It cannot be said of Shakespear, as was said of some one, that he was ‘without o’erflowing full.’ He was full, even to o’erflowing. He gave heaped measure, running over. This was his greatest fault. He was only in danger ‘of losing distinction in his thoughts’ (to borrow his own expression) ‘As doth a battle when they charge on heaps The enemy flying.’ There is another passage, the speech of Ulysses to Achilles, shewing him the thankless nature of popularity, which has a still greater depth of moral observation and richness of illustration than the former. It is long, but worth the quoting. The sometimes giving an entire argument from the unacted plays of our author may with one class of readers have almost the use of restoring a lost passage; and may serve to convince another class of critics, that the poet’s genius was not confined to the production of stage effect by preternatural means.— ‘_Ulysses._ Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion; A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past, Which are devour’d as fast as they are made, Forgot as soon as done. Persev`rance, dear my lord, Keeps Honour bright: to have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For Honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path, For Emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forth right, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost;—— Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank, O’er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Tho’ less than yours in past must o’ertop yours: For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand, And with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: the welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; for beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. That all with one consent praise new-born gauds, Tho’ they are made and moulded of things past. The present eye praises the present object. Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Since things in motion sooner catch the eye, Than what not stirs. The cry went out on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive, And case thy reputation in thy tent.’