PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 41 



selves on the swelling wave of Shakspeare's fame ; but it is a ques- 

 tion whether we are justified in thinking the more of ourselves be- 

 cause a highly favored child of nature and humanity happened to 

 be born at Stratford upon Avon. Though we may secretly joy in 

 the circumstance, it were better to regard our great dramatist as 

 a citizen of the intellectual world at large — the child of one all- 

 pervading Nature ; and, therefore, the pride of all nations. Genius 

 should not be shackled by nationality. Cabinet ministers and 

 statesmen may look to the exclusive glory of an individual king 

 and a single people ; but Shakspeare — as an unsophisticated pain- 

 ter of the heart's emotions — is the property, as he should be the 

 pride of the world. 



Before we enter upon our critical employment, let us ascend 

 the highest eminence of general observation, and take, as it were 

 a bird's-eye view or coup d'oeil of the immense and varied pros- 

 pect which the drama of Shakspeare affords. The first thing 

 which strikes ou r attention is the general prevalence of the most 

 marked contrasts : — green meads and granite rocks — " gorgeous 

 palaces" and beggars' huts — parterres industriously cultivated in 

 some parts, and in others distinguished by slovenly neglect — here 

 enriched with nature's most beautiful enamelling, and there dis- 

 figured by a dungheap — mountains, noble in their elevation and 

 fearful in their precipitousness, exhibiting, on their otherwise impo- 

 sing fronts, some common place trifle or artificial meanness — " so- 

 lemn temples" furnished with 'scutcheons of ludicrous device — 

 majestic rivers bearing on their progressive surface the toy ships 

 of children — and cascades, insulted in their downward course by 

 the interposition of tin cullenders ! — 



Nor are the contrasts of his excellencies, the one with the other 

 less remarkable in their juxta-positions, than his beauties and 

 meannesses. Let us cause to pass before our " mind's eye" in 

 unclassified review a line of his more distinguised characters. 

 Like the witches in Macbeth, let us fill our chauldron with the 

 varied ingredients, necessary to invoke the spirits of " Tragedy, 

 Comedy, History, Pastoral, Pastoral comical, Historical Pastoral, 

 scene individable, or poem unlimited" — the list which my hear- 

 ers will recognise as that of our old friend Polonius. The charm 

 being " wound up" let the vision appear : — 



First, behold the opposites of innocence and lasciviousness ; the 

 luxurious Cleopatra and the delicate Imogen — 



Next, the representatives of aristocratical and natural dignity ; 

 the pompous hero of Corioli, and the modest Harry of Agincourt : 

 VOL. IV. — 1834. F 



