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as essential to its noblest form of manifestation ? Is the 

 spirit of Christian art, which lends to modern sculpture, 

 painting, and architecture, its distinction, if not its 

 supremacy, absent from the drama ? Is it true that the 

 loftiest faculties of the human mind applied to creative 

 labour weaken, as the form of expression is improved and 

 perfected ? Can it be that the pen of the poet is less 

 sacred than the pencil of the painter? Was Shakspere 

 in the utterance of the most sublime and sustained 

 morality, the purest and wisest sentiments, not less con- 

 strained by Apollo, than the Sibyl, "fingit premendo,^^ 

 and prompted by a not less exalted fervour and inspired 

 purpose. Were his utterances merely irregular, and his 

 complex and mighty monumental labours, alike defying 

 criticism and comparison, disjointed imaginings, or at best 

 the labourious efforts to please, of an affluent but prodigal 

 mind. Was his wisdom poured forth in libation without 

 controlling intention or even such purity of reaolve as is 

 claimed for any artist or architect whose work is to out- 

 live his generation. Is there not rather evidence of 

 sacrifice in various forms, which would imply a resolve 

 set much- above the exigencies of the moment, the love or 

 the desire for transitory success, or even the mere pursuit 

 of fame. And the question I now propose to discuss is 

 the affirmation of a principle of design regulating all the 

 poet's labours, and for the presence of such evident mo- 

 tives of construction as will pronounce the moral dignity 

 ruling and regulating the artistic propriety of all his 

 plays. For this, it is not necessary of course to claim for 

 them, influenced as their production was, by so many 

 circumstances, of time, opportunity, and place, the unity 

 of a single work ; nor claim for all, the distinction that may 

 attach but to a part ; but to inquire by some and by those 

 chiefly on which his reputation hangs, if a merely secular 

 motive is sufficient to account for their literary excellence 



