or wrong; but, considering the infinite varieties. of human character, the prevalence of understanding in some, of imbecility in others, the existence in many minds of what may be called a moral twist or contortion which often proves incurable, a disinclination to conform, in matters of passion and emotion, to established types: in short, all forms of individualism or idiosyncrasies combine to render it impossible that all men should think or act alike, either in their relations to one another or to society at large. But there is a convenient vice which, when possessed in its largest development, influences mankind like virtue and creates at least a semblance of peace and goodwill among them-I mean hypocrisy. It is this alone that enables a man to go through the daily round of life without at every step coming into collision with some sharp angle of his neighbour's character, and thus giving or receiving wounds that may rankle for ever. led them to whip women at a cart's tail for a breach o chastity. Seeing thoroughly the wickedness of such an act, Shakespeare yet thought it only safe to condemn it through the mouth of a madman : Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! etc.

In looking at the constitution of social life, and beholding dishonest wealth fastening with the fangs of law upon dishonest poverty, he exclaims:

Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea.

For spirits... with ease

Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.

POPE, Rape of the Lock, i. 69-70.

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