ur, in depth of passion, in fertility
of fancy, and in soundness of judgment, he has no rival. It is true of
him, as of no other writer, that his language and versification adapt
themselves to every phase of sentiment, and sound every note in the scale
of felicity. Some defects are to be acknowledged, but they sink into
insignificance when measured by the magnitude of his achievement. Sudden
transitions, elliptical expressions, mixed metaphors, indefensible verbal
quibbles, and fantastic conceits at times create an atmosphere of
obscurity. The student is perplexed, too, by obsolete words and by some
hopelessly corrupt readings. But when the whole of Shakespeare's vast
work is scrutinised with due attention, the glow of his magination is
seen to leave few passages wholly unillumined. Some of his plots are
hastily constructed and inconsistently developed, but the intensity of
the interest with which he contrives to invest the personality of his
heroes and heroines triumphs over halting or digressive treatment of the
story in which they have their being. Although he was versed in the
technicalities of stagecraft, he occasionally disregarded its elementary
conditions. But the success of his presentments of human life and
character depended little on his manipulation of theatrical machinery.
His unassailable supremacy springs from the versatile working of his
insight and intellect, by virtue of which his pen limned with unerring
precision almost every gradation of thought and emotion that animates the
living stage of the world.

Character of Shakespeare's achievement.

Shakespeare's mind, as Hazlitt suggested, contained within itself the
germs of all faculty and feeling. He knew intuitively how every faculty
and feeling would develop in any conceivable change of fortune. Men and
women--good or bad, old or young, wise or foolish, merry or sad, rich or
poor--yielded their secrets to him, and his genius enabled him to give
being in his pages to all the shapes of humanity that present themselves
on the highway of life. Each of his characters gives voice to thought or
passion with an individuality and a naturalness that rouse in the
intelligent playgoer and reader the illusion that they are overhearing
men and women speak unpremeditatingly among themselves, rather than that
they are reading written speeches or hearing written speeches recited.
The more closely the words are studied, the completer the illusion gro