thinkers found it equal, apparently, to all their thoughts and powers.  They were all, though each in a different sort, its masters, not its slaves.  They used it, but they did not make it.  And the thought which they found it capable of expressing must have pre-existed in some form, else the language could not have stood ready, as it did, for their use.  The truth seems to be that, for reasons which we cannot fathom, and in ways past our finding out, the time had now come, the mental life of the nation was fully grown to a head, so as to express itself in several forms at the same time; and Shakespeare, wise, true, and mighty beyond his thought, became its organ of dramatic utterance; which utterance remains, and will remain, a treasury of everlasting sweetness and refreshment to mankind.

SHAKESPEARE’S ART

* * * * *

NATURE AND USE OF ART.

“Tranquillity! the sovereign aim wert thou In heathen schools of philosophic lore; Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore, The Tragic Muse thee serv’d with thoughtful vow; And what of hope Elysium could allow Was fondly seiz’d by Sculpture, to restore Peace to the Mourner.  But when He who wore The crown of thorns around His bleeding brow Warm’d our sad being with celestial light, Then Arts which still had drawn a softening grace From shadowy fountains of the Infinite, Commun’d with that Idea face to face; And move around it now as planets run, Each in its orbit round the central Sun.”—­WORDSWORTH.

Art is in its proper character the solidest and sincerest expression of human thought and feeling.  To be much within and little without, to do all for truth, nothing for show, and to express the largest possible meaning with the least possible stress of expression,—­this is its first law.

Thus artistic virtue runs down into one and the same root with moral righteousness.  Both must first of all be genuine and sincere, richer and better at the heart than on the surface; as always having it for their leading aim to recommend themselves to the perfect Judge; that is, they must seek the praise of God rather than of men:  for, indeed, whatsoever studies chiefly to please men will not please them long, but will soon be openly or secretly repudiated by them; whereas, “when a man’s ways are pleasing unto the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

Such is the right form, such the normal process, of what may be called intellectual and artistic righteousness.  A soul of perfect veracity lies at the bottom of the thing, and is the source and the life of all that is good and beautiful in it.  And the work, like Nature herself, does not strike excitingly, but “melts into the heart”; it therefore wears well, and don’t wear out.  Every thing is done “in simple and pure soul,” and without any thought, on the doer’s part, of the figure he is making;