The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-10 00:00:00

is [there] represented in immovable, feature-
less, unemotional type." That in approach-
ing this wonderful man, that in commun-
ing with him through his works, he had
done so "in silence and in solitude, face to face,
alone with him alone"—that "he had read" and
studied and meditated upon him in early youth with-
out gloss or commentary, preface or glossary 1" To
employ the Cardinal's own beautiful illustration of
the limpid purity of the source from which he had
thus drunk in these draughts of Shaksperian lore—it
might be said that instead of caring to quaff it from
a richly jewelled and delicately chased cup—he had
chosen the most transparent crystal vessel, how-
ever homely--filling it at the very cleft of the rock
from which it bubbles fresh and bright, and thus
drinking it while yet sparkling, while yet " beading
with its own air pearls the walls of the goblet !" Cast-
ing one comprehensive glance back over all the
world's literature—modern, mediaeval, or in the
days of antiquity—the Cardinal recognises Three
Poets, out of the whole human race, each of whom in
his way may be considered supreme, matchless, un-
rivalled. The Dii Majores of Literature ! SHAM-
PERE—and prior to Shakspere, DANTE—and, prior
to Dante, HOMER. Each of those three pre-
eminently established in fame—none of them ever
to be dethroned. As to the indestructability of
Shakspere's supremacy—its indestructability saving
only with the destruction of Letters themselves
—the Cardinal declares emphatically, that "To
imagine Shakspere, even in intention, removed from
his sovereignty, would be a treachery parallel only
to that of Lear dethroned by his own daughters."
Meaning by this, that all future literatures or de-
velopments of our own literature—consummated as
the latter had been by Shakspere himself into "the
powerful idiom which so splendidly combines the
Saxon and Norman elements" (p. 23)—must, hence-
forth, evermore, own allegiance and filial affection
to Shakspere as their arch-progenitor. The Secret, or
nucleus, or essence of Shakspere's Genius, we find his
eminence here sagaciously tracing up to that match-
less, protean, marvellous Sympathy of his—as the
Cardinal puts it, " the most perfect of sympathies."
A sympathy pronounced to be " the very soul
of the dramatic idea"—meaning thereby the power
(so essential to the Dramatic Poet) to throw him-
self into the situation, the circumstances, the nature,
the acquired habits, the feelings—true or fictitious
—of every character he introduces." That Genius,
that Gift, that Power, that " Soul of the Dramatic
Idea," Shakspere possessed as no man ever had
before or ever has since possessed it—possessing it, so
far as mortal man could, in truth, in its supreme per-
fection. Here, indeed, is the heart of the whole
marvel ! Here, in truth, is the key to the whole mys-
tery—here is the solution of the otherwise inextri-
cable problem ! And the beauty, and the majesty, and
the sublimity, and the completeness of Shakspere's
gift, in this way, is such that it can be said of him,
as it is here said of him by Cardinal Wiseman
(p. 37) that he, " Shakspere, has sympathy as com-
plete for Shylock or lago as he has for Arthur or
King Lear." Otherwise, to put it, in regard to this
Poet of Poets, " For a time he lives in the astute
villain as in the innocent child." Astonishingly
varied as his characters are, moreover, they: never
for an instant lose their identity. As it is here
exquisitely expressed, " From the beginning to the
end, each one is the same, yet reflecting in himself the
lights and shadows which flit around him." One while,
indeed, the Cardinal goes so far as to speak of this
gift or power of Shakspere's, as the " übiquity of his
sympathies." Commenting later on upon the Poet's
astoundingly vivid delineation of insanity in Ham-
let (supposing, that is, that Haml et, after all, really is
insane) Cardinal Wiseman hesitates not to say, with
all the power of language, " While this character was
before him, he (Shakspere) changed himself into a
maniac ! He felt intuitively what would be his own
thoughts, what his feelings, were he in that situation.
He playedwithhimselfthepart of the madman, with his
own grand mind as the basis of its action." Con-
tinuing the same ttought in other words, words still
more felicitously expressive of it—daring though the
thought is in itself—the Cardinal says of Shakspere,
in reference to his delineation of this character of the
Madmaii; " He needed not to look for a model out
of himself, for it cost him no effort to change the angle
of his mirror and sketch his own countenance awry!
It was but little for him to pluck away the crown
from reason and contemplate it dethroned." In say-
ing this (so very admirably !) his Eminence is
avowedly denying the validity of the argument put
forth by Dr. Conolly to the effect that Shakspere's
delineation must necessarily have been the result of
external observation. The Cardinal's view of it—
a far more reasonable view to our mind—being, that
" the powers by which the genius of Shakspere
reached this painful, yet strange accuracy, was
rather that of introversion than of exter-
nal observation." Summing up in one
luminous sentence all the marvels of that
consummate sympathy of Shakspere, the
Cardinal says, moreover, in so many words—" We
may compare the mind of Shakspere to a diamond,
pellucid, bright, and untinted, cut into countless
polished facets, which, in constant movement, at
every smallest change of direction or of angle, caught
a new reflection, so that not one of its brillian

mirrors could be for a moment idle, but by a power
beyond its control was ever busy with the reflection
of innumerable images, either distinct or running
into one another, or repeated each so clearly as to
allow him, when he chose, to fix it in his memory."

Surely a marvellously felicitous illustration ! It
seems to realise to us, upon the instant, by one
exquisitely happy figure of speech, the otherwise
inexplicable aptitude or apprehension of that most
profound, comprehensive, subtle, all-sympathising
Genius of Shakspere—a Genius, in its own match-
less way, just simply supreme, complete, inimitable,
incomparable ! Epitomising, in an earlier portion

of this most eloquent Lecture or Treatise upon
the Genius of Shakspere, the world-wonders

accomplished by Shakspere's Genius, Cardinal
Wiseman has spoken of the Immortal Bard—as

" the great master of our language," as "al

most its regenerator," as " quite its refiner.'

As " the author whose use of a word stamps
it with the mark of purest English coinage."

As one " whose employment of a phrase makes i

household and proverbial," As one " whose sen-
tentious sayings, flowing without effort from his
mind, seem almost sacred, and are quoted as axioms
or maxims indisputable.!' As " the orator whose
speeches—not only apt but natural to the
lips from which they issue—are more eloquent
than the discourses of senators or finished
public speakers. As " the writer who has
run through the most varied ways and to the
greatest extent through every department of litera-
ture and learning, through the history of many
nations, their domestic manners, their characteristics,
and even their personal distinctives, and who seems
to have visited every part of nature, to have in-
tuitively studied the heavens and the earth." We
would add that while the lecture before us opens

with one of its most eloquent passages, the one
referring to Raphael, and Mozart, and Michel-
angelo—it closes with another passage, in its

eloquence not unworthy of being placed beside it in
direct companionship. It is a peroration quite worthy,
in fact, of completing what the exordium had so

very gracefully and impressively commenced. The

passage of the Lecture here referred to epitomises, by
a series of " incongruous combinations," the all but
bewildering maze of imaginings conjured up by
the genius of Shakspere. . A single one of these

~ incongruous combinations"
same incono will suffice
_ _ __

to illustrate the character of them all, as where

the Cardinal may 4—" hot the golden orb dropped
from the hand of a captive King rolls on the
ground side by side with a Jester's mouldy
skull—both embients ofd common fate in human

things !" As an Appendix to the work we have

" A Proposal for a Tercentenary Memorial ctf
Shakspere"—a proposal that even yet, we would
hope, admits of being adopted by the nation
and fully realized. Cardinal Wiseman sug-

gesting in this Proposal of his a Memorial akin to
that glorified by the familiar words of Horace, the—