does not issue in action; it is a placid feeling, which gladly contemplates its own likeness in others, or turns back with memory to the vanished hours of childhood: with Theseus and his friend, the passion is exhibited dimly, as longing for exertion, but not gifted with opportunity; and in the Kinsmen, it bursts out into full activity, quelling all but the one omnipotent passion, and tempering and purifying even it. With this exception, you will not look for much of Shakspeare's skill in delineating character. [Sidenote: Not much of Shakspere's characterization in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] The features of the two Princes are aptly enough distinguished; but neither in them, nor in any of the others, is there an approach to his higher efforts. You will recollect that in his acknowledged works those finer and deeper pryings into character have place only in few instances; and that the greater number of his dramas depend for their effect chiefly on other causes, some of which are energetic in this very play. [82:1]While you successively inspected particular passages in this play, your attention was necessarily called both to the character of its imaginative portions, and to the tone of reflection which is so frequently assumed in it. [Sidenote: Whose is the ruling temper of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_?] The drama having been now put entirely before you, I shall wish you to ponder its ruling temper as a whole, and to determine whether that temper is Fletcher's, or belongs to a more thoughtful, inquisitive, and solemn mind. [Sidenote: Seek in it the mind of its author.] When you institute such a reconsideration, I shall be desirous that you contemplate the internal spirit of the work from a loftier and more commanding station than that which you formerly occupied; and I shall crave you to view its elements of thought and feeling less as the qualities of a literary work, than as the signs and results of the mental constitution of its author. [Sidenote: The duty of our reverence for Shakspere, the Star of Poets, being intelligent.] I cannot regard as altogether foreign to our leading purpose any inquiry which may hold out the promise of illustrating the characteristics of Shakspeare even slightly, and of teaching us to mingle a more active discernment in the reverence with which we look up to the Star of Poets from the common level of our unendowed humanity. You will therefore have the patience to accompany me in the suggestion of some queries as to the character of his mode of thinking, and the way in which his reflective spirit and his poetical qualities of mind are combined and influence each other. We may be able to perceive the more distinctly the real character both of his intellect and his poetical faculty, if you will consent that our investigation shall set out from a point which you may be inclined to consider somewhat more remote than is altogether necessary. [Sidenote: We'll treat 1. the true functions of Poetry, 2.