common reader is unused.  As to the first kind of obscurity, the words serving only as hieroglyphics to denote a once existing state of mind in the poet, but not logically inferring what that state was, the reader can only guess for himself by the context, whether he ever has or not experienced in himself a corresponding feeling; and, therefore, undoubtedly this is an obscurity which strict criticism cannot but condemn.  But, if an author be obscure, merely because this or that reader is unaccustomed to the mode or direction of thinking in which such author’s genius makes him take delight—­such a writer must indeed bear the consequence as to immediate popularity; but he cannot help the consequence, and if he be worth anything for posterity, he will disregard it.  In this sense almost every great writer, whose natural bent has been to turn the mind upon itself, is—­must be—­obscure; for no writer, with such a direction of intellect, will be great, unless he is individual and original; and if he is individual and original, then he must, in most cases, himself make the readers who shall be competent to sympathize with him.

The English flatter themselves by a pretence that Shakespeare and Milton are popular in England.  It is good taste, indeed, to wish to have it believed that those poets are popular.  Their names are so; but if it be said that the works of Shakespeare and Milton are popular—­that is, liked and studied—­amongst the wide circle whom it is now the fashion to talk of as enlightened, we are obliged to express our doubts whether a grosser delusion was ever promulgated.  Not a play of Shakespeare’s can be ventured on the London stage without mutilation—­and without the most revolting balderdash foisted into the rents made by managers in his divine dramas; nay, it is only some three or four of his pieces that can be borne at all by our all-intelligent public, unless the burthen be lightened by dancing, singing, or processioning.  This for the stage.  But is it otherwise with “the reading public”?  We believe it is worse; we think, verily, that the apprentice or his master who sits out Othello or Richard at the theatres, does get a sort of glimpse, a touch, an atmosphere of intellectual grandeur; but he could not keep himself awake during the perusal of that which he admires—­or fancies he admires—­in scenic representation.  As to understanding Shakespeare—­as to entering into all Shakespeare’s thoughts and feelings—­as to seeing the idea of Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, as Shakespeare saw it—­this we believe falls, and can only fall, to the lot of the really cultivated few, and of those who may have so much of the temperament of genius in themselves, as to comprehend and sympathize with the criticism of men of genius.  Shakespeare is now popular by name, because, in the first place, great men, more on a level with the rest of mankind, have said that he is admirable, and also because, in the absolute universality of his genius, he has presented points to all.  Every man, woman, and child, may pick at least one flower from his garden, the name and scent of which are familiar.  To all which must of course be added, the effect of theatrical representation, be that representation what it may.  There are tens of thousands of persons in this country whose only acquaintance with Shakespeare, such as it is, is through the stage.