1 54 Shakspcare 



right to its characteristic distinction as a man has. 

 to his name or his face. It is another thing when 

 the special fashion is not the spontaneous well- 

 proportioned expression of native genius, its. 

 inevitable and inimitable outcome, but the writh- 

 ing disproportioned antic of one who, in order to 

 make distinction, on purpose strives to put him- 

 self into the trick of singularity.* An ugly not a 

 pleasing spectacle of human vanity it is that he 

 makes who weakly pretends to personal merit in 

 mental any more than in bodily height, and a 

 pitiful display of over-tender self-love when he 

 vexes himself to trumpet the merits which he is. 

 vexed that others do not see or will not acknow- 

 ledge. Shakspeare showed no such silly conceit 

 either In his demeanour, which was uniformly 

 simple and modest, or in his supremacy as a poet, 

 which he minded so little as to have seemed 

 indifferent to it. To all appearance he was more 

 seriously interested in the purchase of land at 

 Stratford than in the fate of his dramas, and more 

 ambitious to enjoy a position of dignity and con- 

 sideration in his native town when he retired 

 from the stage of the theatre than to live in the 

 eyes of all posterity on the world's stage. The 

 one was at all events a present positive joy, the 

 other at best only a joy of expectation ; and he 

 was far too practical-minded a person to forego 



* "Put thyself into the trick of singularity" — the advice 

 given to Malvolio in the forged letter which betrayed him to. 

 become the subject of such excellent fooling. 



