The Greeks reckoned it to be the highest merit of the masters of
their plastic art when they retained the great traits with which their
predecessors had invested a conception; only endeavouring to better
those parts in which a lesser success had been achieved--until that
section of the work, too, had attained the highest degree of
perfection. Thus arose the Jupiter of Pheidias, a Venus of Milo, an
Apollo of Belvedere. Thus the noblest ideal of beauty as created,
and in this wise the Greek national epic became the model of all
kindred poetry.
There is a most characteristic fact which shows how greatly the drama
had risen in universal esteem after Shakspere had devoted to it twelve
years of his life. It is this. The Corporation of the City of London,
once so hostile to all theatrical representations, and which had used
every possible chicanery against the stage, had become so friendly to it
towards the year 1600, that, when it was asked from governmental
quarters to enforce a certain decree which had been launched against
the theatre, it refused to comply with the request. On the contrary,
the Lord Mayor, as well as the other magistrates, held it to be an
injustice towards the actors that the Privy Council gave a hearing
to the charges brought forward by the Puritans. Truly, the feelings
of this conservative Corporation, as well of a large number of those
who once looked down upon the stage with the greatest contempt,
must, in the meanwhile, have undergone a great change.
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