Daily State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1865-07-20

splri, agency Of sAslspsars had no, given il life
aud ruler
rus pBIeuIrr os sHsKrsrEARks GENIUS.
who. stranger might ask. 10 the man. and
where was he born, and where does he lire; that
not only biz acts aud scenes are placed In any
age or 10 any land, bat that be can Oil bis stage
sish the very living men Of the time and place
represented. make them move as eAsily as ifhe
held them with strings. and make them speak
not only with general conformity 10 their com
mon position. but with individual and disinc
tive propriety, 90 that each - different from the
ressf Did he live In ancient Rome. strolling the
Forum. or climbing the Capitol; hear ancient
magrons converse with modest dignity. and listen
10 conspifstors among the columns Of poftioos.
mingling among Senators around Pompey's
statue: or with plebian csJwding To hear Brutus
or Anthony hsraDguef Was he one accustomed
10 idle IN The piazza Of 81 Mark, or shoot his
gondoa nuder the Rial;of Or was he a
Knight, or even archer, Ia the fields of
France or Englvud during the period OF the
PlantAgenets or Tudors. and witnessed aud
wrote down the great deeds OF those times.
and knew intimately and personally such puts
SAINT lord who distinguished himself by bis valOr,
by HE wisdom. or even by his crimesl Did he
live 10 the courts Of princes. perchance holding
some Office which enabled him to listen to the
grave uitsranees Of kings and their couuselors,
or TO the witty sayings Of court jesturesl Did
he consort with bsnished princes. partake of
their sports or their suieringsl In fine, did be
live In great cities. or ia shepherds cottages or
in the fields and woods; and does lac date from
John and live on 10 tho eighth Henry-a thread
connecting In himself the different epochs OF
mediaval Englandl One would almost say so;
or multiply one man into many. whose works
have been united under one man.
ms versatility.
"The wide region OF intellectual enjoyment
over which one great bard exerts dominion is not
one parcslled out or divided into formal and
state.like provinces. While the studen, OF sci
enoe is reading IL his chamber the great "Prin
cipia' OF Newton he must keep before him the
solution OF only problem. One that his
mind must undisrActedly rest, on that his power
OF thought be intensely concentrated. Woe to
him 1T maginstion leads his reason into truant
wanderings; woe If be drop the thread OF finely
drawn deductions he will find his wearied in
tellgence drowsily hounderng in sea Of swim
ming figures and eyanescent quantities, or float
ing amidst the fragments OF n shipwrecked dia-
gram. But over Shakespeare one may dream no
Tess than pour; we may drop the book from our
hand and the contents remain equally before US.
Stretched in the shade by brook in summer, or
sunk in the reading chair by the hearth in win
ter, in the imaginative vigor of health, in the
dropping spirits OF indisposition, one may read,
and allow the train OF fancy which spring up in
any scene 20 pursue their own way, and minister
their own varied pleasures or relief; and when by
degrees we have become familiar with the mex
haustable resources of his genius, there is
scarcely want ia mind or the affections that
needs no higher than human suecor, which will
not find in one or the other Of bis works that
which will soothe suffering, comfort grief.
strengthen good desires, and present some ma
jestic example to copy, or some fearful phantom
But when we endesvor to contemplate all his
Infinitely varied conceptions as blended together
in picture, so as TO take in, IL possible, at
one glance the prodigous extent of his prolific
genius, We therefore build up what he himself so
beautifully called the fabric of vision, match
less in its architecture in the airiness OF its
materials. There are forms Enthusiastically sketched
in cloud shapes, snd as Hamlet showed in Polo
Mus in the midst o; Others rounded and full,
which open and unfold everchanging varieties,
now gloomy and threatening. then tipped with
gold and tinted with azure, ever rolling, ever
moving, melting the one into the other or extri
eating each itself from the general mass. Dwell
ling upon this maze Of things and imaginatiOns,
the most incongruous combinations come before
the dreamy thought fascinated, spell bound, and
entranced. The wild Ardennes and Windsor
Park seem to run into another their frs
and their oaks mingle together: the boisterous
ocean boiling round the still vexed Der
moothes,' runs smoothly into the lagocns of
Venice; the old gray portcos OF republican
Rome, like the transition in dissolvng view I;
are confused and entangled with the slim and
futed pillars of Gothic hall: here the golden
orb. dropped from the head of a captive king.
rolls on the ground side by side with Jester S
mouldy skuIl--both emblems of n common fate
in human things Then the grave chief justice
seems incorporated i'm the bloated Falstaf; King
John and his barons wassang with Poins
and Bardolph at an inn door; Caroanus and
Shylock contending for the right of human
sensibilities Macbeth and Jacques are mOraliz-
ing together on tenderness even to the brute
And 50 Of other more delicate creations of the
poets mind-Isabella and Ophelia. Desdemons
and the Scotch Thames wife. produce respec-
lively composite figures OF inextrcable confusion.
And around and above is that flmy world, ARIEL
aud Titantia and Peas blossom, and Cobweb,
and Moth, who weave as a gossamer cloud
around the vision, dimmag il gradually before
our eyes, in the last dropping of wearness, or the
last hour OF wakefulness"