ll not
blame Dante for his misery: it is as battle without victory; but true
battle,--the first, indispensable thing. Yet I call Shakespeare
greater than Dante, in that he fought truly, and did conquer. Doubt it
not, he had his own sorrows: those _Sonnets_ of his will even testify
expressly in what deep waters he had waded, and swum struggling for
his life;--as what man like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to
me a heedless notion, our common one, that he sat like a bird on the
bough; and sang forth, free and offhand, never knowing the troubles of
other men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a man travel
forward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not
fall in with sorrows by the way? Or, still better, how could a man
delineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a Macbeth, so many suffering heroic
hearts, if his own heroic heart had never suffered?--And now, in
contrast with all this, observe his mirthfulness, his genuine
overflowing love of laughter! You would say, in no point does he
_exaggerate_ but only in laughter. Fiery objurgations, words that
pierce and burn, are to be found in Shakespeare; yet he is always in
measure here; never what Johnson would remark as a specially 'good
hater'. But his laughter seems to pour from him in floods; he heaps
all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the butt he is bantering,
tumbles and tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you would say,
roars and laughs. And then, if not always the finest, it is always a
genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty; never. No
man who _can_ laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at these
things. It is some poor character only _desiring_ to laugh, and have
the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy; good
laughter is not 'the crackling of thorns under the pot'. Even at
stupidity and pretension this Shakespeare does not laugh otherwise
than genially. Dogberry and Verges tickle our very hearts; and we
dismiss them covered with explosions of laughter: but we like the poor
fellows only the better for our laughing; and hope they will get on
well there, and continue Presidents of the City-watch.--Such laughter,
like sunshine on the deep sea, is very beautiful to me.

* * * * *

We have no room to speak of Shakespeare's individual works; though
perhaps there is much still waiting to be said on that head. Had we,
for instance, all his plays reviewed as _Hamlet_, in _Wilhelm