The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1873-06-12
SHAKESPEARE.
The Divine William Viewed
IN a Comparative Way.

In a Comparative Way.
From the London Quar- terly Review.
70 say that he was the greatest
man that ever lived is to provoke a
useless controversy and comparison
that leads to nothing between
Shakespeare and Cesar, Shakespeare
and Cromwell; to say that he was
the greatest INTELLECT that ever lived,
is to bring the shades of Aristotle
and Plato, and Newton, and Bacon,
and all yonr other systematic think.
ers grumbling about us with de.
mands for definition of intellecs.
which We are by no means IN DO.
sltlon to give; nay, finally to say
that ne is the greatest poet that tho
world has produced ia think which
we would certainly were we provok.
cd to it) would be unnecessarily to
hurt the feelings Of Homer and So.
phocles, and Dante, and Milton.
What we Will say then, and what we
will challenge the world to gainsay,
is that he was the greatest expresser
that ever lived. This is glory
enough, and it leaves tho other
question open. Other men may have
led, OH the whole, greater and more
impressive lives than he; ether men,
acting on their fellows through the
same medium of speech that he used
may have expended greater power
of thought and achieved greater
intellectual effect in one consistent
direction; other men, too, though
this is very unquestionable, may have
contrived to issue the matter which
they did address to the world, IN
more perfect and compact shapes;
but no man that ever lived said such
splendid extempore things on all
subjects universally, no man that ev.
er lived had the facility of pouring
out, on all occasions, such flood OF
the richest and deepest language.
lie may have had rivals in the art OF
imagining situations; he had no RI
val in the power of sending gush
of appropriate effusion over the i'm
ago and body of situation once
conceived. From tho jewelled ring
on the Alderman's finger, to the
most mountainous thought or deed
of man or demon, nothing suggested
itself that his speech could not envel-
op and enfold with ease. That ex-
cessive fluency which astonished Ben.
johnson when he listened to Shakes.
peare in person astonishes the world.
\ ct abundance, ease, redundance, q
plentitude of word, sound imagery,
which, were tho intellect at work
only little less magnificent, would
sometimes end in sheer braggardism
and bombast, are the characteristics
OF Shakespeare's style. Nothing is
suppressed, nothing is omitted, moth.
ing cancelled. On and on the poet
flows, word, thoughts and fancies
crowding him as fast as he can write,
all related to the matter on hane,
and all poured forth together, to rise
and fall on the waves of an establish.
ed cadence. Such llghtness and ease
in the manner, and such prodigious
wealth and depth in the matter, arc
combined in no other writer. How
the matter was first accumulated,
what proportion of 1t was acquired
capital of foreign efforts, and, what
proportion of it welled up in the
poets mind, during and in virtue Of
the very act of speech it is impossi-
bic to say but this, at least, may be
affirmed, without fear OF contradic-
tion, that there never was a mind in
the world from which, when it was
pricked by any occasion whatever,
there poured forth on the instant,
such stream of precious substance
related to it. BY his powers of ex.
preston, in fact, Shakespeare has
bcggared all his posterity, and left
mere practitioners of expression
nothing possible to do. There is
nerhaps not thought, or feeling, or
situation really common or generic
to human life on which he has not
exercised his prerogative; and where.
eyer he has once been, woe to the
man who comes after him. lie has
overgrown the whole system and
tace Of things like an universal Ivy,
which has left no wall uncovered, no
pinnacle unclimbed, no chluk unpen-
etrated. Since he left, the concrete
world has worn q rich surface. IIo
found it great and beautiful with
stripes here and there, of the rough
old coat seen through the lcafy Ia.
bors of his predecessors; he left it
clothed throughout with tho wealth