The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-04-09

the parsonage, Hamlet, was to certain
extent Observation-Disclosures from
his ideal and intellectual side. Dramatic
as 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 81 today. Of this
we may be reasonably sure from his
sonnets. which are generally regarded
as 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 well 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
ditch, and was found there dead in the
morning.
'|What!" I imagine some idealizer of
the poet exclairning; "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."
It 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 persisted in ditch was
an accident and his misfortune. It 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 thst he was without it, in the
accented sense. He was supremacy in
telligent. Without knowledge Of books,
he knew where 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 he
must have been rich in invention, he
adopted what 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 I'M
bounded and yet ever in restraint. His
vast intellect was all embracing and
clairvoyant; it penetrated the thickest
darkness with bursts of irradiation. If
ever man had commanding and con-
surnniate genius-genius that was indie
pendent of effort and painstaking-that
man was Shakespeare. Wonderful to
every body else, he was not in the least
wond srful to himself. He had no care
for his dramas beyond their presenta-
ton and their pec1lniary 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 practically.
Amazing as are his poetry and his &C
quaintance with human nature, they are
not more SO than his imperial ability to
write. Notwithstanding that he has sci.
dora produced speech without some
verbal flaw, he still remains the sover-
eig1l master of expression. Nobody has
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 he makes
us see and feel what he portrays at the
sans time that he floods us with despair
in any effort of ours to initiate him.
TIE world is divided as respects ex-
pressiua into mankind and Shakespeare.
JUNIUs HENRI BROWNE.
A Worlds Fair Feature.
Most persons have only a vague sort
Il.