]
* * * * *
Schiller has the material Sublime; to produce an effect he sets you a
whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames,
or locks up a father in an old tower.[1] But Shakspeare drops a
handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow.
[Footnote 1:
This expression--"material sublime"--like a hundred others
which have slipped into general use, came originally from Mr. Coleridege,
and was by him, in the first instatnce, applied to Schiller's Robbers--
See Act iv, sc. 5.--ED.]
Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakspeare as a poet; Hamlet as a
philosopher or meditater; and Othello is the union of the two. There is
something gigantic and unformed in the former two; but in the latter, every
thing assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature powers of
his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium.
I think Old Mortality and Guy Mannering the best of the Scotch novels.
It seems, to my ear, that there is a sad want of harmony in Lord Byron's
verses. Is it not unnatural to be always connecting very great intellectual
power with utter depravity? Does such a combination often really exist in
rerum naturae?
I always had a great liking--I may say, a sort of nondescript reverence--
for John Kemble.
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