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Untitled Article
licnce" i& ' -etftmgto to close our ears and harden our hearts to tbtoae tvlib , n&l daring to dernounce Shstkspeare as immoral , tell us W& < &ti efijoy him at home—without setting foot within the devil ' fe boundaries * How the excitement of a strong emotion fus ^ s , sublimes ,
dissolves and re-arranges the elements of the intellect ! Many a time have ideas of monkish mysteries and moralities floated through our minds , and , hand in hand , ideas of misty faith enforced , and generalities inculcated . The morality of
Shakspeare is not less impressive because , as Johnson truly observes , but futilely objects , he did not go out of Nature ' s way to illustrate the excellence of virtue and its true utility ; but , firm in the faith of feelings guided by sympathy , kept true to Nature , and dared not , desired not , to doubt , to
insinuate or irrtply a doubt , of the beneficence of her course , by critically commentating on her particular decisions . Shakspeare felt , but did not say , that he " who writes naturally must write morally / ' Johnson said it , but had he felt it be would scarcely have ridiculed the precept— " to live according to Nature . " It
is sympathy , it is feeling which must harmonize intellect . W ^ fen the power of steam firs t came forth , it superseded independent and created dependent labourers : the spinsters and the knitters in the sun , and the free maids that w ^ aved their th read with bones , were divested of lovely individuality ; and too many are still called in crowds ( droves ) to the cltfse factory , set to labour in rank and file , and dismigfced in crowds as they come .
Men of Birmingham say that a change is dawning . Elemental J pflwer is becoming all but " lord alone" in his mighty keeps : the capitalist is an employer of inanimate force ; lie works , with little bodily aid , the material to the point at which the'applicability of inanimate power ceases ; at that point the mgn , now an independent master , receives it , and brings mind # Q b&Ht upon it through the medium of lightened bodily
exertion , and makes his independent bargain with the steamemployer on the one hand , and the factor on the other . And so it may be that the draira , and dramatic amusements , prematurely combined with other modes of instruction , before
the conditions of their harmony were fairly developed , may now again , after suffering long and violent divorce , he about , like the labourer ' s livelihood and his independence , to reunite with happier anspices . But , to the play . Poor Malvohol If an illustration were required of the instinctive morality of Shakspeare , Malvolio ( after Falstaff ) would be my instance . There is to me something most pathetic in hia case . There is no use in mincing matters —there are very few of us—bachelors and under forty—who
Untitled Article
$ 88 8 u % ^ Phrfamttions of &hak * p * are .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 628, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/40/
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