In making the foregoing statement, we do not wish to deny that in the drama of Shakespeare are to be found (besides historical, geographical, and chronological errors, which are indifferent to poetry but not necessary and for that reason avoidable or to be avoided) words and phrases, and sometimes entire scenes, which are not justifiable, save for theatrical reasons. We do not know to what extent they had his assent and to what extent they are due to the very confused tradition, under the influence of which the text of his works has descended to us. We also do not wish to deny that he was guilty of little over-sights and contradictions, and that he was perhaps generally negligent. But it is important in any case to understand and bear in mind the psychological reasons for this negligence, inspired with that sort of indifference and contempt for the easy perfecting of certain details, of those engaged upon works of great magnitude and importance. Giambattista Vico, a mighty spirit who resembles Shakespeare, both in his full, keen sense of life and in the adventures of his work and of his fame, was also apt frequently to overlook details and to make slight mistakes, and was convinced "that diligence must lose itself in arguments, which have anything of greatness in them, because it is a minute, and because minute a tardy virtue." Thus he openly vindicated the right of rising to the level of heroic fury, which will not brook delay from small and secondary matters. As Vico was nevertheless most accurate in essentials, never sparing himself the most lengthy meditations to sound the bottom of his thoughts, so it is impossible to think that Shakespeare did not give the best and greatest part of himself to his plays, that he was not continually intent upon observing, reflecting comparing, examining his own feelings, seeking out and weighing his expressions, collecting and valuing the impressions of the public and of his colleagues in art, in fact, upon the study of his art. The precision, the delicacy, the gradations, the shading of his representations, are an irrefragable proof of this. The sense of classic form is often denied to him, even by his admirers, that is to say, of a partial and old-fashioned ideal of classical form, consisting of certain external regularities. But he was a classic, because he possessed the strength that is sure of itself, which does not exert itself, nor proceed in a series of paroxysmal leaps, but carries in itself its own moderation and serenity. He had that taste which is proper to genius and commensurate with it, because genius without taste is an abstraction to be found only in the pages of treatises. The various passages, where he chances to find an opportunity for theorizing on art, show that he had profoundly meditated the art he practised. In one of the celebrated passages of the _Dream,_ he makes Theseus say,