But the language which has been held on this question would lead us to believe that his guilt extends further,--that he is totally insensible to any moral distinctions, and blind to moral aims and influences. [Sidenote: Most of Shakspere's contemporaries made pleasure the law of their heroes' lives.] Of most dramatic writers of his time this charge is too true. Their characters act because they will, not because they ought,--for happiness, and not from duty:--the lowness of their aim may be disguised, but it is inherent, and cannot be eradicated. We might read every work of Fletcher's without discovering (if we were ignorant of the fact before) that there exists for man any principle of action loftier in its origin than his earthly nature, or more extended in its object than the life which that nature enjoys. But nothing of this is true as to Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Shakspere's morality not of the loftiest, not like Milton's and] That his morality is of the loftiest sort cannot be asserted. [Sidenote: Michel Angelo's.] He does not, like Milton, look out on life at intervals from the windows of his sequestered hermitage, only to turn away from the sight and indulge in the most fervent aspirations after immortal purity, and the deepest adoration of uncreated power; nor does he grovel in the dust with that ascetic humiliation and religious sense of guilt which overcame the strong spirit of Michel Angelo. But he shares much of the solemnity of moral feeling which possesses all great minds, though in him its influence was restrained by external causes. [Sidenote: He was in the world, and often of it,] He moves in the hurried pageant of the world, and sometimes wants leisure to moralize the spectacle; and even when he does pause to meditate, the world often hangs about his heart, and he thinks of life as men in action are apt to think of it. [Sidenote: but evil, to him, was evil, moral law was always shown supreme. Note the general moral truth in his Tragedies.] But moral truth, seldom lost sight of, is never misrepresented: evil is always described as being evil: the great moral rule, though often stated as inoperative, is always acknowledged as binding. Read carefully any of his more lofty tragedies, and ponder the general truths there so lavishly scattered; and you will find that an immense proportion of those apophthegms have a moral bearing, often a most solemn and impressive one. [Sidenote: Even in Comedy his reflections are moral.] Even in his lighter plays there is much of the same spirit: in all he is often thoughtful, and he is never long thoughtful without becoming morally didactic. This is much in any poet, and especially in a drama[103:1]tist, who exhibits humanity directly as active, and is under continual temptations to forget what action tempts men to forget in real life. [Sidenote: Shakspere right in letting evil prevail, so long as he shows it evil.] His neglect of duly