ever came near to him in the creative power of the mind; no man
ever had such strength and such variety of imagination." (Hallam)

"Shakespeare's mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do
not see." (Emerson)

"I do not believe that any book or person or event in my life ever
made so great an impression on me as the plays of Shakespeare. They
appear to be the work of some heavenly genius." (Goethe)

Shakespeare's name has become a signal for enthusiasm. The tributes quoted
above are doubtless extravagant, but they were written by men of mark in
three different countries, and they serve to indicate the tremendous
impression which Shakespeare has left upon the world. He wrote in his day
some thirty-seven plays and a few poems; since then as many hundred volumes
have been written in praise of his accomplishment. He died three centuries
ago, without caring enough for his own work to print it. At the present
time unnumbered critics, historians, scholars, are still explaining the
mind and the art displayed in that same neglected work. Most of these
eulogists begin or end their volumes with the remark that Shakespeare is so
great as to be above praise or criticism. As Taine writes, before plunging
into his own analysis, "Lofty words, eulogies are all used in vain;
Shakespeare needs not praise but comprehension merely."

LIFE. It is probably because so very little is known about
Shakespeare that so many bulky biographies have been written of
him. Not a solitary letter of his is known to exist; not a play
comes down to us as he wrote it. A few documents written by other
men, and sometimes ending in a sprawling signature by Shakespeare,
which looks as if made by a hand accustomed to almost any labor