and; because I seem to myself to know it so well; I monly pass it over in opening the book。 Yet; as always in regard to Shakespeare; having read it once more; I find that my knowledge was less plete than I supposed。 So it would be; live as long as one might; so it would ever be; whilst one had strength to turn the pages and a mind left to read them。
I like to believe that this was the poet's last work; that he wrote it in his home at Stratford; walking day by day in the fields which had taught his boyhood to love rural England。 It is ripe fruit of the supreme imagination; perfect craft of the master hand。 For a man whose life's business it has been to study the English tongue; arking the happy ease wherewith Shakespeare surpasses; in mere mand of words; every achievement of those even who; apart from him; are great? I could fancy that; in The Tempest; he wrought with a peculiar consciousness of this power; smiling as the word of inimitable felicity; the phrase of inparable cadence; was whispered to him by the Ariel that was his genius。 He seems to sport with language; to amuse himself with new discovery of its resources。 From king to beggar; men of every rank and every order of mind have spoken with his lips; he has uttered the lore of fairyland; now it pleases him to create a being neither man nor fairy; a something between brute and human nature; and to endow its purposes with words。 These words; how they smack of the moist and spawning earth; of the life of creatures that cannot rise above the soil! We do not think of it enough; we stint our wonder because we fall short in appreciation。 A miracle is worked before us; and we scarce give heed; it has bee familiar to our minds as any other of nature's marvels; which we rarely pause to reflect upon。
The Te