in that, as he had
the gift, so he surrendered himself to the high task, of reproducing
in artistic immortality the beatings of old England's mighty heart. He
therefore did not go, nor needed he, to books to learn what others had
done: he just sucked in without stint, and to the full measure of his
angelic capacity, the wisdom and the poetry that lived on the lips,
and in the thoughts, feelings, sentiments, and manners of the people.
What he thus sucked in, he purged from its drossy mixtures,
replenished with fresh vitality, and gave it back clothed in the grace and
strength of his own clear spirit. He told the nation better--O how
much better!--than any other could, just what it wanted to hear,--the
very things which its heart was swelling with; only it found not
elsewhere a tongue to voice them, nor an imagination to body them
forth.[11]

[11] The times, far from being a hindrance to a great poet,
were, indeed, from fortunate local and national conditions, the
most propitious that modern times could offer. In a few points
they might be prejudicial to Shakespeare's poetry, but on the
whole he had cause to bless his happy star. The conflict with
scholastic philosophy and religious fanaticism was not indeed
over; yet Shakespeare came at a precious moment of mental
freedom, _after_ the struggle with Popery, and _before_ that
with the Puritans. He could thus in his poetry give to the age
the basis of a natural mode of feeling, thought, and life, upon
which Art prospers in its purest form. In many respects the age
itself was in this favourable to the Poet. It maintained a happy
medium between crudeness and a vitiated taste: life was not
insipid and colourless, as it is nowadays: men still ventured to
appear what they were; there was still poetry in reality. Our
German poets, in an age of rouge and powder, of hoops and wigs,
of stiff manners, rigid proprieties, narrow society, and cold
impulses, had indescribable trouble in struggling out of this
dulness and deformity, which they had first to conquer in
themselves before they could discern and approve what was
better. In Shakespeare's time, nature was still alive: the age
was just halting on the threshold of these distorted views of
false civilization; and if our Poet had to combat against the
first approaches of the disease, he was yet sound and free from
it himself. He ha