isclosure of a phase of the inner life in
the Sonnets; what they seem to convey is a passion delicate and profound,
striving to sublimate and satisfy itself, but baffled by unworthiness in
the object, and perhaps by some unworthiness in the lover. More distinct
is the outward closing scene; the retirement to the native country town,
the modest prosperity, the business-like making of the will. Prosaic
enough it sounds, yet in substance it has this significance, that this
great genius and passionate soul bore himself among the materialities,
where so many make shipwreck, with a practical sense and steadiness which
brought him to the haven at least of a comfortable and honorable age. So
much Shakspere certainly had in himself,--this homely yet vital
self-command. With this is to be taken that he had also that
intellectual mastery of himself of which the highest proof is the
creation of great works of art. Self-control, prudential and
intellectual, was one element of Shakspere, one secret of his sanity and
strength.

One loves to see in "The Tempest" the crowning utterance of his maturity.
How wise, how noble it is, and the wisdom and nobility set forth in what
exquisite play of fancy and wealth of humor! As in Hamlet we seem to see
Shakspere in his mid-life storm and stress, so in Prospero we think we
recognize the ideal of his ripeness. There is the wise man torn from
books and reverie, and rudely thrust upon treachery and the stormy sea;
there is control gained over airy powers and ethereal beauties; struggle
with bestial evil; forgiveness of the wrong-doer; happiness in the
happiness of his child, and willing surrender of her to her lover; the
admonition that love perfect itself by the mastery of passion. So wise,
so beneficent, so lofty is Shakspere's latest creation. A shadow flits
across, in the thought of mortal transiency:--

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep."

Yet instantly Prospero marks this as the utterance of a disturbed moment:
"Bear with my weakness, my old brain is troubled;" the coming encounter
with Caliban has shaken him. Most Shaksperean, too, is this: alternating
impulses of trust and doubt; now a sense of being led "by Providence
divine;" an instinct of a "divinity that shapes our ends;" and again, the
mood that sees beyond the present scene only blankness and the end.

Those elements which in Shakspere are absent or dim,