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The second will be devoted to an outline of the chief features of that belief, as it existed at the time in question the organization, appearance, and various functions and powers of the evil spirits, with special reference to Shakspere's plays.
You must imagine a youth growing up to manhood, and wanting to be a great artist. I don't mean a painter. I mean a an actor. Yes, a very great actor. Shakspere's tragedies, you know, and all that. She nodded earnestly. 'What's his name? she inquired. Henry gazed at her. 'His name's Gerald, he said, and she flushed.
But to return to the main course of our observations. The dramas of Shakspere are so natural, that this, the greatest praise that can be given them, is the ground of one of the difficulties felt by the young student in estimating them. The very simplicity of Shakspere's art seems to throw him out of any known groove of judgment.
He flung about the resources of the language with a giant's strength, and made new words at every turn. The concreteness and the swarming fertility of his mind are evidenced by his enormous vocabulary, computed greatly to exceed Shakspere's, or any other single writer's in the English tongue. His style lacks the crowning grace of simplicity and repose. It astonishes, but it also fatigues.
Before passing on to consider the plays of the third period as evidence of Shakspere's final thought, it will be well to pause and re-read with attention a summing-up of Shakspere's teaching as it has been presented to us by one of the greatest and most earnest teachers of morality of the present day. Every word that Mr.
Richard III. is a good acting play, and its popularity has been sustained by a series of great tragedians, who have taken the part of the king. But, in a literary sense, it is unequal to Richard II., or the two parts of Henry IV. The latter is unquestionably Shakspere's greatest historical tragedy, and it contains his master-creation in the region of low comedy, the immortal Falstaff.
Shakspere's teaching is, that if the nobler-gifted man who stands at the head of the commonwealth, allows himself to be driven about by every wind of the occasion, instead of furthering his better aims with all his strength and energy of will, the wicked, on their part, will all the more easily carry out their own ends. He therefore makes the King say:
In one of Shakspere's poems, we have the description of an imagined production of a sister-art that of Painting a description so brilliant that the light reflected from the poet-picture illumines the art of the Poet himself, revealing the principles which he held with regard to representative art generally, and suggesting many thoughts with regard to detail and harmony, finish, pregnancy, and scope.
How often I exclaimed inwardly, as some new trait came to light, in the words, though without the generalizing scorn, of Shakspere's Timon "More man!"
The time you leave behind was no more yours than that which was before your birth, and concerns you no more. No further comment is needed to prove that Hamlet's and Montaigne's thoughts are in so close a connection that it cannot be a mere accident. And the nearer we come to the conclusion of the drama, the more striking become Shakspere's satirical hits.
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