that could we meet Shakspeare we should find him strikingly like ourselves—–­with the same faculties, the same sensibilities, though not in the same degree.  The secret of his power over us lies, of course, in our having the capacity to appreciate him.  Yet we seeing him in the unimpassioned moods of daily life, it is more than probable that we should see nothing in him but what was ordinary; nay, in some qualities he would seem inferior.  Heroes require a perspective.  They are men who look superhuman only when elevated on the pedestals of their achievements.  In ordinary life they look like ordinary men; not that they are of the common mould, but seem so because their uncommon qualities are not then called forth.  Superiority requires an occasion.  The common man is helpless in an emergency:  assailed by contradictory suggestions, or confused by his incapacity, he cannot see his way.  The hour of emergency finds a hero calm and strong, and strong because calm and clear-sighted; he sees what can be done, and does it.  This is often a thing of great simplicity, so that we marvel others did not see it.  Now it has been done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that they also would have done precisely the same thing.  The world is more just.  It refuses to men unassailed by the difficulties of a situation the glory they have not earned.  The world knows how easy most things appear when they have once been done.  We can all make the egg stand on end after Columbus.

Shakspeare, then, would probably not impress us with a sense of our inferiority if we were to meet him tomorrow.  Most likely we should be bitterly disappointed; because, having formed our conception of him as the man who wrote Hamlet and Othello we forget that these were not the preducts of his ordinary moods, but the manifestations of his power at white heat.  In ordinary moods he must be very much as ordinary men, and it is in these we meet him.  How notorious is the astonishment of friends and associates when any man’s achievements suddenly emerge into renown.  “They could never have believed it.”  Why should they?  Knowing him only as one of their circle, and not being gifted with the penetration which discerns a latent energy, but only with the vision which discerns apparent results, they are taken by surprise.  Nay, so biased are we by superficial judgments, that we frequently ignore the palpable fact of achieved excellence simply because we cannot reconcile it with our judgment of the man who achieved it.  The deed has been done, the work written, the picture painted; it is before the world, and the world is ringing with applause.  There is no doubt whatever that the man whose name is in every mouth did the work; but because our personal impressions of him do not correspond with our conceptions of a powerful man, we abate or withdraw our admiration, and attribute his success to lucky accident.  This blear-eyed, taciturn, timid man, whose knowledge