But even when we thus compare Shakespeare with Coleridge, as we compare
trees of the same species, showing that as the roots of the one go
deeper and take a firmer hold of earth, so in exact measure the crest
rises into higher air, still there is something lacking to our
comparison. Even when we hold Hamlet-Orsino before us as the best
likeness of the master-poet, our impression of him is still incomplete.
There remains a host of creations from Launce to Autolycus, and from
Dame Quickly to Maria, which proves that Shakespeare was something more
than the gentle lover-thinker-poet whom we have shown. It is
Shakespeare's humour that differentiates him not only from Coleridge and
Keats, but also from the world-poets, Goethe, Dante, and Homer. It is
this unique endowment that brings him into vital touch with reality and
common life, and hinders us from feeling his all-pervading ideality as
disproportioned or one-sided. Strip him of his humour and he would have
been seen long ago in his true proportions. His sympathies are not more
broad and generous than Balzac's; his nature is too delicate, too
sensitive, too sensuous; but his humour blinds us to the truth.
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