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Untitled Article
ixient with little skill ; and some of its ablest masters have often sadly failed . Those who reason and feel , will surely know ; and so will they also who feel and reason ; nor will there be any mi ghty disparity in the amount of their knowledge , or its certitude . Logic is not so much the instrument of acquirement as of defence . It is a good armour to buckle on when compelled to do
battle for our heritage ,, but a poor implement for its cultivation . The sword cannot do the work of the ploughshare . To beat it into a ploughshare ^ , may perhaps prefigure the mental , no less than the national millennium . But we are idly prating , whilst Shakspeare ' stands at the gate . ' More of his youth has Mr . Landor told than antiquarianism has ever yet poked out of
mould y records ; and more truly , we will be sworn . Let any one judge , who can reall y read Shakspeare without spelling ; which is more than many can , notwithstanding the play-bills . It is tough work , ' as Fuseli said to the breeches maker , who threatened to go home and read Paradise Lost , after he had seen all the pictures in the Milton Gallery .
The opening scene of the Examination is thus narrated by Ephraim Barnett , the worthy clerk of Sir Thomas Lucy : * About one hour before noontide , the youth William Shakspeare , accused of deer-stealing , and apprehended for that offence , was brought into the great hall at Charlecote , where , having made his obeisance , it was most graciously permitted him to stand .
* The worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy , Knight , seeing him right opposite , on the farther side of the long table , and fearing no disadvantage , did frown upon him with great dignity ; then , deigning ne ' er a word to the culprit , turned he his face towards his chaplain , Sir Silas Gough , who stood beside him , and said unto him most courteously , and unlike unto one who in his own right commandeth , 1 * ' Stand out of the way ! What are those two varleta bringing into the room V
' "The table , sir , " replied Master Silas , " upon the which the consumption of the venison was perpetrated . " 4 youth , William Shakspeare , did thereupon pray and beseech his lordship most fervently , in this guise : ' " O , sir ! do not let him turn the tables against me , who am only a simple stripling , and he an old cogger . " * But Master Silas did bite his nether lip , and did cry aloud ,
* " Look upon those deadly spots ! " * And his worship did look thereupon most staidly , and did say in the ear of Master Silas , but in such wise that it reached even unto mine , ^ * ' Good honest chandlery , methinks ! " 4 God grant it may turn out so ! " ejaculated Master Silas . * The youth , hearing these words , said unto him , 4 u I fear , Master Silas , gentry like you often pray God to grant what he would rather not ; and now and then what you would rather
not . " 4 Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in the face of a preacher , and said , reprovingly ,
Untitled Article
Examination of Shakspeate , 45
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 45, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/45/
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