to our most
apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his
tripod,[636] and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique
documents extricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and
Collier; and now read one of those skyey sentences,--aerolites,--which
seem to have fallen out of heaven, and which, not your experience, but
the man within the breast, has accepted, as words of fate; and tell me
if they match; if the former account in any manner for the latter; or,
which gives the most historical insight into the man.

17. Hence, though our external history is so meager, yet, with
Shakspeare for biographer, instead of Aubrey[637] and Rowe,[638] we
have really the information which is material, that which describes
character and fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man
and deal with him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded
convictions on those questions which knock for answer at every
heart,--on life and death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the
prizes of life, and the ways whereby we come at them; on the
characters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which affect
their fortunes; and on those mysterious and demoniacal powers which
defy our science, and which yet interweave their malice and their gift
in our brightest hours. Who ever read the volume of the Sonnets,
without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are
no masks to the intelligent, the lore of friendship and of love; the
confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible, and, at the same
time, the most intellectual of men? What trait of his private mind has
he hidden in his dramas? One can discern, in his ample pictures of the
gentleman and the king, what forms and humanities pleased him; his
delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful
giving. Let Timon,[639] let Warwick,[640] let Antonio[641] the
merchant, answer for his great heart. So far from Shakspeare's being
the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history, known to
us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of
religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What
mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or
function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king
has he not taught state, as Talma[642] taught Napoleon? What maiden
has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not
out-loved? What sa