in which
the spirit of the Cartwrights and the Latimers, the Barnhams and the
Delabers, is abroad. In the same Cambridge where Scot had been educated,
a young student had hanged himself because the shadow of the doctrine of
predestination was too terrible for him to live under;[2] and such a
place was surely no home for Puck and his merry band. But in the country
places, remote from the growl and trembling of this mental earthquake,
he still loved to lurk; and even at the very moment when Scot was
penning the denial of his existence, he was nestling amongst the woods
and flowers of Avonside, and, invisible, whispering in the ear of a
certain fair-haired youth there thoughts of no inconsiderable moment.
And long time after that--after the youth had become a man, and had
coined those thoughts into words that glitter still; after his monument
had been erected in the quiet Stratford churchyard--Puck revelled,
harmless and undisturbed, along many a country-side; nay, even to the
present day, in some old-world nooks, a faint whispering rumour of him
may still be heard.

[Footnote 1: Scot, Introduction.]

[Footnote 2: Foxe, iv. p. 694.]

116. Now, perhaps one of the most distinctive marks of literary genius
is a certain receptivity of mind; a capability of receiving impressions
from all surrounding circumstance--of extracting from all sources,
whether from nature or man, consciously or unconsciously, the material
upon which it shall work. For this process to be perfectly accomplished,
an entire and enthusiastic sympathy with man and the current ideas of
the time is absolutely essential, and in proportion as this sympathy is
contracted and partial, so will the work produced be stunted and untrue;
and, on the other hand, the more universal and entire it is, the more
perfect and vital will be the art. Bearing this in mind, and also the
facts that Shakspere's early training was effected in a little country
village; that upon the verge of manhood, he came to London, where he
spent his prime in contact with the bustle and friction of busy town
life; and that the later years of his life were passed in the quiet
retirement of the home of his boyhood--there would be good ground for an
argument, _a priori_, even were there none of a more conclusive nature,
that his earlier works would be found impregnated with the country
fairy-myths with which his youth would come in contact; that the result
of the labours of his middle life would