Such a calmness of depth; placid
joyous strength; all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and
clear, as in a tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in the
constructing of Shakespeare's Dramas there is, apart from all other
"faculties" as they are called, an understanding manifested, equal to
that in Bacon's _Novum Organum_. That is true; and it is not a truth
that strikes every one. It would become more apparent if we tried, any
of us for himself, how, out of Shakespeare's dramatic materials, _we_
could fashion such a result! The built house seems all so fit,--everyway
as it should be, as if it came there by its own law and the nature of
things,--we forget the rude disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The
very perfection of the house, as if Nature herself had made it, hides
the builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any other man, we may
call Shakespeare in this: he discerns, knows as by instinct, what
condition he works under, what his materials are, what his own force and
its relation to them is.
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