and Elizabeth had planted round it, and laid out the grounds for national recreation and use--like the park at Battersea, whenever that scheme is carried into effect; and all men's minds were in a flurry. Some drank themselves to death; some took to privateering; and many took to having visions and dreaming dreams; and, in the midst of it, Shakspeare rushed in a fury to his pen, and wrote play after play--very noble, very bright, very wonderful--but mad--decidedly mad--the whole time. Every body was mad; Essex galloped through London streets, thinking, by mere dint of hard riding, to rouse the peaceful citizens to take up arms in his behalf, as if the very stones would rise and mutiny--a very mad idea, you will grant; Raleigh set off to seize as much wealth as would have bought the fee-simple of a moderate kingdom, with scarcely a sufficient force to follow the heroic Widdicombe at the battle of Waterloo--not a very wise proceeding, you will allow; and the greatest proof of the universal insanity is, that nobody thought Essex or Raleigh mad for doing as they did. Nor did the calmest observers--if there were any "calm observers" in those days--perceive that Shakspeare was labouring under an access of the most confirmed delirium. They listened to _Hamlet_, and _Lear_, and _Othello_, and did not discover that his inspiration was the effect of over-excitement; that his energy was the preternatural strength bestowed on him by convulsion; and that, in fact, instead of being a swan of Avon, he was neither more nor less than a March hare.