..."
Spalding and other critics believe that this "guilt" of Shakespeare
refers to his profession as an actor, but that stain should not have
prevented Lord Herbert from honouring him with "public kindness." It is
clear, I think, from the words themselves, that the guilt refers to the
fact that both Herbert and he were in love with the same woman. Jonson,
as we have seen, had poked fun at their connection, and this is how
Shakespeare tries to take the sting out of the sneer.
Shakespeare had many of the weaknesses of the neurotic and artistic
temperament, but he had assuredly the noblest virtues of it: he was true
to his friends, and more than generous to their merits.
If his ethical conscience was faulty, his aesthetical conscience was of
the very highest. Whenever we find him in close relations with his
contemporaries we are struck with his kindness and high impartial
intelligence. Were they his rivals, he found the perfect word for their
merits and shortcomings. How can one better praise Chapman than by
talking of
"The proud full sail of his great verse"?
How can one touch his defect more lightly than by hinting that his
learning needed feathers to lift it from the ground? And if Shakespeare
was fair even to his rivals, his friends could always reckon on his
goodwill and his unwearied service.
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