ABSTRACT
For the primary Shakespearean condition involves at present, not merely the accidental absences of those external means of intellectual enlargement and perfection, whereby the long arts of the ages are made to bring to the individual mind their last results, multiplying its single forces with the life of all, but it requires the absence of all personal intellectual tastes, aims, and pursuits. The Shakespeare of Elizabeth and James, who exhibited at his theatre as plays, among many others surpassing them in immediate theatrical success, the wonderful works which bore his name were first collected and published by authority in his name, accompanied, according to the custom of the day, with eulogistic verses from surviving brother poets. The material which nature must have contributed to the Shakespearean result, could, indeed, hardly have remained inert, under any superincumbent weight of social disadvantages.
