marvellous; in Shakspeare, it was the force of passion, combined with
every variety of possible circumstances; and in Milton, only with the
highest. The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser,
remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakspeare, everything.--It has been
said by some critic, that Shakspeare was distinguished from the other
dramatic writers of his day only by his wit; that they had all his other
qualities but that; that one writer had as much sense, another as much
fancy, another as much knowledge of character, another the same depth of
passion, and another as great a power of language. This statement is not
true; nor is the inference from it well-founded, even if it were. This
person does not seem to have been aware that, upon his own shewing, the
great distinction of Shakspeare's genius was its virtually including the
genius of all the great men of his age, and not his differing from them in
one accidental particular. But to have done with such minute and literal
trifling.

The striking peculiarity of Shakspeare's mind was its generic quality, its
power of communication with all other minds--so that it contained a
universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar
bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any
other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an
egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself; but he was
all that others were, or that they could become. He not only had in
himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he could follow them
by anticipation, intuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications,
through every change of fortune or conflict of passion, or turn of
thought. He had "a mind reflecting ages past," and present:--all the
people that ever lived are there. There was no respect of persons with
him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the wise
and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar: "All corners of the earth,
kings, queens, and states, maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,"
are hardly hid from his searching glance. He was like the genius of
humanity, changing places with all of us at pleasure, and playing with our
purposes as with his own. He turned the globe round for his amusement, and
surveyed the generations of men, and the individuals as they passed, with
their different concerns, passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and
motives--as well t