His Life and Genius 143 



widely receptive mind, transformed by its plastic 

 genius, and skilfully used by his practical know- 

 ledge of stagecraft, his plays incorporate the con- 

 densed wisdom of the greatest moralists and the 

 best dramatic skill of his literary predecessors 

 essentially assimilated and freely used. " Myriad- 

 minded," as Coleridge styled him, he was, because 

 his capacious mind was able to absorb and express 

 the essences of myriad minds. Impersonal, too, he 

 seems in his dramas, just because no formal train- 

 ing, no conventional taste nor distaste, no exclusive 

 sympathies, no subjective hues of personal feeling, 

 interfered with the full and impartial exercise of 

 his calm and close observation, his large assimi- 

 lative capacity, his detached reflection, and the 

 wondrous excellence of his objective presentation 

 of men and things, his own varying moods in- 

 cluded. Despite the French proverb, it might be 

 said of him that at the same moment he joined 

 in the procession and watched it from a window. 



Think on the good luck it was for him not to 

 have received a complete classical education. Had 

 he been painfully trained after traditional rules the 

 freshness and originality of his genius might well 

 have been hurt or quite ruled out of existence, 

 his thoughts forced into beaten tracks, his utter- 

 ance tied to conventions of expression ; such sys- 

 tem of education, instead of educing his native 

 powers, being suited rather to check, if not sup- 

 press, their throes of growth and mould him to 

 the common type of the average citizen. 



