"If the office of casting new lights into philosophy and adding new exemplifications and sanctions to morals be not the business of literary genius, we know not what is. It is the business, the first business of every man to deduce these very lessons from actual life; and we can conceive no more important occupation than his, who does the same thing for many, while doing it for himself; presenting the necessary materials and their issues, unravelled from the complications and separated from the admixtures which may impair their effect in real life, but no less palpably real than if they had passed under actual observation.” If these proofs of the strong affinity of the genius of Shakspeare and Scott fall short of what some persons would think a just parallel, enough has been shown, I trust, to convince us of the existence of a strong resemblance. In Scott, the likeness of a younger brother, perhaps, but still, a brother, and bearing the impress of the same divine original; and sufficient to establish the position with which we started, that although there were nothing new under the sun, and the world should seldom rejoice in the advent of another Shakspeare, there may be such renewal of the inventive and imaginative faculties as vindicate the unimpaired powers of the human mind and the unexhausted and inexhaustible resources of nature. In the foregoing sketch-hastily undertaken, and without due consideration of the importance of the task, and, I fear, but feebly supported-I have endeavoured to preserve an impartial judgment. It is difficult, in any way, to avoid offence to the strong prejudices-perhaps I ought to say, the strong inherent convictions we all possess of the supremacy of Shakspeare. Till the achievements of the human mind reach a point of perfection of which, at present, we have no conception, it never can, nor ever will be said, "Let old Timotheus yield the prize," but sometimes, as now, "Let both divide the crown: This, lifts a mortal to the skies; THE END. |