Arizona republican., 1892-06-01

| and deiiclously as the fresh fruit. beth, good Queen Bess, as sho has been | styled, was anything but good, to our way of thinking. She was vain as peacock; she was perfidious, mercenary, suspicious, selfish, irresolute, untruth- ful, cruel. She swore like a pirate; she struck her courtiers; she frequently be- haved after the manner of the most yul- 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 sunnets, which are generally regarded as autobiOgraphic, apart from conceded circumstances of his carer. 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. lntemperance was a vice of the best society, with which tho dranatist 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 overconyivial 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.
 "Whatr l imagine some idealizer of the poet eXC'aiming; 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, 1 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. It does not tally with the poetic side of his na- 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, in the accepted sense. He was supremely in teligent. 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 stupcndous genius, trans forming them completely, lifting them from the usual into the enchanting. Hu- 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 it. luminated 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 ever man had commanding and con summate genius-genius that was inde- pendent of effort and painstaking-th man was Shakespeare. Wonderful to everybody else, he was not in the least wonderful to himself. He had no care for his dramas beyond their presenta- tiOn 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- quaintance with human nature, they are not more so than his imperial ability to write. Notwithstanding that he has sell dom produced a 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 so well what he said appar- ently without reflection and at white heat. By the magic of his pen he 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- pression into mankind and Shakespeare.
 JUNIUS HENRI BROWNE.