The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-04-09

senses. We cannot help believing that
the parsonage. Hamlet. was To II certain
extent autDbiographic- borrowed 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 pui into his
speeches much of his mental expo
rienCe.
The poet certainly was not moral. as
morals are understood now. though suf-
ficicntly moral, perhaps, for his time.
All men must bo Judged 10y their epoch,
by the light it dilfuscs.
We must remember that Queen Eliza
beth, good Queen Bcss, as she has been
styled, was anything but good, to our
way of thinking. She was vain rs Il
peacock: she was pcrtidiuu9, mercenary,
suspicious, selfish. %irrcsulute, untruth-
tut, cruel. She swore like IL pirate: she
struck her con- tiers: she frequently be-
haved after the manner Of the most vul-
gar viragO. Her rcdecming qualities
were intellect, learning. courage. force.
Shakespeare by no means kept or tried
to keep the commandments. He wonld
have been Il warning, not an example,
to Sunday schools and Young Mems
Christian associations of today. OF this
we may be reasonably sure from his
s%onnets, which are generally regarded
as autobiographic. apart from conceded
circumstances of his career. He drank
to excess at times. rs was the custom in
the Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
in (,palt Rt.it,i,, a. ,,.,ll M, -, t1,, fNnn-
tinent. lntcmperancc was Il vice of the
best society. with which the dramatist
had very little 10 do. either in town or
country. The tradition ut Stratford is
that IN the last night of his life he had
been ~overconvivial with some of his
boon companions in the village. and,
going home at II late hour. he fell into IL
ditch. and vas found there dead in the
morning.
what. | imagine some idealiZer of
the poet enchanting: do You mean to
intimate that such was the fate of the
greatest of the worlds iramatists! That
is an infamous libel-thc story is incred-
IDLE"
1t is not pleasant to believe, l admit.
AN''iiiiS II Il'dNstIl lIdt IIoSIIl'S DDtt1C
theories. But it may be true neverthe-
less. Great men are rs human as COM
mon men, and that Shakespeare was
wontel to c~arOusals merely indicates
that he belonged 10 and represented his
time. That he persisted in IL 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 that h. WAS without it. in the
accepted sense. He WAS supremacy in
tclligrut. Witiiou, knowledge of books.
he knew where To 90 for what he want
ed. Every onr of his thirty-seven plays.
now credited to him. WAS directly taken,
as TO plot aud character. from some
earlier work Plutarch and Boccaccio
and the English clroniclers having been
most freely drawn npon. Although he
must have been rich in invention, he
adopted what he found to his hand. In
the development of his p~ersonages he
proved his stupcndons genius. trans
forming them completely, lifting them
from the usual into the enchanting. HUI
man nature was revealed to him as in q
vision. What other men learned gradu-
ally and laborion>ly he got by instinct.
He had small need Of books; he was H.
Illuminated from within.
He could not have observed to any
great extent. His imagination was un-
bounded and yet ever in restraint. His
vast intellect was all embracing and
~clairvoyant: it penetrated the thickest
darkness with bursts of irradiatiOn. If
YER inan had commanding and con.
sumniate g~eniu>-gcnius that was indie.
pendent Of effort and painstaking-that
ma was Shakespeare. Wonderful to
everybody else. he was not in the least
wonderful to himself. He had no care
for his dramas beyond their p~resenta-
ton and their pc%cuniary success. The
thought of reputation seems never to
have occurred Ia him. and this denotes
il consciousness of capacity immeasrr.
ably above performance. The first and
last thing that strikes any one who at
tempts 10 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.
dom produced IA speech without some
verbal flaw, he still remains the sover-
eign master of expression. Nobody has
been able after the greatest elaboration
to say half 50 we'll 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
saine time that he floods IT'S with despair
i'll amy effort of ours to initiate him.
The world is divided rs aspects eX-
precision into mankind and Shakespeare.
JCNIuS HENRI BROWNE.
N"rway's North Pole Expedition.