1 6 o Sh akspea re 



trating insight and philosophic intelligence of 

 Montaigne, the large and humorous survey of 

 Rabelais, the cool scientific analysis of Machia- 

 velli : nevertheless, a detachment which was 

 intellectual only, not at all personal ; as an ordi- 

 nary citizen he was nowise emancipated from the 

 common aims and ambitions of his fellows, being 

 as philistinely eager to gain wealth, have a good 

 house, and found a family, as ever Walter Scott 

 was to buy land, build a mansion, and be a laird 

 in Scotland. * 



(2) While it is proof of the rare quality of his 

 wit and genius that he was on terms of friendly 

 intimacy with persons so much above him in 

 social rank as the Earls of Pembroke and South- 

 ampton, he makes it plain that he had spells of 

 gloomy dejection ; when all alone bewailing his 

 situation in life and the impossibility of social 

 intercourse on equal level, he was tempted to 

 curse his fate — 



When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes 

 I all alone bewail my outcast state 

 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries 

 And look upon myself and curse my fate. 



The grief of it was, though, " undivided in 

 love," he and his friend were " divided in life," 



* Though one can hardly imagine him so jubilant to carry off 

 a glass out of which Queen Elizabeth had drunk — as a precious 

 memento — as Sir Walter triumphantly carried off a glass out of 

 which George IV. had drunk in Edinburgh, unluckily breaking 

 it on its way to Abbotsford, 



