Indeed, when we reflect that between the production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "King Lear" there is only a space of fifteen years, we must admit that the history of the human intellect presents no other example of such marvellous progress; and if we note the giant strides by which it was made, we shall find that they all imply a progressive widening and deepening of soul, a positive growth of the nature of the man, until in Lear the power became supreme and becomes amazing. Mr. Verplanck considers the period when he produced his four great tragedies to be the period of his intellectual grandeur, as distinguished from an earlier period which he thinks shows the perfection of his merely poetic and imaginative power; but the fact would seem to be that his increasing greatness as a philosopher was fully matched by his increasing greatness as a poet, and that in the devouring swiftness of his onward and upward movement imagination kept abreast of reason. His imagination was never more vivid, all-informing, and creative,--never penetrated with more unerring certainty to the inmost spiritual essence of whatever it touched,--never forced words and rhythm into more supple instruments of thought and feeling,--than when it miracled into form the terror and pity and beauty of Lear. Indeed, the coequal growth of his reason and imagination was owing to the wider scope and increased energy of the great moving forces of his being. It relates primarily to the heart rather than the head. It is the immense fiery force behind his mental powers, kindling them into white heat, and urging them to efforts almost preternatural,--it is this which impels the daring thought beyond the limits of positive knowledge, and prompts the starts of ecstasy in whose unexpected radiance nature and human life are transfigured, and for an instant shine with celestial light. In truth he is, relatively, more intellectual in his early than in his later plays, for in his later plays his intellect is thoroughly impassioned, and, though it has really grown in strength and massiveness, it is so fused with imagination and emotion as to be less independently prominent.