If this means that the poet is not to make money his
object, it means well: no man should. But if it means either that the
world is unkind, or that the poet is not to "gather up the fragments,
that nothing be lost," it means ill. Shakspere did not make haste to be
rich. He neither blamed, courted, nor neglected the world: he was
friendly with it. He _could_ not have pinched and scraped; but neither
did he waste or neglect his worldly substance, which is God's gift too.
Many immense fortunes have been made, not by absolute dishonesty, but in
ways to which a man of genius ought to be yet more ashamed than another
to condescend; but it does not therefore follow that if a man of genius
will do honest work he will not make a fair livelihood by it, which for
all good results of intellect and heart is better than a great fortune.
But then Shakspere began with doing what he could. He did not consent to
starve until the world should recognize his genius, or grumble against
the blindness of the nation in not seeing what it was impossible it
should see before it was fairly set forth. He began at once to supply
something which the world wanted; for it wants many an honest thing.
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