colours rises in silence to the silent 'fiat' of the uprising Apollo.
However inferior in ability I may be to some who have followed me, I own
I am proud that I was the first in time who publicly demonstrated to the
full extent of the position, that the supposed irregularity and
extravagancies of Shakspeare were the mere dreams of a pedantry that
arraigned the eagle because it had not the dimensions of the swan. In
all the successive courses of lectures delivered by me, since my first
attempt at the Royal Institution, it has been, and it still remains, my
object, to prove that in all points from the most important to the most
minute, the judgment of Shakspeare is commensurate with his
genius,--nay, that his genius reveals itself in his judgment, as in its
most exalted form. And the more gladly do I recur to this subject from
the clear conviction, that to judge aright, and with distinct
consciousness of the grounds of our judgment, concerning the works of
Shakspeare, implies the power and the means of judging rightly of all
other works of intellect, those of abstract science alone excepted.

It is a painful truth that not only individuals, but even whole nations,
are ofttimes so enslaved to the habits of their education and immediate
circumstances, as not to judge disinterestedly even on those subjects,
the very pleasure arising from which consists in its disinterestedness,
namely, on subjects of taste and polite literature. Instead of deciding
concerning their own modes and customs by any rule of reason, nothing
appears rational, becoming, or beautiful to them, but what coincides
with the peculiarities of their education. In this narrow circle,
individuals may attain to exquisite discrimination, as the French
critics have done in their own literature; but a true critic can no more
be such without placing himself on some central point, from which he may
command the whole, that is, some general rule, which, founded in reason,
or the faculties common to all men, must therefore apply to each,--than