FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  
the Tudor dynasty[605] to be remembered,--the man who carries the Saxon race in him by the inspiration which feeds him, and on whose thoughts the foremost people of the world are now for some ages to be nourished, and minds to receive this and not another bias. A popular player,--nobody suspected he was the poet of the human race; and the secret was kept as faithfully from poets and intellectual men, as from courtiers and frivolous people. Bacon,[606] who took the inventory of the human understanding for his times, never mentioned his name. Ben Jonson,[607] though we have strained his few words of regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, the better poet of the two. 12. If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton[608] was born four years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after him; and I find, among his correspondents and acquaintances, the following persons:[609] Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Berlarmine, Charles Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius; with all of whom exists some token of his having communicated, without enumerating many others, whom doubtless[610] he saw,--Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, Massinger, two Herberts, Marlow, Chapman and the rest. Since the constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of Pericles,[611] there was never any such society;--yet their genius failed them to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask was impenetrable. You cannot see the mountain near. It took a century to make it suspected; and not until two centuries had passed, after his death, did any criticism which we think adequate begin to appear. It was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare till now; for he is the father of German literature: it was on the introduction of Shakspeare into German, by Lessing,[612] and the translation of his works by Wieland[613] and Schlegel,[614] that the rapid burst of German literature was most intimately connected. It was not until the nineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living Haml
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Shakspeare

 

German

 

Jonson

 
century
 
genius
 

suspected

 
literature
 

people

 

Pericles

 

Chapman


Kepler
 

speculative

 

Charles

 

appeared

 

Cotton

 
Marlow
 

constellation

 

Berlarmine

 

Greece

 
Albericus

doubtless

 
enumerating
 

exists

 

communicated

 

Spenser

 

Gentilis

 

Beaumont

 
Massinger
 

living

 

Arminius


Herberts

 

universe

 

connected

 

intimately

 

father

 

introduction

 

history

 

adequate

 

Lessing

 

Schlegel


Wieland

 

translation

 

criticism

 

failed

 

society

 

impenetrable

 
centuries
 

passed

 

Cowley

 

mountain