essays of
genius. It is not only with spectators of more fastidious taste and of
more idle and inattentive imagination that the poet would have to do
who should venture to follow in Shakespeare's footsteps. He would be
called upon to give movement to personages embarrassed in much more
complicated interests, preoccupied with much more various feelings,
and subject to less simple habits of mind and to less decided
tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the scruples of
conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought frequently encumber
Shakespeare's heroes; doubt is of little use among them, and the
violence of their passions speedily transfers their belief to the side
of the desires, or sets their actions above their belief. Hamlet alone
presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by the enlightenment
of society in conflict with a position contrary to its laws; and he
needs a supernatural apparition to determine him to act, and a
fortuitous event to accomplish his project. If incessantly placed in
an analogous position, the personages of a tragedy conceived at the
present day according to the romantic system would offer us the same
picture of indecision. Ideas now crowd and intersect each other in the
mind of man, duties multiply in his conscience and obstacles and bonds
around his life. Instead of those electric brains, prompt to
communicate the spark which they have received; instead of those
ardent and simple-minded men, whose projects like Macbeth's "will to
hand"--the world now presents to the poet minds like Hamlet's, deep in
the observation of those inward conflicts which our classical system
has derived from a state of society more advanced than that of the
time in which Shakespeare lived. So many feelings, interests, and
ideas, the necessary consequences of modern civilization, might become
even in their simplest form of expression a troublesome burden, which
it would be difficult to carry through the rapid evolutions and bold
advances of the romantic system.

We must, however, satisfy every demand; success itself requires it.
The reason must be contented at the same time that the imagination is
occupied. The progress of taste, of enlightenment, of society, and of
mankind, must serve not to diminish or disturb our enjoyment, but to
render them worthy of ourselves and capable of supplying the new wants
which we have contracted. Advance without rule and art in the romantic
system, and you will produc