et,[615] that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondering
readers. Now, literature, philosophy, and thought, are Shakspearized.
His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our
ears are educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge[616] and
Goethe[617] are the only critics who have expressed our convictions
with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a
silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like
Christianity, qualifies the period.

[Transcriber's Note: Number runs from 12 to 14. Number 13 omitted]

14. The Shakspeare Society have inquired in all directions,
advertised the missing facts, offered money for any information that
will lead to proof; and with what result? Beside some important
illustration of the history of the English stage, to which I have
adverted, they have gleaned a few facts touching the property, and
dealings in regard to property, of the poet. It appears that, from
year to year, he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars'
Theater:[618] its wardrobe and other appurtenances were his: and he
bought an estate in his native village, with his earnings, as writer
and shareholder; that he lived in the best house in Stratford;[619]
was intrusted by his neighbors with their commissions in London, as of
borrowing money, and the like; and he was a veritable farmer. About
the time when he was writing Macbeth,[620] he sues Philip Rogers, in
the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-five shillings, ten pence,
for corn delivered to him at different times; and, in all respects,
appears as a good husband with no reputation for eccentricity or
excess. He was a good-natured sort of man, an actor and shareholder in
the theater, not in any striking manner distinguished from other
actors and managers. I admit the importance of this information. It is
well worth the pains that have been taken to procure it.

15. But whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these
researches may have rescued, they can shed no light upon that infinite
invention which is the concealed magnet of his attraction for us. We
are very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle of
parentage, birth, birth-place, schooling, schoolmates, earning of
money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death; and when we
have come to an end of this gossip no ray of relation appears between
it and the goddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random
into the "Mo