"
From all that can be learnt of Shakspeare, it is to be inferred
that he was an exceedingly shy man. The manner in which his plays
were sent into the world--for it is not known that he edited or
authorized the publication of a single one of them--and the dates
at which they respectively appeared, are mere matters of
conjecture. His appearance in his own plays in second and even
third-rate parts--his indifference to reputation, and even his
apparent aversion to be held in repute by his contemporaries--his
disappearance from London (the seat and centre of English
histrionic art) so soon as he had realised a moderate competency--
and his retirement about the age of forty, for the remainder of
his days, to a life of obscurity in a small town in the midland
counties--all seem to unite in proving the shrinking nature of
the man, and his unconquerable shyness.
It is also probable that, besides being shy--and his shyness may,
like that of Byron, have been increased by his limp--Shakspeare
did not possess in any high degree the gift of hope. It is a
remarkable circumstance, that whilst the great dramatist has, in
the course of his writings, copiously illustrated all other gifts,
affections, and virtues, the passages are very rare in which Hope
is mentioned, and then it is usually in a desponding and
despairing tone, as when he says:
"The miserable hath no other medicine, But only Hope.
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