e ebb and flow of
his thoughts pulsated on the shores of every human passion.

He was a mountain range of ideals, and has been a quarry of love, logic and
liberty for all writers and actors since his day and age, out of which they
have built fabrics of fame.

No matter how often and numerous have been the "blasts" set off in his
rocky foundations, the driller, stone mason and builder of books have
failed to lessen his mammoth resources, and every succeeding age has
borrowed rough ashlers, blocks of logic and pillars of philosophy from the
inexhaustible mine of his divine understanding.

He was an exemplification and consolidation of his own definition of
greatness:

_"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness
thrust upon them."_

The poet finds in Shakspere a blooming garden of perennial roses, the
painter finds colors of heavenly hues, the musician finds seraphic songs
and celestial aspirations, the sculptor finds models of beauty and truth,
the doctor finds pills and powders of Providence, the lawyer finds suits
and briefs of right and reason, the preacher finds prophecies superior to
Isaiah or Jeremiah, the historian finds lofty romance more interesting than
facts and the actor "struts and frets" in the Shaksperian looking-glass of
to-day, in the mad whirl of the mimic stage, with all the pomp and glory of
departed warriors, statesmen, fools, princes and kings.

Shakspere was grand master of history, poetry and philosophy--tripartite
principles of memory, imagination and reason. He is credited with composing
thirty-seven plays, comedies, tragedies and histories, as well as Venus and
Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Lovers' Complaint, The Passionate Pilgrim
and one hundred and fifty-four classical sonnets, all poems of unrivaled
elegance.

What a royal troop of various and universal characters leaped from the
portals of his burning brain, to stalk forever down the center of the stage
of life, exemplifying every human passion!

Shakspere never composed a play or poem without a purpose, to satirize an
evil, correct a wrong or elevate the human soul into the lofty atmosphere
of the good and great. His villains and heroes are of royal mold, and while
he lashes with whips of scorn the sin of cupidity, hypocrisy and
ingratitude, he never forgets to glorify love, truth and patriotism.

Virtue and vice are exhibited in daily, homespun dress, and stalking abroad
through the centuri