Shakespear was certainly not such a fool as to expect the Toms, Dicks,
and Harrys of his time to be any more interested in dramatic poetry
than Newton, later on, expected them to be interested in fluxions.
And when we come to the question whether Shakespear missed that
assurance which all great men have had from the more capable and
susceptible members of their generation that they were great men, Ben
Jonson's evidence disposes of so improbable a notion at once and for
ever. "I loved the man," says Ben, "this side idolatry, as well as
any." Now why in the name of common sense should he have made that
qualification unless there had been, not only idolatry, but idolatry
fulsome enough to irritate Jonson into an express disavowal of it?
Jonson, the bricklayer, must have felt sore sometimes when Shakespear
spoke and wrote of bricklayers as his inferiors. He must have felt it
a little hard that being a better scholar, and perhaps a braver and
tougher man physically than Shakespear, he was not so successful or so
well liked. But in spite of this he praised Shakespear to the utmost
stretch of his powers of eulogy: in fact, notwithstanding his
disclaimer, he did not stop "this side idolatry." If, therefore, even
Jonson felt himself forced to clear himself of extravagance and
absurdity in his appreciation of Shakespear, there must have been many
people about who idolized Shakespear as American ladies idolize
Paderewski, and who carried Bardolatry, even in the Bard's own time,
to an extent that threatened to make his reasonable admirers
ridiculous.



Shakespear's Pessimism

I submit to Mr Harris that by ruling out this idolatry, and its