24.  The finest poetry was first experienced:  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 parties can name every figure:  this is Andrew, and that is Rachael.  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 bides 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.

25.  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[646] 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.

26.  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.

27.  Shakspeare, Homer, Dante,[647] Chaucer, saw the splendor of meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads:  that these things bore a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute commentary on human life.  Shakspeare employed them as colors to compose his picture.  He rested in their beauty; and never took the step which seemed inevitable to such genius, namely, to explore the virtue which resides in these symbols, and imparts this power,—­what is that which they themselves say?  He converted the elements, which waited on his command, into entertainments.  He was master of the revels[648] to mankind.  Is it not as if one should have, through majestic