for them. What we have already said in reference to Shakespeare's relation to music must be repeated here: those who would wish to make Shakespeare out an orthodox Christian should well consider his conception of art; it positively contradicts any such supposition.

Shakespeare accordingly in every direction proves himself to have been a man of the most varied and sound culture-a man gifted with a rare thirst for knowledge, with a marvellous memory, and, above all things, with an unparalleled faculty of observation, and with the power of turning it to account; in fact, a man who, with the keenest penetration and insight, surveyed the whole realm of mental as well as of material life. Nothing was unfamiliar to him, from the subtlest stir of a healthy or diseased mind, down to the most ordinary transactions in domestic affairs; nay, his knowledge and conception of the various states of the human mind was so far in advance of his day, that it is only as a result of the most recent investigations on the subject by professional men, that Shakespeare's full worth in this respect has been properly estimated. Without having been a student of or an inquirer into any special subject, he has invariably and with a truly poetic spirit made use of his positive knowledge and his observations only in order to provide his dramatic representations of life with ever new features and colours, and it may be said without exaggeration that his dramatic representations come nearer to actual life in unfathomable depth and manysidedness than any other delineations drawn by the hand of man. "Shakespeare," says Goethe," has identified himself with the Spirit of the universe; he penetrates it as the Spirit itself does; to both nothing is unrevealed." To this remark we must add, that in order to be able to do this, a high degree of positive culture was indispensable, and we should have to grant that the poet possessed this positive culture a priori, were it not that it can be proved, so to say, by the dissecting knife of criticism, that he acquired it a posteriori. In oneness of purpose, in the intimate blending of an all-embracing culture and the highest form of poetical imagination, Shakespeare stands absolutely unapproached. Nowhere is there a superfluity of anything, everything becomes an integral part of the whole; and when

1 Shakespeare und kein Ende, i.

it is considered that these two factors could not fail to resolve themselves into immutable and sublime moral excellence, we cannot but recognize in Shakespeare's works structures of the truest and purest form of humanity, in the fullest sense of the word.

CHAPTER VII.

SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTER. HIS CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE.

No great poet has ever made it so difficult for posterity to

obtain a clear and trustworthy idea of his moral nature and his conception of life as Shakespeare, and yet this is exactly the point respecting which every admirer of Shakespeare's genius would, above all things, like to have reliable information, with as many and as full particulars as possible. Our knowledge of Shakespeare's relation to his parents and brothers and sisters, to his wife and children, to his friends and fellow-men in general, is so extremely meagre that only disconnected and uncertain inferences can be formed. And the idea we obtain of his moral nature from his works is as little satisfactory, for, according to Schiller's well-known words, "Shakespeare (like all true poets) stands behind his work like the Deity behind the organization of the universe, he is the work and the work is he." Hence in this case again we can proceed only with the aid of combinations and hypotheses, and everything must depend upon the foundation and internal truth of these hypotheses being as incontrovertible as possible.

An actual handle is offered us in the first place by the estimation in which the poet was held by his contemporaries, and the opinion they formed of him, in so far as this information has been handed down to us. The epithets used in connection with Shakespeare's name by his contemporaries are gentle, worthy, beloved, and friendly; and, indeed, the sobriquet Gentle Shakespeare, in particular, has become the standing designation for him, in the same way as we speak of the Venerable Bede, Judicious Hooker, &c. All the various testimonies speak

Shakespeare, by Thomas De Quincey, Edinburgh, 1864, p. 59.

unques.

unanimously in praise of Shakespeare, and chief among these
testimonies is that of Ben Jonson, who, in spite of his
tionable jealousy of Shakespeare-and of the disputes to which
it gave rise could not but admit in the end that "I loved the
man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as
"The indirect attacks upon Shakespeare by Greene and
any.
Nash, which we have already discussed, are entirely cancelled by
Chettle's subsequent and honourable declaration that he with-
drew the charges, and this is all the more important as it harmo-
nizes perfectly with what we otherwise know or can infer of
Shakespeare; and Nash's condemnation of Greene's pamphlet,
especially, agrees absolutely with Chettle's statement. Shake-
speare, as Chettle assures us from his own experience, was in
his demeanour no lesse civill than exelent in the qualitie he pro-
fesses." Accordingly, Shakespeare no doubt met Greene's
attacks upon him (which Chettle published) with the tact of
good breeding and of a true gentleman, with the supreme
composure and dignity of a great mind. Shakespeare stood
high above ordinary quibblings and petty animosities; his
spirit remained unruffled, like the moon barked at by a dog,
as the fairy tale puts it. And the fact that the poet's
"honesty and uprighteousness of dealing" is expressly men-
tioned, is all the more significant as-owing to Shakespeare's
undoubted endeavours to acquire wealth and property-it
might have been inferred that he at times fell into temptation.

If, therefore, we assume the poet's conduct to have been noble and estimable, and perhaps self-conscious, our conception of his character is confirmed by the fact thatin contradistinction from many of his contemporaries-be was not a flatterer. He never pushed himself into the favour of the Court or of the aristocracy, although he came into contact with both circles. The fact of his having dedicated his poems ("Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece") to a noble patron cannot be called an act of flattery, for it was a custom, and, indeed, a necessity of the age. Ben Jonson has dedicated every single one of his dramas to a noble patron, whereas Shakespeare has done no such thing. If the Sonnets addressed to the young friend-no matter whether this friend were Lord Southampton or the Earl of Pembroke -could be regarded as an absolutely autobiographical con

1 See above, p. 154.

fession, then indeed it would be hard to absolve the poet from contemptible flattery; but this is a point that will be fully entered into immediately. In his dramas, on the other hand, there are only a few passages that can be regarded as complimentary speeches to Queen Elizabeth and King James, and these are distinguished not merely by extraordinary delicacy of feeling and poetic beauty, but are far from equalling what both monarchs must have expected, if their inordinate and contemptible vanity were to be satisfied. Ben Jonson acted very differently; he was at all times ready not only to fulfil the barefaced demands made by the Court circle with regard to flattery, but was, if possible, bent upon exceeding the demands made, and was accordingly appointed poet-laureate and granted a pension. Even in this respect Jonson was a direct contrast to Shakespeare, who in "Twelfth Night" (iii. 1) makes a noteworthy remark, and one which we may surely assume to be a sentiment of his own:—

66

'Twas never merry world

Since lowly feigning was called compliment.

Shakespeare's complimentary speeches addressed to Elizabeth in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," in "Henry VI.,” and in Henry VIII.," as well as those addressed to King James in Henry VIII." and in "Macbeth," are certainly anything but base flattery, and the blessing which Mrs. Quickly at the end of "The Merry Wives of Windsor"-in speaking for the elves-calls down upon Windsor Castle, cannot be termed flattery. In my "Essays on Shakespeare" (p. 50) I have pointed out that probably the passage in "A Midsummer Night's Dream (Oberon's vision) was meant by the poet to obtain the royal favour for the Earl of Essex. As regards the praise which in "Henry VI." is lavished upon the future King Henry VII. (Queen Elizabeth's direct ancestor)-as opposed to Richard III.'-the poet merely followed his authority (Holinshed) word for word, and was the more inclined to do this because, for reasons connected with dramatic composition, he had to represent the first Tudor faultless as a direct contrast to the villain Richard. The remark which Dr. The passage in question occurs in Henry VI., Part III, (iv. 6), where the King blesses the young Earl of Richmond :

:

Come hither, England's hope! If secret powers
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss, &c.