His lyric power lies in the genius of the piece.  The sonnets, though their excellence is lost in the splendor of the dramas, are as inimitable as they; and it is not a merit of lines, but a total merit of the piece; like the tone of voice of some incomparable person, so is this a speech of poetic beings, and any clause as unproducible now as a whole poem.

Though the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty which tempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism, yet the sentence is so loaded with meaning and so linked with its foregoers and followers, that the logician is satisfied.  His means are as admirable as his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too.  He is not reduced to dismount and walk because his horses are running off with him in some distant direction:  he always rides.

The finest poetry was first experience; but the thought has suffered a transformation since it was an experience.  Cultivated men often attain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy to read, through their poems, their personal history:  any one acquainted with the parties can name every figure; this is Andrew and that is Rachel.  The sense thus remains prosaic.  It is a caterpillar with wings, and not yet a butterfly.  In the poet’s mind the fact has gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that is exuvial.  This generosity abides with Shakspeare.  We say, from the truth and closeness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by heart.  Yet there is not a trace of egotism.

One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet.  I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,—­for beauty is his aim.  He loves virtue, not for its obligation but for its grace:  he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them.  Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.  Epicurus relates that poetry hath such charms that a lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them.  And the true bards have been noted for their firm and cheerful temper.  Homer lies in sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, “It was rumored abroad that I was penitent; but what had I to do with repentance?” Not less sovereign and cheerful,—­much more sovereign and cheerful, is the tone of Shakspeare.  His name suggests joy and emancipation to the heart of men.  If he should appear in any company of human souls, who would not march in his troop?  He touches nothing that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style.

And now, how stands the account of man with this bard and benefactor, when, in solitude, shutting our ears to the reverberations of his fame, we seek to strike the balance?  Solitude has austere lessons; it can teach us to spare both heroes and poets; and it weighs Shakspeare also, and finds him to share the halfness and imperfection of humanity.