His Life and Genius 159 



were his reflections, which he never could have 

 made and placed so feelingly if he had not in 

 some moods known and knowingly felt what he 

 thus uttered. His, indeed, was the transcending 

 faculty of objectifying his moods and reflections 

 in scenes and characters and then calmly con- 

 templating these from outside. Let it be borne 

 in mind clearly and constantly that he had read 

 much — not multa sal iiiulliiiii, according to Pliny's 

 maxim — and profited much by reading such 

 authors as Seneca, Plutarch, Montaigne, Rabelais, 

 and perhaps " murderous Machiavel," taking heed 

 while thus pursuing his studies in philosophy not 

 to be so exclusively devoted to it as to abjure the 

 poets, especially his favourite Ovid, but advisedly 

 using music and poesy to quicken his feeling ; 

 and it will appear utterly unreasonable to suppose 

 that the sympathetic appreciation and large 

 assimilation of their philosophy which he made 

 could fail to involve an emancipation of mind 

 from the customary estimate of life and things 

 which gratifies the vulgar mind, and it glorifies. 

 Like his great philosophic teachers, he was able 

 to survey the course of human affairs in a spirit 

 of detachment — with something like the pene- 



* In the Taming of the Shrew, Act i., Scene i., Tranio advises 

 Lucentio, while studying philosophy, to be no stoic, 

 Or so devote to Aristotle's checks 

 As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured 



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Music and poetry use to quicken you. 



