day. Italy had already produced nearly all that still
distinguishes her literature, and, in England, translations in verse
were diligently, and even successfully, executed from the Italian.
Spanish literature also was not unknown, for it is certain that _Don
Quixote_ was read in England soon after its first appearance. Bacon,
the founder of modern experimental philosophy, and of whom it may be
said that he carried in his pocket all that even in this eighteenth
century merits the name of philosophy, was a contemporary of
Shakespeare. His fame as a writer did not, indeed, break forth into
its glory till after his death; but what a number of ideas must have
been in circulation before such an author could arise! Many branches
of human knowledge have, since that time, been more extensively
cultivated, but such branches as are totally unproductive to
poetry--chemistry, mechanics, manufactures, and rural and political
economy--will never enable a man to become a poet. I have
elsewhere[17] examined into the pretensions of modern enlightenment,
as it is called, which looks with such contempt on all preceding ages;
I have shown that at bottom it is all small, superficial, and
unsubstantial. The pride of what has been called "the existing
maturity of human intensity" has come to a miserable end; and the
structures erected by those pedagogues of the human race have fallen
to pieces like the baby-houses of children.

With regard to the tone of society in Shakespeare's day, it is
necessary to remark that there is a wide difference between true
mental cultivation and what is called polish. That artificial polish
which puts an end to everything like free original communication and
subjects all intercourse to the insipid uniformity of certain rules,
was undoubtedly wholly unknown to the age of Shakespeare, as in a
great measure it still is at the present day in England. It possessed,
on the other hand, a fulness of healthy vigor, which showed itself
always with boldness, and sometimes also with coarseness. The spirit
of chivalry was not yet wholly extinct, and a queen, who was far more
jealous in exacting homage to her sex than to her throne, and who,
with her determination, wisdom, and magnanimity, was in fact well
qualified to inspire the minds of her subjects with an ardent
enthusiasm, inflamed that spirit to the noblest love of glory and
renown. The feudal independence also still survived in some measure;
the nobility vied with on