My idea of this wonderful prophet of poetry is that his intellectual dimensions are too great for any _one man_ who ever lived to explore them by himself. He could but discover a portion of the vastness of his intelligence and contemplate one or two aspects of it. No one age could completely seize all the meaning that lies in him. It has required two centuries to place within the reach even of superior and well cultivated minds a just idea of him. He died in 1616, and he is beginning to be understood in 1840. Although aided by the accumulated Shakspearian lore of the two preceding centuries—although the most learned and greatest geniuses of the two ages have contributed the beams of their science and literature to shed light on him—although innumerable theatres in so many lands have given his plays to the world—still even yet, greatly as he is admired and studied, he is not fully appreciated. There are thousands and millions who often read his works with delight yet without understanding half their profound depth and celestial beauty—and even they who have studied him the most—who have fitted themselves for that study by their previous pursuits—who have written books upon classes of his characters, do not yet completely comprehend him. To-morrow, perhaps, the wisest among them will take up one of his plays and discover some resplendent meaning—some new beam reflected from the human heart, never known to them before. For myself I frankly confess I have never understood him. Every day I make new discoveries, and have no doubt I shall continue to do so as long as I live. The advance of Shakspeare upon the world has been as broad, deep and steady as the on-flow of civilization itself. So much has been said and written of him that, it may be, some will turn from the title of these papers as from a thing of which there has been enough. They will mutter with Hamlet, “Something too much of this.” But I may assure them that the mere idea that they know enough of Shakspeare—that they have seen him enough and that his praise has got to be only a fashion, is sufficient to prove that they know nothing of him. The true pupil kindles at the sound of his name—at the rustle of his robe, at the sight of his foot-mark. Whoever comes with a new idea concerning him or to speak in his praise is welcome; and so convinced is he that a part of him as yet is _terra incognita_ that he is always on the watch for some discovery in him.