ned according to its
own laws.

In an essay on _Romeo and Juliet_,[24] written a number of years ago,
I went through the whole of the scenes in their order and demonstrated
the inward necessity of each with reference to the whole; I showed why
such a particular circle of characters and relations was placed around
the two lovers; I explained the signification of the mirth here and
there scattered, and justified the use of the occasional heightening
given to the poetical colors. From all this it seemed to follow
unquestionably that, with the exception of a few criticisms, now
become unintelligible or foreign to the present taste (imitations of
the tone of society of that day), nothing could be taken away, nothing
added, nothing otherwise arranged, without mutilating and disfiguring
the perfect work. I would readily undertake to do the same for all the
pieces of Shakespeare's maturer years, but to do this would require a
separate book. Here I am reduced to confine my observations to tracing
his great designs with a rapid pencil; but still I must previously be
allowed to deliver my sentiments in a general manner on the subject of
his most eminent peculiarities.

Shakespeare's knowledge of mankind has become proverbial: in this his
superiority is so great that he has justly been called the master of
the human heart. A readiness to remark the mind's fainter and
involuntary utterances, and the power to express with certainty the
meaning of these signs, as determined by experience and reflection,
constitute "the observer of men;" but tacitly to draw from these still
further conclusions and to arrange the separate observations according
to grounds of probability into a just and valid combination--this, it
may be said, is to know men. The distinguishing property of the
dramatic poet who is great in characterization, is something
altogether different here, and which, take it which way we will,
either includes in it this readiness and this acuteness, or dispenses
with both. It is the capability of transporting himself so completely
into every situation, even the most unusual, that he is enabled, as
plenipotentiary of the whole human race, without particular
instructions for each separate case, to act and speak in the name of
every individual. It is the power of endowing the creatures of his
imagination with such self-existent energy that they afterward act in
each conjuncture according to general laws of nature: the poet, in his