a supreme judge, and blind and deaf, fills his
three-ounce phial at the waters of Niagara; and determines positively the
greatness of the cataract to be neither more nor less than his three-ounce
phial has been able to receive.

I think this a very serious subject. It is my earnest desire--my passionate
endeavour--to enforce at various times and by various arguments and
instances the close and reciprocal connection of just taste with pure
morality. Without that acquaintance with the heart of man, or that
docility and childlike gladness to be made acquainted with it, which those
only can have, who dare look at their own hearts--and that with a
steadiness which religion only has the power of reconciling with sincere
humility;--without this, and the modesty produced by it, I am deeply
convinced that no man, however wide his erudition, however patient his
antiquarian researches, can possibly understand, or be worthy of
understanding, the writings of Shakespeare.

Assuredly that criticism of Shakespeare will alone be genial which is
reverential. The Englishman who, without reverence--a proud and
affectionate reverence--can utter the name of William Shakespeare, stands
disqualified for the office of critic. He wants one at least of the very
senses, the language of which he is to employ, and will discourse at best
but as a blind man, while the whole harmonious creation of light and shade
with all its subtle interchange of deepening and dissolving colours rises
in silence to the silent _fiat_ of the uprising Apollo. However inferior
in ability I may be to some who have followed me, I own I am proud that I
was the first in time who publicly demonstrated to the full extent of the
position, that the supposed irregularity and extravagances of Shakespeare
were the mere dreams of a pedantry that arraigned the eagle because it had
not the dimensions of the swan. In all the successive courses of lectures
delivered by me, since my first attempt at the Royal Institution, it has
been, and it still remains, my object, to prove that in all points from
the most important to the most minute, the judgment of Shakespeare is
commensurate with his genius,--nay, that his genius reveals itself in his
judgment, as in its most exalted form. And the more gladly do I recur to
this subject from the clear conviction, that to judge aright, and with
distinct consciousness of the grounds of our judgment, concerning the
works of Shakespeare, implies the powe