[232:1] Coleridge says that he borrowed this phrase from a Greek monk, who applied it to a Patriarch of Constantinople. * * * * * The great, ever-living, dead man. _Ibid._ * * * * * Humanity’s divinest son, That sprightliest, gravest, wisest, kindest one— Shakespeare. LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859). _Thoughts of the Avon on 28 Sept. 1817._ * * * * * His plays alone are properly expressions of the passions, not descriptions of them. His characters are real beings of flesh and blood; they speak like men, not like authors. WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830). “On Shakespeare and Milton,” _Lectures on the English Poets_, 1818, p. 98. * * * * * In trying to recollect any other author, one sometimes stumbles, in case of failure, on a word as good. In Shakespeare, any other word but the true one, is sure to be wrong.[234:1] _Ibid._, p. 108. FOOTNOTES: [234:1] “These remarks,” Hazlitt adds, “are strictly applicable only to the impassioned parts of Shakespeare’s language, which flowed from the warmth and originality of his imagination, and were his own. The language used for prose conversation and ordinary business is sometimes technical, and involved in the affectation of the time.” * * * * * Shakespeare was the least of a coxcomb of any one that ever lived, and much of a gentleman. _Ibid._, p. 111. * * * * * . . . Divinest Shakespeare’s might Fills Avon and the world with light, Like omniscient power which he Imaged ’mid mortality. P. B. SHELLEY (1792-1822). “Lines written among the Euganean Hills,” October 1818. * * * * * Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it. JOHN KEATS (1795-1821). Letter to George and Georgiana Keats, 18 Feb. 1819. * * * * * If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators. WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830). _Table Talk_, 1821, vol. i. p. 177. * * * * * . . . Shakespeare, who in our hearts for himself hath erected an empire Not to be shaken by time, nor e’er by another divided. ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843). _A Vision of Judgment_, 1821, ix. ll. 17, 18. * * * * *