The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1864-11-25
What Shakespeare was Like.

When Shakspeare's contemporaries praise
him for "his gentle muse. tue question
will arise-What part of man will pos
terty choose to retain And may it not
possibly be the very part which he him
self least values, and would least sus.
poet ? ...... '-........f 90
Taat he was boon companion, and
fond Of good fellowship, there can be lit
tie doubt All cotemporary information
about him suti ;ientIy proves this and, in
fault of it, his own works say more to the
purpose. His rich nature overa3wS on all
siies.. eco His experience is from without, as
we'll as from within He treats of man
ners, aud habits, aud personal pecuiari-
ties, no less dcxterously than of the deeper
human passions. He does not auatomize,
but create; and he never sits down in bis
study without opening the window, and
letting the babble from the town aud
the sunshine fram the field, stream through
it. 1t was well for the perfect develop
ment OF his genius, that his youth had
great experience Of nature--his manhood,
OF men. His first pooui, the "Venus aud
Adonis," breathes Of the woodland and
the sky. . ..a. .u. ...
We wonder whether he was, himself,
fully aware Of the colossal nature of his
own intelligence. Did he ever meet
man whom he held superior to himself !?
We are puzzled to know how far he was
rightly appreciated, by his cotenporaries.
That he was appreciated, there can be little
ioubt; but we question if it was to the
full. We must believe that Spencer was
the fashionable poet of the time but he
certainly aludes with high honor to
Shakespeare. Aud yet it is less the pro-
iun,iity aud majesty of his stupentous
genius, than its genial and graceful hui
mainly, that We iind everywhere praised
by those who were dearest to him.
Ut no writer, do We see, through the in.
tellect, So much of the temperament, as of
Shakespeare. II, on the one nand, his cordiaI
and exuberantnat made him the merriest
of his tavern friends; on the other, those
delicate and nervous suseeptibilities which
usually accompany such disposition,
must have heen cxqustely developed in
his organization and we venture the be-
lief that he was subject to fits of intensely
low s9iri,s aud gloon, at times. We
doubt if his digestion was not sometimes
at war with bis good living. How FREE
quent, throughout his PLAYS, are the invo.
cations against evil dreams and restless
nights ! Where else is so strangely CIV
Gu us the whole ''anasomy Of melan-
ch0ly r Who else has been SO thorough.
ly to the heart of solitude aud sorrow -
How, too. does he not gloat over the
loathsome interior of the tomb of all the
CapuIets with Juliet aud with Claren ce
on the monstrous abyss of ocean; and
with the Ghost Of the Royal Dane,
upon the preternatural horrors Of Purgato.
ry! This is so great star that he has
warped US out of our orbit. In vain We
seek to peer into that life as yaiuly as
to search the sources Of the sea. Yet who
but fingers BY the ocean, if only to pick
up shells upon the shore? With how
quaint curiosity we muse upon that
strange bequest OF his second best bed to
Nan Hathaway, his wife Was this the
only eynicism we have seen in his humor?
Of his brother and sisters we know nothing
but that they lived and died. Neither OF
his sou, and if he loved him and if, ut
that boys death, second Shakespeare was
was lost to U.s. He is almost too great to
speak Of H fame needs not to be
Registered upon his brazen tomb.
We returnto other men, to observe what
dwarfs they seem beside him Anon.
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