In detail there is no
want of beautiful lines, bold images, nay, even features which
betray the peculiar conception of Shakespeare. Among these we may
reckon the joy of the treacherous Moor at the blackness and ugliness
of his child begot in adultery; and in the compassion of Titus
Andronicus, grown childish through grief, for a fly which had been
struck dead, and his rage afterwards when he imagines he discovers
in it his black enemy; we recognize the future poet of LEAR. Are the
critics afraid that Shakespeare's fame would be injured, were it
established that in his early youth he ushered into the world a
feeble and immature work? Was Rome the less the conqueror of the
world because Remus could leap over its first walls? Let any one
place himself in Shakespeare's situation at the commencement of his
career. He found only a few indifferent models, and yet these met
with the most favourable reception, because men are never difficult
to please in the novelty of an art before their taste has become
fastidious from choice and abundance. Must not this situation have
had its influence on him before he learned to make higher demands on
himself, and by digging deeper in his own mind, discovered the
richest veins of a noble metal? It is even highly probable that he
must have made several failures before getting into the right path.
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