But waiving, or rather deferring, this question, I protest against the remainder of the position in 'toto'. And indeed, whilst I can never, I trust, show myself blind to the various merits of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, or insensible to the greatness of the merits which they possess in common, or to the specific excellencies which give to each of the three a worth of his own,--I confess, that one main object of this Lecture was to prove that Shakspeare's eminence is his own, and not that of his age;--even as the pine-apple, the melon, and the gourd may grow on the same bed;--yea, the same circumstances of warmth and soil may be necessary to their full development, yet do not account for the golden hue, the ambrosial flavour, the perfect shape of the pine-apple, or the tufted crown on its head. Would that those, who seek to twist it off, could but promise us in this instance to make it the germ of an equal successor! What had a grammatical and logical consistency for the ear,--what could be put together and represented to the eye--these poets took from the ear and eye, unchecked by any intuition of an inward impossibility;-- just as a man might put together a quarter of an orange, a quarter of an apple, and the like of a lemon and a pomegranate, and make it look like one round diverse-coloured fruit. But nature, which works from within by evolution and assimilation according to a law, cannot do so, nor could Shakspeare; for he too worked in the spirit of nature, by evolving the germ from within by the imaginative power according to an idea. For as the power of seeing is to light, so is an idea in mind to a law in nature. They are correlatives, which suppose each other. The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are mere aggregations without unity; in the Shakspearian drama there is a vitality which grows and evolves itself from within,--a key note which guides and controls the harmonies throughout. What is Lear?--It is storm and tempest--the thunder at first grumbling in the far horizon, then gathering around us, and at length bursting in fury over our heads,--succeeded by a breaking of the clouds for a while, a last flash of lightning, the closing in of night, and the single hope of darkness! And Romeo and Juliet?--It is a spring day, gusty and beautiful in the morn, and closing like an April evening with the song of the nightingale;--whilst Macbeth is deep and earthy,--composed to the subterranean music of a troubled conscience, which converts every thing into the wild and fearful!