and on this peculiarity of character, in fact, the interest of the story seems in great part to turn—the essence of the tragedy being not so much in the deeds of blood committed, as in the pain and conflicts of mind endured by one, called upon by circumstances to perform a part for which he is not fitted. Hence are excited our feelings of pity and sympathy, an essential element of just interest in the tragic.
In addition to fancy, imagination, philosophy of mind, this great writer had in a high degree warmth and tenderness of feeling, which indeed are as necessary to the poet, as blood is to the body: it is these which turn a chiseled statue into a living man,—intellect, without them, being like the cold marble, beautiful but lifeless. These completed the poet's endowments; with all which combined he has produced works, which, taken together, stand certainly among the first productions of the human mind. And it is on account of this pre-eminence, that we have selected this great writer and dwelt upon his intellectual endowments somewhat in detail, for the purpose of exhibiting a marked specimen of mental power in man.
But let us now consider whence Shakspeare derived those abilities, and from what source that overflowing richness of intellect and feeling was supplied. In the first place, we may ask what is meant by the expression "intellectual endowments." We mean by it nothing more than a certain mental constitution, a peculiar organization or structure of mind, fitting the individual, so constituted, to receive and express certain kinds and degrees of thought and feeling, as they flow in. In considering this point, we must be careful to distinguish faculties from thoughts, as the container from the thing
