He had often, he told me, intended to write an essay on poetry, setting forth this principle, and illustrating it by references to the chief representatives of poetry in its various departments.

It was this twofold truth which made Shakspeare the greatest of all poets.

'It was well for Shakspeare,' he remarked, 'that he gave himself to the drama.

It was that which forced him to be sufficiently human.

His poems would otherwise, from the extraordinarily metaphysical character of his genius, have been too recondite to be understood.