ction
which they contain, there remains still something unresolved,--something
which the artist gives, and which the philosopher cannot give.

It is in this characteristic that we are accustomed to say Shakespeare's
supreme _truth_ lies. He represents real life. His drama teaches as life
teaches,--neither less nor more. He builds his fabrics, as Nature does,
on right and wrong; but he does not struggle to make Nature more
systematic than she is. In the subtle interflow of good and evil; in the
unmerited sufferings of innocence; in the disproportion of penalties to
desert; in the seeming blindness with which justice, in attempting to
assert itself, overwhelms innocent and guilty in a common
ruin,--Shakespeare is true to real experience. The mystery of
life he leaves as he finds it; and, in his most tremendous
positions, he is addressing rather the intellectual emotions than the
understanding,--knowing well that the understanding in such things is at
fault, and the sage as ignorant as the child.

Only the highest order of genius can represent Nature thus. An inferior
artist produces either something entirely immoral, where good and evil
are names, and nobility of disposition is supposed to show itself in the
absolute disregard of them, or else, if he is a better kind of man, he
will force on Nature a didactic purpose; he composes what are called
moral tales, which may edify the conscience, but only mislead the
intellect.

The finest work of this kind produced in modern times is Lessing's play
of "Nathan the Wise." The object of it is to teach religious toleration.
The doctrine is admirable, the mode in which it is enforced is
interesting; but it has the fatal fault that it is not true. Nature does
not teach religious toleration by any such direct method; and the result
is--no one knew it better than Lessing himself--that the play is not
poetry, but only splendid manufacture. Shakespeare is eternal; Lessing's
"Nathan" will pass away with the mode of thought which gave it birth.
One is based on fact; the other, on human theory about fact. The theory
seems at first sight to contain the most immediate instruction; but it
is not really so.

Cibber and others, as you know, wanted to alter Shakespeare. The French
king, in "Lear," was to be got rid of; Cordelia was to marry Edgar, and
Lear himself was to be rewarded for his sufferings by a golden old age.
They could not bear that Hamlet should suffer for the sins of Claudius.