its continuous progress. Though immensely greater than
Bacon, it may be questioned if he could thoroughly have appreciated
Bacon's intellectual character. He could have delineated him to
perfection in everything but in that peculiar philanthropy of the mind,
that spiritual benignity, that belief in man and confidence in his
future, which both atone and account for so many of Bacon's moral
defects. There is no character in his plays that covers the elements of
such a man as Hildebrand or Luther, or either of the two Williams of
Orange, or Hampden, or Howard, or Clarkson, or scores of other
representative men whom history celebrates. Though the broadest
individual nature which human nature has produced, human nature is
immensely broader than he.

It would be easy to quote passages from Shakespeare's works which would
seem to indicate that his genius was not limited in any of the
directions which have been pointed out; but these passages are thoughts
and observations, not men and women. Hamlet's soliloquy, and Portia's
address to Shylock, might be adduced as proofs that he comprehended the
religious element; but then who would take Hamlet or Portia as
representative of the religious character in any of its numerous
historical forms? There is a remark in one of his plays to this
effect:--

"It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in't."

This might be taken as a beautiful expression of Christian toleration,
and is certainly admirable as a general thought; but it indicates
Shakespeare's indifference to religious passions in indicating his
superiority to them. It would have been a much greater achievement of
genius to have passed into the mind and heart of the conscientious
burner of heretics, seized the essence of the bigot's character, and
embodied in one great ideal individual a class of men whom we now both
execrate and misconceive. If he could follow the dramatic process of his
genius for Sir Toby Belch, why could he not do it for St. Dominic?

Indeed, toleration, in the sense that Shakespeare has given to the word,
is not expressed in maxims directed against intolerance, but in the
exercise of charity towards intolerant men; and it is thus necessary to
indicate the limitations of his sympathy with his race, in order to
appreciate its real quality and extent. His unapproached greatness
consists not in including human nature, but in taking the point of view
of those large classes of human na