And yet those who had the insight and the power to restore Shakespeare in all his fulness to English readers were wholly free from this ignorance--conspicuously Charles Lamb and S.T. Coleridge. Coleridge was indeed the first of Englishmen to think out anything like a complete and satisfactory theory of poetry and the fine arts. The supreme value of his theory comes from the fact that he was one of the few who had actually experienced those creative impulses which as a theorist he endeavoured to account for. He had had the inspiration of poetry; he had achieved it; and to that extent he had indisputable evidence before him. If only on the one hand he had extended his method a little further than he did, and taken into consideration that formal side of art which is dear to classicism, and on the other hand been more confident--or shall I say less shy?--when he considered the origin of the creative imagination, the ideal conceiver and creator of _Natura Naturata_, then his scheme would have been complete--probably too complete. On the latter subject, however, he threw out hints which were broad enough, and did not wholly shun the controversial sphere of metaphysics. The critic who would avoid the heights and depths of mysticism would do well to imitate his reserve, and exceed him in metaphysical diffidence. "_Good Sense_ is the _Body_ of poetic genius," said Coleridge, "_Fancy_ its _Drapery_, _Motion_ its _Life_, and _Imagination_ the _Soul_ that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole." It is by that "synthetic and magical power" which he calls "imagination" that the poet "brings the whole soul of man into activity," and "diffuses a tone and spirit of unity." Coleridge's theory of the Fine Arts presupposes his metaphysic; and it asserts the primacy of the reason. "Of all we see, hear, feel and touch the substance is and must be in ourselves: and therefore there is no alternative in reason between the dreary (and, thank Heaven! almost impossible) belief that everything around us is but a phantom, or that the life which is in us is in them likewise.... The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols."