Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/279

Rh tune. Then commenced his life's great work. Fired with ambition, and filled with emulation of the brilliant minds with whom he was brought in contact in that exceptionally brilliant period of the world's literary history, the genius of his soul gave to time and posterity that series of plays and sonnets that have never been equalled for exquisite poetry and sublime philosophy, and made him recognized as the greatest dramatic poet that the world has ever known.

The works of Shakespeare! What an area they cover! What worlds of passion! What flights of fancy! What exquisite wit! What unctious humor! and what marvelous descriptions are to be found within them! There is not a single chord in the whole gamut of human passion that he has not touched, delicately, yet firmly, from the ambition of a monarch to the first faint flush of love in a young maid's heart.

It is marvelous to contemplate that in the brief span of a human life so much knowledge could be acquired. And it was acquired; but how? Not by the systematic education of a school, college or university, but by contact with men and manners, and by the marvelous genius of observation that he possessed to an almost superhuman degree. The physician marvels at his knowldge of physiology and medicine, the lawyer at his cognizance of law and legal phraseology, the scientist at his possession of his secrets, and the philosopher at his familiarity with the mysteries of nature. But analyse his words, and you will find that they are the result of acute observation and philosophic reflection, and not of study or application. He clearly described the circulation of the blood, long before Harvey discovered it, but not its application and use in the treatment of disease. The principle of gravitation was clearly defined by Shakespeare in "Troilius and Cressida" before Sir Isaac Newton was born, but I doubt if he realized its scientific value. His knowledge of legal terms and the general principles of law could easily have been obtained, but his application of law is very defective; in the "Merchant of Venice," for instance, the decision of Portia would hardly be upheld as "sound" by any of our courts. His skill in navigation and seamanship, together with his apparent familiarity with nautical phrases, as shown in "The Tempest," may be attributed to his acquaintance and conversation with the sailors that frequented the taverns, near the theatre at Bankside, while the adaptation of many of the old Italian stories upon which some of his plays are founded does not of a necessity imply a knowledge of that language, but may have been gathered from the narratives of persons who had read or heard them, and related them in the hearing of the poet. Shakespeare evidently possessed the faculty of remembering everything he ever read, heard or saw, and preserving the same for use and reference whenever occasion might require it.

The three books that Shakespeare certainly did read are the Bible, "Plutarch's Lives" and "Holinshed's Chronicles." Of the first we find evident familiarity from frequent reference and quotations in all his plays. In "Julius Caesar" and other classic works he follows Plutarch closely, in some instances almost verbatim; while in his historical dramas he has — with the poet's license — used Holinshed almost exclusively. There is nothing, in my mind, in Shakespeare's use of the old stories, plays and poems in "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," or his combination of them in "The Merchant of Venice" or "King Lear," etc., that is inconsistent with the suggestions I have made. Institutional education up to a certain point develops the mind; beyond that it contracts it.

The works of Shakespeare show him to be a man of fairly good rudimentary learning, but with a mind unfettered by the discipline of systematic study, soaring with undipped wings to the heights of his own poetic imagination, and not confined by the dogmas of circumscribed thought or the orthodoxy of any philosophic sect or creed. We must concede Shakespeare's genius, and genius cannot be judged by the common standards of ordinary humanity; it is not amenable to law, custom or rule; it soars where it lists, and is controlled by a power "greater than we can contradict."