There can be little doubt that Shakespeare was the most universal genius that ever lived.  ’Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited, he is the only man.  Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light for him.’  He has not only the same absolute command over our laughter and our tears, all the resources of passion, of wit, of thought, of observation, but he has the most unbounded range of fanciful invention, whether terrible or playful, the same insight into the world of imagination that he has into the world of reality; and over all there presides the same truth of character and nature, and the same spirit of humanity.  His ideal beings are as true and natural as his real characters; that is, as consistent with themselves, or if we suppose such beings to exist at all, they could not act, speak, or feel otherwise than as he makes them.  He has invented for them a language, manners, and sentiments of their own, from the tremendous imprecations of the Witches in Macbeth, when they do ‘a deed without a name’, to the sylph-like expressions ’of Ariel, who ‘does his spiriting gently’; the mischievous tricks and gossiping of Robin Goodfellow, or the uncouth gabbling and emphatic gesticulations of Caliban in this play.

The tempest is one of the most original and perfect of Shakespeare’s productions, and he has shown in it all the variety of his powers.  It is full of grace and grandeur.  The human and imaginary characters, the dramatic and the grotesque, are blended together with the greatest art, and without any appearance of it.  Though he has here given ‘to airy nothing a local habitation and a name’, yet that part which is only the fantastic creation of his mind, has the same palpable texture, and coheres ‘semblably’ with the rest.  As the preternatural part has the air of reality, and almost haunts the imagination with a sense of truth, the real characters and events partake of the wildness of a dream.  The stately magician, Prospero, driven from his dukedom, but around whom (so potent is his art) airy spirits throng numberless to do his bidding; his daughter Miranda (’worthy of that name’) to whom all the power of his art points, and who seems the goddess of the isle; the princely Ferdinand, cast by fate upon the haven of his happiness in this idol of his love; the delicate Ariel; the savage Caliban, half brute, half demon; the drunken ship’s crew—­are all connected parts of the story, and can hardly be spared from the place they fill.  Even the local scenery is of a piece and character with the subject.  Prospero’s enchanted island seems to have risen up out of the sea; the airy music, the tempest-tossed vessel, the turbulent waves, all have the effect of the landscape background of some fine picture.  Shakespeare’s pencil is (to use an allusion of his own) ’like the dyer’s hand, subdued to what it works in’.  Everything in him,