85 



in the poet, which could not have existed, or of which 

 there is no proof. It has proceeded in one degraded 

 instance further than this, but it need not be noticed. 

 But it ignores the existence or even the possibiHty of 

 existence of a moral design on the part of the poet. It 

 is oblivious of the earnestness, the superior philosophic 

 consistency and the uniformly elevated tone of thought 

 of all the later and revised plays. It hands down the 

 puritanic tradition intact, which associated Shakspere's 

 name, because accident made him a player, with the 

 vices and melancholy delusion of the foot-lights, and of a 

 play-house — once abandoned to the court favour of 

 Charles II. and the obscenities of Ford and of Congreve, 

 Suckling, Wycherley, and Kotzebue. 



From the altitude of German criticism, the step is a wide 

 one. It is to pass from a landscape of pleasant sun, and 

 sea, and sky, to a bleak and barren waste ; the heavens 

 no longer open overhead, into fathomless yet inviting 

 depths ; the music is hushed, the pleasant verdure is 

 withered ; all is scorched, arid, desolate, for the landscape 

 is shut in by the miserable limit of the critic's self-suffi- 

 ciency. There is no hope and no faith. To prove this 

 we have only to take in special proof an instance of each. 

 On the one side Ulrici, on the other an article in 

 the Edinlurgh. Review, No. 90. The last, not so much 

 from any literary merit, either of style or originality ; 

 but because it assumes to represent, and no doubt does 

 represent, the opinion of many Englishmen, if not the 

 general opinion in circulation in society. Ulrici claims 

 for the poet the most refined motives of artistic 

 authorship, not merely by assumption, but as deduced 

 from the labours themselves. The author of the Review 

 reiterates the assertion that Shakspere was a manager, 

 no less than an actor; and that consequently his 

 highest mission and effort were to fill his theatre. In 



