With the blood of Charles I., the great, true, and last king, all the poetry ran from the veins of England, and thrice happy was the poet who did not live to witness this sorrowful event, which he had perhaps foreboded. Shakespeare has in our time often been called an aristocrat. This I would not deny. I would very much rather excuse his political inclinations when I reflect that his foreseeing poet's eye perceived the dead-levelling Puritan times which were to make an end, with the kingdom, of all enjoyment of life, all poetry, and all bright and cheerful Art.
Yes, during the rule of the Puritans in England, Art was outlawed; as when the evangelical zeal raged against the theatre, and even the name of Shakespeare was long extinguished in popular remembrance. It awakens our astonishment when we read in the current literature of that time—for instance, in the "Histrio-Mastix" of the famous Prynne—the outbreak of wrath with which the anathema of the drama is croaked. Shall we blame the Puritans too severely for such zealotry. Truly not; every one is, in history, in the right if he remains true to his indwelling principle, and the
rage, while in other places he exults in the guillotine, the French revolution, and regicide. "The age" is no excuse for such inconsistency. The more chaotic an age is, the more it becomes a genius to form inherent principles, and act or write up to them.—Translator.
