rn, are to be found in
Shakespeare; yet he is always in measure here; never what Johnson would
remark as a specially "good hater." But his laughter seems to pour from
him in floods; he heaps all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the butt
he is bantering, tumbles and tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you
would say, with his whole heart laughs. And then, if not always the
finest, it is always a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery
or poverty; never. No man who _can_ laugh, what we call laughing, will
laugh at these things. It is some poor character only _desiring_ to
laugh, and have the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means
sympathy; good laughter is not "the crackling of thorns under the pot."
Even at stupidity and pretension this Shakespeare does not laugh
otherwise than genially. Dogberry and Verges tickle our very hearts; and
we dismiss them covered with explosions of laughter: but we like the
poor fellows only the better for our laughing; and hope they will get on
well there, and continue Presidents of the City-watch. Such laughter,
like sunshine on the deep sea, is very beautiful to me.

We have no room to speak of Shakespeare's individual works; though
perhaps there is much still waiting to be said on that head. Had we, for
instance, all his plays reviewed as _Hamlet_, in _Wilhelm Meister_, is!
A thing which might, one day, be done. August Wilhelm Schlegel has a
remark on his Historical Plays, _Henry Fifth_ and the others, which is
worth remembering. He calls them a kind of National Epic. Marlborough,
you recollect, said, he knew no English History but what he had learned
from Shakespeare. There are really, if we look to it, few as memorable
Histories. The great salient points are admirably seized; all rounds
itself off, into a kind of rhythmic coherence; it is, as Schlegel says,
_epic_;--as indeed all delineation by a great thinker will be. There are
right beautiful things in those Pieces, which indeed together form one
beautiful thing. That battle of Agincourt strikes me as one of the most
perfect things, in its sort, we anywhere have of Shakespeare's. The
description of the two hosts: the wornout, jaded English; the dread
hour, big with destiny, when the battle shall begin; and then that
deathless valour: "Ye good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England!"
There is a noble Patriotism in it--far other than the "indifference" you
sometimes hear ascribed to Shakespeare. A true English heart br