It may be doubted also if Shakespeare's affinities extended to those numerous classes of human character that stand for the reforming and philanthropic sentiments of humanity. We doubt if he was hopeful for the race. He was too profoundly impressed with its disturbing passions to have faith in its continuous progress. Though immensely greater than Bacon, it may be questioned if he could thoroughly have appreciated Bacon's intellectual character. He could have delineated him to perfection in everything but in that peculiar philanthropy of the mind, that spiritual benignity, that belief in man and confidence in his future, which both atone and account for so many of Bacon's moral defects. There is no character in his plays that covers the elements of such a man as Hildebrand or Luther, or either of the two Williams of Orange, or Hampden, or Howard, or Clarkson, or scores of other representative men whom history celebrates. Though the broadest individual nature which human nature has produced, human nature is immensely broader than he. It would be easy to quote passages from Shakespeare's works which would seem to indicate that his genius was not limited in any of the directions which have been pointed out; but these passages are thoughts and observations, not men and women. Hamlet's soliloquy, and Portia's address to Shylock, might be adduced as proofs that he comprehended the religious element; but then who would take Hamlet or Portia as representative of the religious character in any of its numerous historical forms? There is a remark in one of his plays to this effect:-- "It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in't." This might be taken as a beautiful expression of Christian toleration, and is certainly admirable as a general thought; but it indicates Shakespeare's indifference to religious passions in indicating his superiority to them. It would have been a much greater achievement of genius to have passed into the mind and heart of the conscientious burner of heretics, seized the essence of the bigot's character, and embodied in one great ideal individual a class of men whom we now both execrate and misconceive. If he could follow the dramatic process of his genius for Sir Toby Belch, why could he not do it for St. Dominic?