Excerpt from Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare In the absence Of some very important and unexpected discovery, the general desire to penetrate the mystery which surrounds the personal history Of Shakespeare cannot be wholly gratified. Something, however, may be accomplished in that direction by a diligent and critical study of the materials now accessible, especially if deter mined care be taken to avoid the temptation Of endeavour ing to illustrate that history by his writings, or to decipher his character or sensibilities through their media. It is the more important to insist upon the latter conditions as necessary preliminaries, for so vivid is of ten the earnestness which he throws into the spirit Of a character that it would occasionally be all but impossible, unless a vigilant guard is entertained against such a fallacy, to doubt that what we read was not a purely intellectual emanation. A man's poetry, however, Observes the greatest Of modern bards, has no more to do with the every-day individual than inspiration with the Pythoness when removed from the tripod. Shakespeare's could have been no exception, for it must surely be admitted that the exchange of the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.