Poor Shakespeare brought it further in the sixteenth
century than even Goethe at full strain could bring it in the
nineteenth. I find Shakespeare of surpassing virtue. Cervantes ranks
with the greatest because he created Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; but
Hamlet and Falstaff are more significant figures, and take Hamlet and
Falstaff away from Shakespeare's achievement, and more is left than any
other poet ever produced.
Harvest after harvest Shakespeare brought forth of astounding quality.
Yet he was never strong, and he died at fifty-two, and the last six
years of his life were wasted with weakness and ill-health. No braver
spirit has ever lived. After "Hamlet" and "Antony and Cleopatra" and
"Lear" and "Timon" he broke down: yet as soon as he struggled back to
sanity, he came to the collar again and dug "The Winter's Tale" out of
himself, and "Cymbeline," and seeing they were not his best, took
breath, and brought forth "The Tempest"--another masterpiece,
though written with a heart of lead and with the death-sweat dank on his
forehead.
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