We have seen him take up his pen and begin a tragedy; or, to drop the fancy, we have made it real to ourselves in what manner Shakspeare's writing evidences that he wrought as an _artist_,--one who has an idea in his mind of an effect he desires to produce, and elaborates it with careful skill, not in a trance or ecstasy, but "in clear dream and solemn vision." The subtile tone of feeling to be struck is as much a matter of art as the action or argument to be opened. And it is no less proper to judge (as we have done) of the presence of art by its result in this respect than in respect to what relates to the form or story. An introduction is before us, a dramatic scene, in which characters are brought forward and a dialogue is given, apparently concerning a picture and poem that have been made, but having a more important reference to a character yet to be unfolded. Along with this there is also expressed, in the person of a professed panegyrist, a certain lofty and free opinion of his own work, in a confident declamatory style of description,--
"Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill Feigned Fortune to be throned," etc.,--
that is levelled with exquisite tact just on the verge of bombast. This is not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is never heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall him, and to create a _melodic effect_ upon the hearer's sense which shall put him in a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece.
It is not possible to conceive Shakspeare reviewing his lines and thinking to himself, "That is well done; my genius has not deserted me; I could not have written anything more to my liking, if I had set about it deliberately!" But it is easy to see him running it over with a sensation of "This will serve; my poet will open their eyes and ears; and now for the hall and banquet scene."
The sense of fitness and relation operates among thoughts and feelings as well as among fancies, and its results cannot be mistaken for accident. Ariel and his harpies could not interrupt a scene with a more discordant action than the phase of feeling or the poetic atmosphere pervading it would be interrupted by, if a cloud of distraction came across the poet and the faculties of his mind rioted out of his control. For he not only feels, but sees his feeling; he takes it up as an object and holds it before him,--a feeling to be conveyed. Just as a sculptor holds in his mind a form and models it out of clay, undiverted by other forms thronging into his vision, or by the accidental forms that the plastic substance takes upon itself in the course of his work, till it stands forth the image of his ideal,--so the poet works out his states of poetic feeling. He grasps and holds and sustains them amidst the multiplicity of upflying thoughts and thick-coming fancies;--no matter how subtile or how aspiring they may be, he fastens them in the chamber of his imagination until his distant purpose is accomplished, and he has found a language for them which the world will understand. And this is where Shakspeare's art is so noble,--in that he conquers the entire universe of thought, sentiment, feeling, and passion,--goes into the whole and takes up and portrays characters the most extreme and diverse, passions the most wild, sentiment the most refined, feelings the most delicate,--and does this by an art in which he must make his characters appear real and we looking on, though he cannot use, to develop his dramas, a hundred-thousandth part of the words that would be used in real life,--that is, in Nature. He also always approaches us upon the level of our common sense and experience, and never requires us to yield it,--never breaks in or jars upon our judgment, or shocks or alarms any natural sensibility. After enlarging our souls with the stir of whatever can move us through poetry, he leaves us where he found us, refreshed by new thoughts, new scenes, and new knowledge of ourselves and our kind, more capable, and, if we choose to be so, more wise. His art is so great that we almost forget its presence,--almost forget that the Macbeth and Othello we have seen and heard were Shakspeare's, and that he MADE them; we can scarce conceive how he could feign as if felt, and retain and reproduce such a play of emotions and passions from the position of spectator, his own soul remaining, with its sovereign reason, and all its powers natural and acquired, far, far above all its creations,--a spirit alone before its Maker.