AMONG some warm admirers of Shakespeare it has not been unusual to depreciate his learning for the purpose of exalting his genius. It is thought that intuition and inborn power of mind accomplished for him what others, less favoured by the inspiration of the all-directing Wisdom, could scarcely effect by their utmost and life-patient labours. The worlds of nature and of art were spread before him, and out of the materials, with perfect ease, he fashioned new creations, calling into existence forms of beauty and grace, and investing them at will with the rare attributes of poetic fancy. On the very surface, however, of Shakespeare’s writings, in the subjects of his dramas and in the structure of their respective plots, though we may not find a perfectly accurate scholarship, we have ample evidence that the choicest literature of his native land, and, through translations at least, the ample stores of Greece and of Italy were open to his mind. Whether his scenes be the plains of Troy, the river of Egypt, the walls of Athens, or the capitol of Rome, his learning is amply sufficient for the occasion; and though the critic may detect incongruities and errors,[64] they are probably not greater than those which many a finished scholar falls into when he ventures to describe the features of countries and cities which he has not actually visited. The heroes and heroines of pagan mythology and pagan history, the veritable actors in ancient times of the world’s great drama,—or the more unreal characters of fairy land, of the weird sisterhood, and of the wizard fraternity,—these all stand before us instinct with life.[65] And from the old legends of Venice, of Padua and Verona,—from the traditionary lore of England, of Denmark, and of Scotland,—or from the more truth-like delineations of his strictly historical plays, we may of a certainty gather, that his reading was of wide extent, and that with a student’s industry he made it subservient to the illustration and faithfulness of poetic thought.