consideration be extended as far as it reasonably may, will appear
sufficient to mislead and depress the greatest genius upon earth.
Nay, the more modesty with which such a one is endued, the more he is
in danger of submitting and conforming to others against his own
better judgment."

On the other hand, as the intellectual destiny of Shakspeare was to be the
greatest of dramatists, the trade of a player had its advantages. He
learned absolutely what a stage is, what actors can do, and what audiences
are. Charles Lamb feebly maintained, that Shakspeare's Plays are unfitted
for acting, by being above it. They are above reading too; at least, they
are above most--why not say the truth at once--above all readers of them.
Yet it would be a pity to leave them unread. They are the best fitted of
all plays for acting; for of all plays they best possess the stage, and
command the audience. In thus extolling the essential poetry of
Shakspeare, he condemns his practical understanding, his art. He
oversteps, too, the inabilities of the histrionic art. The inabilities of
the histrions themselves, is another matter. The difficulty of
understanding Shakspeare, must not be turned into the impossibility of
representing him when understood. The power, art, science, capacity, what
you will, with which he has fitted his works to their immediate use, shows
itself remarkably in this, that as the stage grows in its material means,
the play comes out in power, splendour, majesty, magnificence, as if the
stage but grew to the dimensions of that which it must contain; and it
must have been hundreds of times felt in the green-room, that only the
Plays of Shakspeare try, and form actor and actress, foster and rear them
to the height of their possible stature.

"But as to his _want of learning_, it may be necessary to say
something more: there is certainly a vast difference between
_learning_ and _languages_. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I
cannot determine; but it is plain he had much reading at least, if
they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man
has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or another.
Nothing is more evident than that he had a taste of natural
philosophy, mechanics, ancient and modern history, poetical learning,
and mythology: we find him very knowing in the customs, rights, and
manners of antiquity. In _Coriolanus