any memorable expressions, the judgment of the senses,
above all slower, more toilsome means of knowledge, scorning some who
fail to see things only because they are so clear:

So here you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes:--

as with some German commentators on Shakespeare. Appealing always to
actual sensation from men's affected theories, he might seem to despise
learning; as, indeed, he has taken up his deep studies partly in sport,
and demands always the profit of learning in renewed enjoyment. Yet he
surprises us from time to time by intuitions which could come only from
a deep experience and power of observation; and men listen to him, old
and young, in spite of themselves. He is quickly impressible to the
slightest clouding of the spirits in social intercourse, and has his
moments of extreme seriousness: his trial-task may well be, as Rosaline
puts it--

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

But still, through all, he is true to his chosen manner: that gloss of
dainty language is a second nature with him: even at his best he is not
without a certain artifice: the trick of playing on words never deserts
him; and [168] Shakespeare, in whose own genius there is an element of
this very quality, shows us in this graceful, and, as it seems,
studied, portrait, his enjoyment of it.

As happens with every true dramatist, Shakespeare is for the most part
hidden behind the persons of his creation. Yet there are certain of
his characters in which we feel that there is something of
self-portraiture. And it is not so much in his grander, more subtle
and ingenious creations that we feel this--in Hamlet and King Lear--as
in those slighter and more spontaneously developed figures, who, while
far from playing principal parts, are yet distinguished by a peculiar
happiness and delicate ease in the drawing of them; figures which
possess, above all, that winning attractiveness which there is no man
but would willingly exercise, and which resemble those works of art
which, though not meant to be very great or imposing, are yet wrought
of the choicest material. Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet, belongs to
this group of Shakespeare's characters--versatile, mercurial people,
such as make good actors, and in whom the

nimble spirits of the arteries,

the finer but still merely animal elements of great wit, predominate. A
careful delineation of minor, yet expressive traits