[1] In the drama alone, as Shakspeare soon found out, could the
sublime poet and profound philosopher find the conditions of a compromise.
In the Love's Labour Lost there are many faint sketches of some of his
vigorous portraits in after-life--as for example, in particular, of
Benedict and Beatrice.[2]
[Footnote 1:
"In Shakspeare's _Poems_ the creative power and the intellectual energy
wrestle as in a war embrace. Each in its excess of strength seems to
threaten the extinction of the other. At length, in the drama, they were
reconciled, and fought each with its shield before the breast of the other.
Or like two rapid streams, that, at their first meeting within narrow and
rocky banks, mutually strive to repel each other, and intermix reluctantly,
and in tumult; but soon finding a wider channel and more yielding shores,
blend, and dilate, and flow on in one current, and with one voice."--_Biog.
Lit._ vol. ii. p. 21.]
[Footnote 2:
Mr. Coleridge, of course, alluded to Biron and Rosaline; and there are
other obvious prolusions, as the scene of the masque with the courtiers,
compared with the play in A Midsummer Night's Dream.--ED.]
* * * * *
Gifford has done a great deal for the text of Massinger, but not as much as
might easily be done.
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