therefore I fear that such as are of deeper
studies than myself, will find many flaws in
my handiwork to laugh at both now and
hereafter.

_Bacon_. He that can make the multitude laugh and
weep as you do Mr. Shakspeare need not
fear scholars.... More scholarship
might have sharpened your judgment
but the particulars whereof a character is
composed are better assembled by force of
imagination than of judgment....

_Shakspeare_. My Lord thus far I know, that the first
glimpse and conception of a character in
my mind, is always engendered by chance
and accident. We shall suppose, for instance,
that I, sitting in a tap-room, or
standing in a tennis court. The behaviour
of some one fixes my attention.... Thus
comes forth Shallow, and Slender,
and Mercutio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

_Bacon_. These are characters who may be found alive
in the streets. But how frame you such
interlocutors as Brutus and Coriolanus?

_Shakspeare_. By searching histories, in the first place,
my Lord, for the germ. The filling up
afterwards comes rather from feeling than