'Purest faith unhappily forsworn' was Shakspere's faith in God--without
any 'holy policie' and without 'old doctrines'--trusting above all in
the majesty of ennobled human nature. He was a veritable Humanist,
the truest and greatest, who ever strove to raise the most essential
part of human nature, man's soul and mind, yet by no mean supernatural,
but by 'mean that Nature makes.'
Shakspere's 'Hamlet' appears to us like a solemn admonition to his
distinguished friends. He showed them, under the guise of that Prince,
a nobleman without fixed ideal--'virtues which do not go forth' to
assert themselves, and to do good for the sake of others--noble life
wasted, letting the world remain 'out of joint' without determined will
to set it right: this was the poet's prophetic warning.
One aspiration of Shakspere clearly shines through his career, in
whatever darkness it may otherwise be enveloped--namely, his longing to
acquire land near the town he was born in. When he had realised this
ambition, he cheerfully seems to have left the splendour of town life,
and to have readily renounced all literary fame; for he did not even care
to collect his own works.
He was contented to cultivate his native soil: a giant Antaeus who, as
the myth tells us, ever had to touch Mother Earth to regain his strength.
1: _Volpone_ is stated to have been first acted in the Globe Theatre
in 1605.
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