His Life and Genius 125 



achievement of a more wonderful being it would 

 be, were any one to obtain a real knowledge of 

 human nature and think or write profitably about 

 it by living apart from it, not acting on it nor 

 acted on by it. Not observing only, but ever 

 deeply reflecting on the many and diverse rela- 

 tions, subtile as well as obvious, wide-reaching as 

 well as near, of that which he observed, he 

 reflected facts and their relations in just ideal 

 presentations through his rare and rich nature. * 

 His art itself was Nature, for nature made that 

 art ; so much so that it sounds strange, almost 

 derogatory, to call him artist ; it was nature work- 

 ing through him a living part and organ of it, 

 not the forced labour and poor produce of the 

 conventional poetic market. Therefore it is that 

 he transports his reader out of himself to feel and 

 think with his characters, allowing no time nor 



* The would-be poet, before poetizing, might perhaps do 

 worse than betake himself to a serious study of Shakspeare's 

 works, in order to note the number and variety of the facts, 

 small and great, observed and noted by him — it would almost 

 seem that there was nothing which he did not observe — and 

 made good use of, descriptive, illustrative, and in prodigal 

 similes; he could not then fail to learn : (i) How much he 

 himself had not observed which he might easily have observed ; 

 (2) how little he had reflected on the universal relations of 

 every single fact which he did observe — whole nature com- 

 prehended in each small circle of it; (3) how poorly qualified 

 without such large observation of facts and rich reflections on 

 them he must needs be to write poetry possessing Shakspearian 

 substance and vitality. 



