the
midst of the brilliant England which gathered round Elizabeth, busying
himself as yet for the most part with the surface of it, with the
humours and quixotisms, the wit and the whim, the unreality, the
fantastic extravagance, which veiled its inner nobleness. Country-lad as
he is, Shakspere shows himself master of it all; he can patter euphuism
and exchange quip and repartee with the best; he is at home in their
pedantries and affectations, their brag and their rhetoric, their
passion for the fantastic and the marvellous. He can laugh as heartily
at the romantic vagaries of the courtly world in which he finds himself
as at the narrow dulness, the pompous triflings, of the country world
which he has left behind him. But he laughs frankly and without malice;
he sees the real grandeur of soul which underlies all this quixotry and
word-play; and owns with a smile that when brought face to face with
the facts of human life, with the suffering of man or the danger of
England, these fops have in them the stuff of heroes. He shares the
delight in existence, the pleasure in sheer living, which was so marked
a feature of the age; he enjoys the mistakes, the contrasts, the
adventures, of the men about him; his fun breaks almost riotously out in
the practical jokes of the "Taming of the Shrew" and the endless
blunderings of the "Comedy of Errors." In these earlier efforts his work
had been marked by little poetic elevation, or by passion. But the easy
grace of the dialogue, the dexterous management of a complicated story,
the genial gaiety of his tone, and the music of his verse promised a
master of social comedy as soon as Shakspere turned from the superficial
aspects of the world about him to find a new delight in the character
and actions of men. The interest of human character was still fresh and
vivid; the sense of individuality drew a charm from its novelty; and
poet and essayist were busy alike in sketching the "humours" of mankind.
Shakspere sketched with his fellows. In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona"
his painting of manners was suffused by a tenderness and ideal beauty
which formed an effective protest against the hard though vigorous
character-painting which the first success of Ben Jonson in "Every Man
in his Humour" brought at the time into fashion. But quick on these
lighter comedies followed two in which his genius started fully into
life. His poetic power, held in reserve till now, showed itself with a
splendid pr