Shakespeare done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the world. For my part. I love the Clowns. I love _Launce_ and his dog Crabb, and _Gobbo_, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his heart, and _Touchstone_, with his lie seven times removed; and dear old _Dogberry_--a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. And _Bottom_, the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear a cat in; and _Autolycus_, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And great _Sir John_, without conscience, and for that reason unblamed and enjoyed--and who at the end babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. And ancient _Pistol_, the world his oyster. And _Bardolph_, with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned soul in hell. And the poor _Fool_, who followed the mad king, and went "to bed at noon." And the clown who carried the worm of Nilus, whose "biting was immortal." And _Corin_, the shepherd--who described the perfect man: "I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat--get that I wear--owe no man aught--envy no man's happiness--glad of other men's good--content." And mingling in this motley throng, _Lear_, within whose brain a tempest raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life was given back to memory--and then by madness thrown to storm and night--and when I read the living lines I feel as though I looked upon the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the shores. And _Othello_--who like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe. And _Hamlet_--thought-entangted--hesitating between two worlds. And _Macbeth_--strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime--"Curses not loud but deep--mouth-honor,--breath." And _Brutus_, falling on his sword that Cæsar might be still. And _Romeo_, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. And _Ferdinand_, the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. And _Florizel_, who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born lass. And _Constance_, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form." And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil--and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill. From every side the characters crowd upon us--the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us.