"
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
"Sir, to my mortification I must confess that I took to myself the
counsel he was giving to another; a young gentleman who, from his
pale face, his abstinence at table, his cough, his taciturnity, and
his gentleness, seemed already more than half poet. To him did
Doctor Glaston urge, with all his zeal and judgment, many arguments
against the vocation; telling him that, even in college, he had few
applauders, being the first, and not the second or third, who always
are more fortunate; reminding him that he must solicit and obtain
much interest with men of rank and quality, before he could expect
their favour; and that without it the vein chilled, the nerve
relaxed, and the poet was left at next door to the bellman. 'In the
coldness of the world,' said he, 'in the absence of ready friends
and adherents, to light thee upstairs to the richly tapestried
chamber of the muses, thy spirits will abandon thee, thy heart will
sicken and swell within thee; overladen, thou wilt make, O
Ethelbert! a slow and painful progress, and ere the door open, sink.
Praise giveth weight unto the wanting, and happiness giveth
elasticity unto the heavy. As the mightiest streams of the
unexplored world, America, run languidly in the night, {159a} and
await the sun on high to contend with him in strength and grandeur,
so doth genius halt and pause in the thraldom of outspread darkness,
and move onward with all his vigour then only when creative light
and jubilant warmth surround him.
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