"
[117] Cited by Maury, p. 221, note 4.
[118] There is a kind of compensation in the fact that he himself
lived to be accused of sorcery and Judaism.
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE.
It may be doubted whether any language be rich enough to maintain more
than one truly great poet,--and whether there be more than one period,
and that very short, in the life of a language, when such a phenomenon as
a great poet is possible. It may be reckoned one of the rarest pieces of
good-luck that ever fell to the share of a race, that (as was true of
Shakespeare) its most rhythmic genius, its acutest intellect, its
profoundest imagination, and its healthiest understanding should have
been combined in one man, and that he should have arrived at the full
development of his powers at the moment when the material in which he was
to work--that wonderful composite called English, the best result of the
confusion of tongues--was in its freshest perfection. The
English-speaking nations should build a monument to the misguided
enthusiasts of the Plain of Shinar; for, as the mixture of many bloods
seems to have made them the most vigorous of modern races, so has the
mingling of divers speeches given them a language which is perhaps the
noblest vehicle of poetic thought that ever existed.
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