Page:Studies of a Biographer 4.djvu/24

 or James I. in The Fortunes of Nigel, he shows a power of insight, of making wicked and weak men intelligible and human, which reminds us of Shakespeare's methods. He hated Covenanters like a good Jacobite, and yet he can describe them kindly and sympathetically. But then he has sympathies which he cannot conceal. His love of the manly, healthy type represented in the Dandie Dinmonts and their like reveals the man, and, without reading Lockhart, we can see that, unlike Shakespeare, he is clearly identifying himself with some of his characters.

My inference then would be, not that Shakespeare cannot be known, but that a knowledge of Shakespeare must be attained through a less obvious process. His character, we must suppose, was highly complex, and we are without the direct and unequivocal clues which enable us to feel ourselves personally acquainted with such men as Dante or Milton, to say nothing of Wordsworth or Byron. A distinction, however, must be made. There is such a thing as knowing a man thoroughly and yet being unable to put our knowledge into definite formulæ. I may know a man's face and the sound of his voice well enough to swear to him among a thousand others, and yet I