Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 552, June 16, 1832 - Various - Страница 4

(For the Mirror.)

So much has been said, and said so well, respecting the writings of Shakspeare and the peculiar character of his genius, that it would be a hopeless as well as a presumptuous task to attempt adding anything to public information on that head. But I know not that any one has ventured to point out a few of those instances in which our great dramatist has stooped to plagiarize. That he must have done so, at least occasionally, is a matter of course, as no voluminous writings were ever given to the world that were not the result of study as well as original thought, for genius must ever be corrected by judgment, and what is judgment but the child of experience and study? Observation alone can tell us, that man is an imitative animal, and philosophy teaches us that his ideas are not innate; he must borrow them at first in a simple form from those around him, and though by the association of these ideas, and the gradual extension and improvement of them, he may eventually generate new ones, yet some traces cannot but remain of what was originally lodged in the mind, and will come into play as occasion may call them forth. Shakspeare was a perfect master of human nature, but he was a master of our language as well; he was indeed one of those who have improved it, but he could never have himself arrived at the degree of perfection in which he found it, had he not derived assistance from others, and made himself intimately acquainted with our purest national works of talent. Thus, he could never have been so ignorant as he is said to have been of English literature.