Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-04-04
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the parsonage, Hamlet, was TO q certain
extent autobiographic-bo from
his ideal and intellectual side. Dramatic
IS Shakespeare essentially and invari-
ably is, he would seem to have lived
what Hamlet acts---to have put into his
speeches much of his own mental expe-
rience.
The poet certainly was not moral, as
morals are understood now, though suf-
ficiently moral perhaps, for his time.
All men must be judged by their epoch,
by the light it diffuses.
We must remember that Queen Eliza
beth, good Queen Bess, as she has been
styled, was anything but good, to our
way of thinking. She was vain as
peacock; she was perfdious, mercenary,
suspicious, selfish, irresolute, untruth-
full, cruel She swore like pirate; she
struck her courtiers; she frequently be-
haved after the manner of the most vul-
gar virago. Her redeeming qualities
were intellect, learning, courage, force.
Shakespeare by no means kept or tried
to keep the commandments He would
have been warning, not an example,
to Sunday schools and Young Mems
Christian associations of today. OF this
we may be reasonably sure from his
sonnets, which are generally regarded
rs autobiographic, apart from conceded
circumstances of his career. He drank
to excess at times, as was the custom in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries
In Great Britain as we'll as on the Con-
tinent Intemperance was vice Of the
best society, with which the dramatist
had very little to do, either in town or
country. The tradition at Stratford is
that on the last night Of his life he had
been overconvivial with some Of his
boon companions in the village, and,
going home at late hour, he fell into a
ditch, and was found there dead in the
morning.
"Whatl" imagine some idealizer OF
the poet exclaiming; "do you mean to
intimate that such was the fate of the
greatest Of the worlds dramatists? That
is an infamous libel-the story is incred-
ible."
II is not pleasant to believe, admit
Nothing is pleasant that prosifies poetic
theories. But it may be true neverthe-
less. Great men are as human as COM
mon men, and that Shakespeare was
wonted to carousals merely indicates
that he belonged to and represented his
time. That he perished in ditch was
an accident and his misfortune. 1t does
not tally with the poetic side of his ma
ture, but it does with his actual, his
prosaic side. Even Shakespeare was not
always at the high level of his creations
In regard to learning, it is altogether
probable that he was without it, III the
accepted sense. He was supremely in
| telligent. Without knowledge of books,
he knew whore to go for what he want
ed. Every one of his thirty seven plays,
now credited to him, was directly taken,
as to plot and character, from some
| earlier work--Plutarch and Boccaccio
and the English chroniclers having been
most freely drawn upon. Although ne
must have been rich ih invention, he
| adopted wha0 he found to his hand In
the development of his personages he
proved his stupendous genius, trans
forming them completely, lifting them
! from the usual into the enchanting. HUI
man nature was revealed to him as In a
vision. What other men learned gradu-
ally and laboriously he got by instinct.
He had small need of books; he was IL
Illuminated from within.
He could not have observed to any
great extent. His imagination was TN
bounded and yet ever in restraint His
vast intellect was all embracing and
clairvoyant; it penetrated the thickest
darkness with bursts of irradiation. Ii
ever man had commanding and con-
summate genius--genius that was inde-
pendent of effort and painstaking--that
man was Shakespeare. Wonderful to
everybody else, he was not in the lee Il
wonderful to himself. He had no care
for his dramas beyond their presenta-
ton and their pecuniary success. The
thought of reputation seems never to
have occurred to him, and this denotes
a consciousness of capacity immeasur-
ably above performance. The first and
last thing that strikes any one who at
tempts to solve his enigma is his uniform
and extreme practicality
/ Amazing as are his poetry and his ac
uuaintance with human nature, they are
not more SO than his imperial ability tc
write. Notv outstanding that he has sci
dom produced speech without some
verbal flaw, ho still remains the sover
eign master of expression. Nobody hal
been able after the greatest elaboration
to say half SO well what he said appar
emily without reflection and at white
heat. By the magic of his pen no makes
us see and feel what he portrays at the
same time that he floods us with despair
in any effort of ours to initiate him.
The world is divided as respects ex
preston into mankind and Shakespeare
JUEIUs HENRI BROWNE.