Perhaps not the least valuable end to be so gained is, that the
young Englishman, who wants to be delivered from any temptation to think
himself the centre around which the universe revolves, will be aided in
his endeavours after honourable humility by looking up to the man who
towers, like Saul, head and shoulders above his brethren, and seeing
that he is humble, may learn to leave it to the pismire to be angry, to
the earwig to be conceited, and to the spider to insist on his own
importance.
But to return to the main course of our observations. The dramas of
Shakspere are so natural, that this, the greatest praise that can be
given them, is the ground of one of the difficulties felt by the young
student in estimating them. The very simplicity of Shakspere's art seems
to throw him out of any known groove of judgment. When he hears one say,
"_Look at this, and admire_," he feels inclined to rejoin, "Why, he only
says in the simplest way what the thing must have been. It is as plain
as daylight." Yes, to the reader; and because Shakspere wrote it. But
there were a thousand wrong ways of doing it: Shakspere took the one
right way.
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