And thus, and not by
mechanical diffusion, does an original genius work and spread
himself. Society becomes an immense Shakspeare. Not otherwise could
the poet be admired, nay, not even seen; -- not until his living,
conversing, and writing had diffused his spirit into the young and
acquiring class, so that he had multiplied himself into a thousand
sons, a thousand Shakspeares, and so understands himself.
Secondly; the history of freedom it studies with eagerness in
civil, in religious, in philosophic history. It has explored every
monument of Anglo-Saxon history and law, and mainly every scrap of
printed or written paper remaining from the period of the English
Commonwealth. It has, out of England, devoted much thought and pains
to the history of philosophy. It has groped in all nations where was
any literature for the early poetry not only the dramatic, but the
rudest lyric; for songs and ballads, the Nibelungen Lied, the poems
of Hans Sachs and Henry of Alckmaer in Germany, for the Cid in Spain,
for the rough-cast verse of the interior nations of Europe, and in
Britain for the ballads of Scotland and of Robinhood.
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