For, as in this same "Rape of Lucrece,"
"the soul's fair temple is defaced;
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
To ask the spotted princess how she fares."
But when so many lines of delineation meet, and run into, and correct
one another, assuming such a natural and vital form, that there is no
_making of a point_ anywhere; and the woman is shown after no theory,
but according to the natural laws of human declension, we feel that the
only way to account for the perfection of the representation is to say
that, given a shadow, Shakspere had the power to place himself so, that
that shadow became his own--was the correct representation as shadow, of
his form coming between it and the sunlight. And this is the highest
dramatic gift that a man can possess. But we feel at the same time, that
this is, in the main, not so much art as inspiration. There would be, in
all probability, a great mingling of conscious art with the inspiration;
but the lines of the former being lost in the general glow of the
latter, we may be left where we were as to any certainty about the
artistic consciousness of Shakspere.
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