Hazlitt could not
have applied to this work the motto--'For I am nothing if not
critical'--which he chose for his View of the English Stage in 1818;
the Characters being anything but 'critical' in the sense there
connoted. Jeffrey noted this in the forefront of a sympathetic
article in the Edinburgh.
It is, in truth, rather an encomium on Shakespeare than a commentary
or a critique on him--and it is written more to show extraordinary
love than extraordinary knowledge of his productions ... The author
is not merely an admirer of our great dramatist, but an Idolater of
him; and openly professes his idolatry. We have ourselves too great
a leaning to the same superstition to blame him very much for his
error: and though we think, of course, that our own admiration is,
on the whole, more discriminating and judicious, there are not many
points on which, especially after reading his eloquent exposition of
them, we should be much inclined to disagree with him.
The book, as we have already intimated, is written less to tell the
reader what Mr. H. KNOWS about Shakespeare or his writings than what
he FEELS about them--and WHY he feels so--and thinks that all who
profess to love poetry should feel so likewise.... He seems pretty
generally, indeed, in a state of happy intoxication--and has
borrowed from his great original, not indeed the force or brilliancy
of his fancy, but something of its playfulness, and a large share of
his apparent joyousness and self-indulgence in its exercise.
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