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How often do we hear it said, "How I should have liked to have seen Shakspere." Had we seen him, most likely we should have found him a man like ourselves, greater because he was not less but more of a man, suffering terribly from all the ills to which flesh is heir; and we should have been disappointed and said, "Is this all, is this what we came out to see?" and proved ourselves in all probability mere valets to the hero. It is better as it is; we must be content to let Shakspere have had Ben Jonson for a friend, and joyfully to take his testimony, brief as that is," I loved the man, and do honour his memory,

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on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature.”

Though springing from an excellent feeling, it is a mistaken wish to see with the physical eye the world's great men. The least part of a great man is his materia presence. It is better for us each to draw our own ideal of Shakspere; to picture his face so calm and happy and gentle, as his friends declare his spirit to have been; yet not unseared by misfortune and chastened by the divine religion of sorrow. It is better as it is. We know not for certain even his likeness, or his form. The earth-dress falls away, the worthless mortal coil is shuffled off, and only what is pure and noble, the essence of all that is great in the man, remains for evermore as a precious birthright to all the world.

A more reasonable wish is one, also often heard, that we had some diary of Shakspere, some of his private letters to his wife or his children, or even a correspondence with Ben Jonson. I do not know that even this is to be regretted. Ben Jonson's correspondence has been brought to light, and alas! he has been found out to have been a poor government spy. And though of Shakspere we can confidently trust, That whatever record leap to light,

He never shall be shamed;

yet I still think it better as it is. The gods should live

by themselves. And as was the case with the physical, so with the spiritual man, it is best for us to draw our own ideal. Of the greatest poets who have ever lived, the world knows nothing. Homer is to us only a name. Of the singer of the Nibelungen Lied we know not so much as that. And yet all that is good and noble of them remains to us. We surely will not grudge our Shakspere their happy lot. The truest biographer of Shakspere, it has been well said, is the most earnest. student of his plays. Even did we possess the private letters and diaries of Shakspere, what use could we make of them? One man only has been born, since Shakspere died, fit to write his history, and that man, Goethe, is a foreigner. Most biographies, even where the amplest information abounds, are mere catalogues of dates, a history of what the great man eats and drinks, and whatwithal he is clothed.

To know Shakspere's life would undoubtedly be to know one of the highest lives ever lived. To know his struggles, for struggles he had, bitter as ever man endured, his sonnets alone would testify; to trace how from darkness he fought his way to light, how he moulded circumstances, how he bore up against fortune and misfortune, were indeed to know a history such as we cannot expect ever now to have revealed.

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