e which he could not
keep under, in spite of himself or others, and "his delights did shew
most dolphin-like."

He had an equal genius for comedy and tragedy; and his tragedies are
better than his comedies, because tragedy is better than comedy. His
female characters, which have been found fault with as insipid, are the
finest in the world. Lastly, Shakspeare was the least of a coxcomb of
any one that ever lived, and much of a gentleman.

Shakspeare discovers in his writings little religious enthusiasm, and
an indifference to personal reputation; he had none of the bigotry of
his age, and his political prejudices were not very strong. In these
respects, as well as in every other, he formed a direct contrast to
Milton. Milton's works are a perpetual invocation to the Muses; a hymn
to Fame. He had his thoughts constantly fixed on the contemplation of
the Hebrew theocracy, and of a perfect commonwealth; and he seized the
pen with a hand just warm from the touch of the ark of faith. His
religious zeal infused its character into his imagination; so that he
devotes himself with the same sense of duty to the cultivation of his
genius, as he did to the exercise of virtue, or the good of his country.
The spirit of the poet, the patriot, and the prophet, vied with each
other in his breast. His mind appears to have held equal communion with
the inspired writers, and with the bards and sages of ancient Greece and
Rome;--

"Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old."

He had a high standard, with which he was always comparing himself,
nothing short of which could satisfy his jealous ambition. He thought of
nobler forms and nobler things than those he found about him. He lived
apart, in the solitude of his own thoughts, carefully excluding from his
mind whatever might distract its purposes or alloy its purity, or damp
its zeal. "With darkness and with dangers compassed round," he had the
mighty models of antiquity always present to his thoughts, and
determined to raise a monument of equal height and glory, "piling up
every stone of lustre from the brook," for the delight and wonder of
posterity. He had girded himself up, and as it were, sanctified his
genius to this service from his youth. "For after," he says, "I had from
my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, been
exercised to the tongues, and some sciences as my age could suffer, by
sundry m