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THE LIFE

ог

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

WITH REFERENCES TO RESULTS DEDUCED FROM

RECENT MATERIALS.

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION-SHAKESPEARE'S ANCESTRY.

Shakespeare-His function in relation to the English-speaking raceIn what does he educate men-Stands alone-A law in the production of great men-History of society divided into epochs-Transition periods fertile in great men-Homer, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, their position-Shakespeare a myth-Parentage-John ShakespeareHis occupation-Mary Arden.

Ir the question were put, What is Shakespeare to the world? the answer would be as complicated as the phases of his wonderful genius are many. But, keeping in view the more obvious relationships which Shakespeare bears to the English-speaking race, it may be said that, amid ten thousand authors and a thousand sources of knowledge, the study of his dramas, even when it is exclusive, gives the highest cultivation of æsthetic feeling and of imagination, and imbues the mind with noble and lofty views of man. It elevates man by withdrawing his attention from the gross materialism of the present and fixing his thoughts on the ideal, and, in the truest sense of the word, on the real and the unchanging. To read Shakespeare is also

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