Guizot was one of the first of his nation to approach Shakespeare in the right spirit—­that is, in the spirit in which he could hope for any enlightenment; and in his admirable essay on “Shakespeare and His Times,” he pointed out the exact way in which any piece or period of literature should be studied, that is worth studying at all.  He inquired into English civilization, into the habits, manners, and modes of thought of the people for whom Shakespeare wrote.  This method, this inquiry into popular sources, has been carried much further since Guizot wrote, and it is now considered the most remunerative method, whether the object of study is literature or politics.  By it not only is the literature of a period for the first time understood, but it is given its just place as an exponent of human life and a monument of human action.

The student who takes up Shakespeare’s plays for the purpose of either amusement or cultivation, I would recommend to throw aside the whole load of commentary, and speculation, and disquisition, and devote himself to trying to find out first what was the London and the England of Shakespeare’s day, what were the usages of all classes of society, what were the manners and the character of the people who crowded to hear his plays, or who denounced them as the works of the devil and the allies of sin.  I say again to the student that by this means Shakespeare will become a new thing to him, his mind will be enlarged to the purpose and scope of the great dramatist, and more illumination will be cast upon the plays than is received from the whole race of inquisitors into his phrases and critics of his genius.  In the light of contemporary life, its visions of empire, its spirit of adventure, its piracy, exploration, and warlike turmoil, its credulity and superstitious wonder at natural phenomena, its implicit belief in the supernatural, its faith, its virility of daring, coarseness of speech, bluntness of manner, luxury of apparel, and ostentation of wealth, the mobility of its shifting society, these dramas glow with a new meaning, and awaken a profounder admiration of the poet’s knowledge of human life.

The experiences of the poet began with the rude and rural life of England, and when he passed into the presence of the court and into the bustle of great London in an age of amazing agitation, he felt still in his veins the throb of the popular blood.  There were classic affectations in England, there were masks and mummeries and classic puerilities at court and in noble houses—­Elizabeth’s court would well have liked to be classical, remarks Guizot—­but Shakespeare was not fettered by classic conventionalities, nor did he obey the unities, nor attempt to separate on the stage the tragedy and comedy of life—­“immense and living stage,” says the writer I like to quote because he is French, upon which all things are represented, as it were, in their solid form, and in the place which they occupied in a stormy and complicated