I cannot account for Shakespeare’s low estimate of his own writings, except from the sublimity, the superhumanity of his genius. They were infinitely below his conception of what they might have been, and ought to have been. _Ibid._ * * * * * . . . Matchless Shakespeare, who, undaunted, took From Nature’s shrinking hand her secret book, And page by page the wondrous tome explored. D. M. MOIR (1798-1851), before 1851. “Stanzas on an Infant.” _Poetical Works_, 1852, vol. ii. p. 50. * * * * * Shakespeare’s glowing soul, Where mightiness and meekness met. _Ibid._, p. 341, “Hymn to the Moon.” * * * * * Kind Shakespeare, our recording angel. T. L. BEDDOES (1803-1849). “Lines written in Switzerland.” _Poems_, 1851, vol. i. p. 215. * * * * * Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakespeare sung! EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON (1805-1873). “The Souls of Books,” i. l. 21. _Works_, 1853, vol. iii. p. 282. * * * * * Shakespeare . . . . . . Wise and true, Bright as the noon-tide, clear as morning dew, And wholesome in the spirit and the form. CHARLES MACKAY (1814-1899). “Mist.” _Under Green Leaves_, 1857. * * * * * I care not how Shakespeare is acted: with him the thought suffices. ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865), _c._ 1860. * * * * * I am always happy to meet persons who perceive the transcendent superiority of Shakespeare over all other writers. R. W. EMERSON (1803-1882). “Culture.” _Conduct of Life_, 1860. * * * * * We may consider Shakespeare, as an ancient mythologist would have done, as “enskied” among “the invulnerable clouds,” where no shaft, even of envy, can assail him. From this elevation we may safely predict that he never can be plucked. CARDINAL WISEMAN (1802-1856). _William Shakespeare_, 1865, p. 28. * * * * * To say truth, what I most of all admire are the traces he shows of a talent that could have turned the _History of England_ into a kind of _Iliad_, almost perhaps into a kind of _Bible_. THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). “Shooting Niagara: and After?” _Macmillan’s Magazine_, August, 1867. * * * * *