When Shakspere was about thirty-two, Sir Walter Raleigh published his
glowing account of Guiana, which instantly provided the English mind
with an earthly paradise or fairy-land. Raleigh himself seems to have
been too full of his own reports for us to be able to suppose that he
either invented or disbelieved them; especially when he represents the
heavenly country to which, in expectation of his execution, he is
looking forward, after the fashion of those regions of the wonderful
West:--
"Then the blessed Paths wee'l travel,
Strow'd with Rubies thick as gravel;
Sealings of Diamonds, Saphire floors,
High walls of Coral, and Pearly Bowers."
Such were some of the influences which widened the region of thought,
and excited the productive power, in the minds of the time. After this
period there were fewer of such in Shakspere's life; and if there had
been more of them they would have been of less import as to their
operation on a mind more fully formed and more capable of choosing its
own influences. Let us now give a backward glance at the history of the
art which Shakspere chose as the means of easing his own mind of that
wealth which, like the gold and the silver, has a moth and rust of its
own, except it be kept in use by being sent out for the good of our
neighbours.
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