Читать книгу The Essays of Douglas Jerrold онлайн

44 страница из 68

“At length Shakespeare got admitted into the temple; and there he showed himself master of the greatest arts; and he wrote charms upon paper which, it is said, will make a man weep or laugh with very happiness,—will bring spirits from the sky and devils from the water,—will open the heart of a man and show what creeps within it,—will now snatch a crown from a king, and now put wings to the back of a beggar. And all this they say Shakespeare did, and studied not. No, beloved Ting, he was not like Sing, who, though but a poor cowherd, became wise by poring on his book spread between the horns of his cow, he travelling on her back.

“And Shakespeare proceeded in his marvels, and he became rich; and even the queen of the barbarians was seen to smile at him, and once, with a burning look, to throw her glove at him; but Shakespeare, it is said, to the discomfiture of the queen, returned the glove, taking no further notice of the amatory invitation.

“In a ripe season of his life Shakespeare gave up conjuring, and returned to the village on the banks of the river Haveone, where, as it is ignorantly believed, he was hatched, and where he lived in the fulness of fortune. He had laid down his conjuring-rod and taken off his gown, and passed for nothing more than a man, and, it is said—though you, beloved Ting, who see the haughty eyes and curling noses of the lesser man mandarins, can, after what I have writ of Shakespeare, hardly believe it—thought himself nothing more.