nevertheless. Nature at her own time, with Catholicism or what else might
be necessary, sent him forth; taking small thought of Acts of Parliament.
King Henrys, Queen Elizabeths go their way; and Nature too goes hers. Acts
of Parliament, on the whole, are small, notwithstanding the noise they
make. What Act of Parliament, debate at St. Stephen's, on the hustings or
elsewhere, was it that brought this Shakspeare into being? No dining at
Freemason's Tavern, opening subscription-lists, selling of shares, and
infinite other jangling and true or false endeavoring! This Elizabethan
Era, and all its nobleness and blessedness, came without proclamation,
preparation of ours. Priceless Shakspeare was the free gift of Nature;
given altogether silently;--received altogether silently, as if it had been
a thing of little account. And yet, very literally, it is a priceless
thing. One should look at that side of matters too.

Of this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a
little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the best
judgment not of this country only, but of Europe at large, is slowly
pointing to the conclusion, that Shakspeare is the chief of all Poets
hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left
record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I know not such
a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters
of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth; placid joyous strength;
all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a
tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in the constructing of
Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart from all other "faculties" as they are
called, an understanding manifested, equal to that in Bacon's _Novum
Organum_ That is true; and it is not a truth that strikes every one. It
would become more apparent if we tried, any of us for himself, how, out of
Shakspeare's dramatic materials, _we_ could fashion such a result! The
built house seems all so fit,--every way as it should be, as if it came