referring to them in a note.* I think the three I have already given are amply sufficient to show that Shakspeare fully appreciated his own genius, and knew that he had a right to exclaim Oh, let my books be then my eloquence.t Thus much, then, for the facts that are omitted in the arguments of those who would contend that Shakspeare was ignorant of his own greatness. I have now to endeavor to show that it is a position adverse to the laws of nature and of truth. Self-appreciation is an essential part of our rational existence, as is manifest when we observe how every mental passion, more or less, owes its origin to that very principium. One man seeks revenge, because his selfconsequence has been injured; a second is ambitious, because it will add to his self-consequence; a third boils over with hatred towards a fellow-being, because he stands between him and his self-consequence. And yet Shakspeare, who knew all this better than any man that ever breathed, is of all others selected as the one who had no self-appreciation; he, who is the Simeon Stylites of the literary world, and has built for himself a pillar whereon his fame resteth in elevation eternal, is represented by this sophism as grovelling in the dust. So far from this forming any portion of my creed, I believe that See also sonnets xvii. xix. xxiii. liv. lx. lxiii. ci. cvii. and exvi. † Sonnet xxiii. While yet a child, and long before his time, He had perceived the presence and the power There is another point of view in which this argument seems to be irresistible. It is "familiar as household words" to remark of any of his greatest plays-Hamlet, for instance that every time we read it we discover fresh beauties in it; but it is clear as an axiom, that all these (not to say many more, as yet undiscovered) were manifest to the poet the moment he wrote them. It is on these beauties that we build our adoration; and on these, therefore, must he have built a consciousness of his own greatness, unless we are to pronounce him to be, as Goldsmith by Horace Walpole in the last century, "an inspired idiot." A philosopher of the present day, in speaking of selfcomplacency as necessary for the perfect fruition of the seeds of our mind, illustrates his argument with the case of Columbus's discovery of America, and Homer's composition of the Iliad. I will quote his concluding remarks, as they seem to me to bear with great effect on the matter now before us. Having shown that it was impossible for Columbus to retract without disgrace from his undertaking, after he had once drawn the eyes of Spain to his proposal, the writer observes "It is not so in writing a poem. The author of the *Wordsworth. B latter may stop wherever he pleases. Of consequence, during every day of its execution, he requires a fresh stimulus. He must look back on the past, and forward on what is to come, and feel that he has considerable reason to be satisfied. The great naval discoverer may have his intervals of misgiving and encouragement, and may, as Pope expresses it, wish that any one would hang him.' He goes forward, for he has no longer the liberty to choose. But the author of a mighty poem is not in the same manner entangled, and therefore to a great degree returns to his work each day, 'screwing his courage to the sticking-place.' He must feel the same fortitude and elasticity, and be as entirely the same man of heroic energy, as when he first arrived at the resolution to engage. How much, then, of self-complacency and self-confidence do his undertaking and performance imply! "I have taken two of the most memorable examples in the catalogue of human achievements: the discovery of a new world and the production of the Iliad. But all those voluntary actions, or rather series and chains of actions, which comprise energy in the first determination, and honor in the execution, each in its degree rests upon self-complacency as the pillar upon which its weight is sustained, and without which it must sink into nothing."* If this argument is sound, Shakspeare must be emi *Godwin's Thoughts on Man. nently included in it; and my only quarrel with the doctrine, is, that it does not go far enough. It seems to me that self-complacency extends far beyond those actions "which comprise energy in the first determination, and honor in the execution." Instinct teaches all created things their peculiar superiority; the peacock spreads his golden fan; the swan disports his graceful neck; and the nightingale makes the woods all melody with his tuneful voice; and so, if we ascend to mankind, we perceive that each embeds himself in his own individual excelling. He, therefore, who excels the most, carries his self-complacency with the greater elevation. Think you Phidias tooled his Parian marble with the same dull sensations that the pauper breaks his Kentish rag to pave the public highway? or did Raphael stand before his easel in the same spirit in which a bricklayer whitewashes a ceiling? Rely upon it, Shakspeare even more than we know it. knew his own greatness The raciness of Falstaff, the soliloquies of Hamlet, and the third act of Othello, were precious to his soul; and self was not absent when he exclaimed, "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." latter may stop wherever he pleases. Of consequence, during every day of its execution, he requires a fresh stimulus. He must look back on the past, and forward on what is to come, and feel that he has considerable reason to be satisfied. The great naval discoverer may have his intervals of misgiving and encouragement, and may, as Pope expresses it, wish that any one would hang him.' He goes forward, for he has no longer the liberty to choose. But the author of a mighty poem is not in the same manner entangled, and therefore to a great degree returns to his work each day, 'screwing his courage to the sticking-place.' He must feel the same fortitude and elasticity, and be as entirely the same man of heroic energy, as when he first arrived at the resolution to engage. How much, then, of self-complacency and self-confidence do his undertaking and performance imply! "I have taken two of the most memorable examples in the catalogue of human achievements: the discovery of a new world and the production of the Iliad. But all those voluntary actions, or rather series and chains of actions, which comprise energy in the first determination, and honor in the execution, each in its degree rests upon self-complacency as the pillar upon which its weight is sustained, and without which it must sink into nothing."* If this argument is sound, Shakspeare must be emi *Godwin's Thoughts on Man. |