namored princess: if Shakespeare falls
occasionally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble error,
originating in the fulness of a gigantic strength. And this tragical
Titan, who storms the heavens and threatens to tear the world off its
hinges, who, more terrible than AEschylus, makes our hair stand on end
and congeals our blood with horror, possessed at the same time the
insinuating loveliness of the sweetest poesy; he toys with love like a
child, and his songs die away on the ear like melting sighs. He unites
in his soul the utmost elevation and the utmost depth; and the most
opposite and even apparently irreconcilable properties subsist in him
peaceably together. The world of spirits and nature have laid all
their treasures at his feet: in strength a demi-god, in profundity of
view a prophet, in all-seeing wisdom a guardian spirit of a higher
order, he lowers himself to mortals as if unconscious of his
superiority, and is as open and unassuming as a child.

If the delineation of all his characters, separately considered,
is inimitably bold and correct, he surpasses even himself in so
combining and contrasting them that they serve to bring out one
anothers' peculiarities. This is the very perfection of dramatic
characterization: for we can never estimate a man's true worth if we
consider him altogether abstractedly by himself; we must see him in
his relations with others; and it is here that most dramatic poets are
deficient. Shakespeare makes each of his principal characters the
glass in which the others are reflected, and by like means enables us
to discover what could not be immediately revealed to us. What in
others is most profound, is with him but surface. Ill-advised should
we be were we always to take men's declarations respecting themselves
and others for sterling coin. Ambiguity of design with much propriety
he makes to overflow with the most praiseworthy principles; and sage
maxims are not infrequently put in the mouth of stupidity, to show how
easily such commonplace truisms may be acquired. Nobody ever painted
so truthfully as he has done the facility of self-deception, the half
self-conscious hypocrisy toward ourselves, with which even noble minds
attempt to disguise the almost inevitable influence of selfish motives
in human nature. This secret irony of the characterization commands
admiration as the profound abyss of acuteness and sagacity; but it is
the grave of enthusiasm. We arrive at it only afte