To my eye, Shakspeare is a world. I do not understand by this a mere phrase expressive of the variety and beauty of the plays, but I mean those works are morally invested with attributes resembling the physical globe. This planet is given by Providence as the abode of man’s body. A vast extent of variegated surface, when he first began to move upon it, he knew nothing about it. The dawn of it upon the human mind was that of a bright scene—a circle of land—a verdant plain. The more it was studied the more it grew in variety and size. It was found divided into wonderful compartments and the first dazzled wanderers beheld with joy and wonder the huge-rolling sea arrest their steps on one side, the ice-topped mountains towering above them on the other,—broad and winding rivers—silver lakes—fathomless caverns—and awful, sombre forests. Each age since, the adventurous step of man has wandered farther and farther, has climbed the mountain—crossed the sea—circumnavigated the globe—and found out what it is—how it hangs in the air—how it revolves around the sun and many of the secrets of its bosom. Each age since, man has occupied himself studying its nature and forming theories concerning it. To me, Shakspeare—although they who have not closely and habitually studied him, may smile at such a hyperbolical comparison—yet to me, Shakspeare lies like this solid and wonderful globe we inhabit. He is a second nature—a new creation—a more amazing production of the inscrutable Deity who formed the shoreless sea—and built the cloud cleaving Alps and Andes. He is a significant illustration of the degree of intellectual perfection to which the human mind—so destined—so worthy to be immortal—may reach even in this sublunary sphere.