everything does co-operate with all; not a
leaf rotting on the highway but is indissoluble portion of solar and
stellar systems; no thought, word or act of man but has sprung withal
out of all men, and works sooner or later, recognisably or
irrecognisably, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation of sap and
influences, mutual communication of every minutest leaf with the lowest
talon of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion of the
whole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the Kingdoms of
Hela and Death, and whose boughs overspread the highest Heaven!

In some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan Era with its
Shakespeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded it,
is itself attributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The
Christian Faith, which was the theme of Dante's Song, had produced this
Practical Life which Shakespeare was to sing. For Religion then, as it
now and always is, was the soul of Practice; the primary vital fact in
men's life. And remark here, as rather curious, that Middle-Age
Catholicism was abolished, so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish
it, before Shakespeare, the noblest product of it, made his appearance.
He did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature at her own time, with
Catholicism or what else might be necessary, sent him forth; taking
small thought of Acts of Parliament. King-Henrys, Queen-Elizabeths go
their way; and Nature too goes hers. Acts of Parliament, on the whole,
are small, notwithstanding the noise they make. What Act of Parliament,
debate at St. Stephen's,[82] on the hustings or elsewhere, was it that
brought this Shakespeare into being? No dining at Freemasons' Tavern,
opening subscription-lists, selling of shares, and infinite other
jangling and true or false endeavouring! This Elizabethan Era, and all
its nobleness and blessedness, came without proclamation, preparation of
ours. Priceless Shakespeare was the free gift of Nature; given
altogether silently; received altogether silently, as if it had been a
thing of little account. And yet, very literally, it is a priceless
thing. One should look at that side of matters too.

Of this Shakespeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a
little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the
best judgment not of this country only: but of Europe at large, is
slowly pointing to the conclusion, That Shakespeare is the chief of all
Poets h