s of him as
"being indeed honest, and of an open and free nature." I do not now
recall any other authentic testimonials to his moral character; and,
considering how little is known of his life, it is rather surprising
that we should have so much in evidence of his virtues as a man. But
it is with what he taught; not what he practised, that we are here
mainly concerned: with the latter indeed we have properly nothing to
do, save as it may have influenced the former: it is enough for our
purpose that he saw and spoke the right, whether he acted it or not.
For, whatever his faults and infirmities and shortcomings as a man, it
is certain that they did not infect his genius or taint his mind, so
as to work it into any deflection from the straight and high path of
moral and intellectual righteousness.

I have said that Shakespeare does not put his personal views,
sentiments, and preferences, in a word, his individuality, into his
characters. These stand, morally, on their own bottom; he is but the
describer of them, and so is not answerable for what they do: he holds
the mirror up to them, or rather to nature in them; they do not hold
it up to him: we see them in what he says, but not him in what they
say. And, of course, as we may not impute to him, morally, their
vices, so neither have we any right to credit him, morally, with their
virtues. All this, speaking generally, is true; and it implies just
the highest praise that can possibly be accorded to any man as a
dramatic poet. But, true as it is generally, there is nevertheless
enough of exception to build a strong argument upon as to his moral
principles, or as to his theory of what is morally good and noble in
human character.

I have already mentioned Henry the Fifth as the one of his characters
into whom the Poet throws something of his own moral soul. He delivers
him both as Prince Hal and as King in such a way, that we cannot but
feel he has a most warm and hearty personal admiration of the man;
nay, he even discovers an intense moral enthusiasm about him: in the
Choruses, where he ungirds his individual loves from the strict law of
dramatic self-aloofness, and lets in a stream from his own full heart,
he calls him "the mirror of all Christian kings," and ascribes to him
such qualities, and in such a way, as show unequivocally his own
cherished ideal of manhood, and in what course the current of his
personal approval ran. Here, then, we have a trustworthy exhibit o