1S38-39. ORIGINALITY OF SHAKSPERE. 175 



even through the streets of London. It is this makes we wish 

 my friends to write to me, as I have no materials whence to 

 devise letters for them. I was lately visited by one of those 

 yearnings which I think must often visit London- detained 

 Scotchmen, an intense fancy for a walk by a babbling brook, 

 a bright conception of hills and rocks and trees, such as I have 

 somewhere seen long ago either in day dreams or night visions ; 

 but such thoughts I always have in the spring months, and I 

 believe I could as little gratify them in Edinburgh as here. . . . 

 Talking of poor folks, and thinking of the black man, and the 

 other black man, the sweep, 1 I think I can now sympathize with 

 a sweep's Sunday feelings. One of my prospects of the day is, 

 that I'll have my hands clean the whole of it. ... Eemember 

 me to all the poor people, and if you ever long for me, think 

 how soon you shall see your most affectionate son, 



" GEORGE." 



Extracts from home letters at this time give pleasant glimpses 

 in various directions. 



" You tell me in your last you have been reading Shakspere. 

 I am delighted to think you are so engaged. You cannot but 

 feel it to be a most divine work. When James spoke of non- 

 originality in Shakspere, if he referred to his ideas, his thoughts, 

 and imagery, he talked great nonsense ; if to the plots of his 

 plays, he stated a notorious and easily explicable truth. The 

 plays of Shakspere are not, I believe, in a single case original 

 in their plots, and purposely not. When Shakspere began 

 writing there were a great many subjects familiar to men as 

 having been dramatized, certain plots and characters and even 

 names being as familiar to the play-goers, and as much stock 

 pieces in their eyes, as ' Little Eed Eiding-Hood' or ' The Babes 

 in the Wood' are in the apprehension of the inmates of the 

 nursery. When Shakspere, therefore, wrote his plays, he pur- 

 posely took plots familiar to his audience, securing so far their 

 favour ; for it must ever be remembered, in thinking of Shak- 

 spere, that he was himself an actor, and wrote his plays as 



1 Acquaintances made in the Infirmary during his apprenticeship, and kept on as 

 pensioners. 



