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list would not be included four of the most prominent, brilliant, weighty names in history, those of Alexander, Cæsar, Cromwell, Napoleon. These men were great, not through greatness of heart, but solely through greatness of head. However dominant the parts they play in human affairs, whatever precedence they be entitled to as controlling factors in the evolution of history, they have no place in the love of mankind.

Our love towards Shakespeare for the greatness of his heart is equal to our admiration of the greatness of his head. To him were given, in brimming and equal measure, power of intellect and power of feeling; and finest sensibility to the beautiful, linking these in coöpertive action, concentrated and refined his deep mental currents into Art.

When we are enraptured and exalted by the unsurpassed artistic grandeur and beauty of The Tempest, and wonder ever anew at the untamed vigor, at the poetic splendor of Cymbeline, and know-in so far as evidence internal and external may be trusted that these are among the latest of Shakespeare's works, we ask ourselves, why did this strong, clear, fresh current cease to flow, how could it cease?

Their author had not yet reached his fiftieth year. Shakespeare began life as a poor man, had suffered some of the bitterness of poverty; his work of twenty-five years had made him rich. What is genius subject to such vulgar influences? Not that; but wealth gave him rest before the spring of his mind had begun to feel any relaxation of its fibre. The faculties that gave birth to The Tempest were not outworn. Yet, their work was done. And what work! Well might he pause. His mind, though far from exhausted, may have felt that it had given forth its best, and enough. Shakespeare was finite. It is pretty well ascertained that during the last three years of his life Shakespeare produced nothing. Respected, esteemed, beloved, he spent these years amid family and friends in his large, comfortable house in Stratford on Avon, the small, rural town where he was born and brought up. In calm and content he enjoyed relief from the toil and turmoil of London. Independent and prosperous, through his own efforts, his mind daily glorified by the memory of the work it had accomplished, the quality of the work imparting to his consciousness the fragrance of its beauty, the illumination of its splendor, this

rare benefactor of his race. was blessed in his latter years on earth with a unique happiness. He passed away without looking into old age. The pressure and clog of age he might not have felt, had he reached seventy instead of fifty-three, for the poetic nature is not so liable as the prosaic to bend under the earthly weight of time. Its springiness and creative vivacity keep the mind young, and open to new influences, to fresh sensations. In full possession of his incomparable faculties, Shakespeare went from the earth to resume, in a more spiritual world, his mental activity amid angelic compeers.

III.

KING JOHN.

READING lately King John, it seemed to me that I had never before enough admired this tumultuous prophetic prologue to the grand series of Shakespeare's historic dramas. In its rhythm there was a deeper music than ever, in its reflections a wider range, in its sentiment a wiser truth, its grandeur as a whole was more imposing. Like the earth's air, Shakespeare is inexhaustible; like the air, he renews himself from infinite reservoirs. At every contact with him we inbreathe fresh life.

One of his richest plays in passages of power, King John is more dramatic than most of the historic dramas; that is, the individuality of its personages brings about its collisions, and shapes their issues, more distinctly than in the others, in which the strongest wills, dominated by historic fatality, are swept on in a resistless epic current. Elinor, Pandulph, King John, Hubert, Philip of France, Constance, Lewis,

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Salisbury, here is a company of lively dramatic agencies. And then, besides the collisions of individuals, there is the direct terrible collision of kingdoms; while, through his active personality, the colossal Faulconbridge sways the whole movement, literally uplifting the entire action on his Herculean shoulders. Faulconbridge is one of the supreme splendors of Shakespeare, one of those ideal realities in which is most vividly exhibited the creative genius of this mighty mind.

In the first thirty lines of the opening scene are epitomized the drift and substance of the whole play.

SCENE I. - Northampton. A room of state in the palace. Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON.

K. John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France,

In my behaviour, to the majesty,

The borrow'd majesty of England here.

Eli. A strange beginning! - borrow'd majesty ?

K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy!
Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf

Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,

Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim

To this fair island, and the territories;

To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine:

Desiring thee to lay aside the sword,

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