It would be the one true and natural mode of
perpetuating his fame in kind; helping him to do more of that for which
he was born, and because of which we humbly desire to do him honour, as
the years flow farther away from the time when, at the age of fifty-two,
he left the world a richer legacy of the results of intellectual labour
than any other labourer in literature has ever done. It would be to
raise a monument to his mind more than to his person.
But to honour Shakspere in the best way we must not gaze upon some grand
memorial of his fame, we must not talk largely of his wonderful doings,
we must not even behold the representation of his works on the stage,
invaluable aid as that is to the right understanding of what he has
written; but we must, by close, silent, patient study, enter into an
understanding with the spirit of the departed poet-sage, and thus let
his own words be the necromantic spell that raises the dead, and brings
us into communion with that man who knew what was in men more than any
other mere man ever did. Well was it for Shakspere that he was humble;
else on what a desolate pinnacle of companionless solitude must he have
stood! Where was he to find his peers? To most thoughtful minds it is a
terrible fancy to suppose that there were no greater human being than
themselves.
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