Stop Counterfeiting in Manufactured Goods ACT: Report (to Accompany H.R. 32) (Including Cost Estimate of the Congressional Budget Office)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 edition. Excerpt: ...Latin and no Greek, ' he married before he was nineteen, led a wild youth, and commenced life as one of the lowest myrmidons of the stage. Hence he rose to the rank of actor; but acting was not his forte, as his best part is said to have been the Ghost in his own play of' Hamlet.' But he was, at the same time, poet, dramatist, stage manager, and part proprietor of the Blackfriars and Globe theatres. Such were the labours and associations in the midst of which Shakspeare wrote. If not conducive to a high range of poetic thought, they may, at least, have improved his dramatic skill, and enlarged his knowledge of character. He had a sympathetic genius, and could transform himself into every character he conceived; he had no occasion to learn, but had an intuitive insight into nature, and a divination of all motives, sentiments, and emotions. In his general estimate of Shakspeare M. Taine agrees with other critics. We cannot follow him through his review of the great poet's works; but must pause over some of his remarks. He notices that Shakspeare's imagination is excessive; ' he spreads metaphors with 'profusion over all he writes, until he obscures his meaning by 'imagery. This, however, is not the caprice of his will, but 'the form of his thought.' So far the justice of the criticism may not be disputed; but he proceeds to say, ' The style of 'Shakspeare is a compound of forced expressions. No man 'has submitted words to a like torture, ... it seems as if he 'never wrote a word without a scream.... Hence a style 'composed of whims, of rash figures interrupted every instant 'by figures still more rash, ideas scarcely indicated, finished by 'others remote by a hundred leagues, no connexion visible, an 'air of incoherence.' But to make amends.