It is now no longer possible to say who wrote
them first. They have been the property of the Theatre so long, and
so many rising geniuses have enlarged or altered them, inserting a
speech, or a whole scene, or adding a song, that no man can any longer
claim copyright on this work of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to.
They are not yet desired in that way. We have few readers, many
spectators and hearers. They had best lie where they are.
Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old
plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. Had
the _prestige_ which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, nothing
could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living England
circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body which he
wanted to his airy and majestic fancy. The poet needs a ground in
popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain
his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies
a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to
his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities
of his imagination.
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