Henry laughed, but not without constraint, and muttered something about civilians being unable to understand the interest a soldier takes in his profession.
After breakfast, Tracey said to me, “Doubtless you have your letters to answer, and will be glad to have your forenoon to yourself. About two o’clock we propose adjourning to a certain lake, which is well shaded from the sun. I have a rude summer pavilion on the banks; there we can dine, and shun the Dogstar. Clara, who happily does not know that I am thinking of Tyndaris, will bring her lute, Aunt Gertrude her work, Bourke his sketch-book; and the lake is large enough for a sailing excursion, if Henry will kindly exchange, for the day, military repose for nautical activity.”
All seemed pleased with the proposal except Henry, who merely shrugged his shoulders, and the party dispersed for the morning.
My letters were soon despatched, and my instincts or habits (which are, practically speaking, much the same thing) drew me into the library. Certainly it was a very noble collection of books, and exceedingly well arranged. Opening volume after volume, I found that most of those containing works of imperishable name were interleaved; and the side-pages thus formed were inscribed with critical notes and comments in my host’s handwriting.
I was greatly struck with the variety and minuteness of the knowledge in many departments, whether of art, scholarship, or philosophy, which these annotations displayed, and the exquisite critical discrimination and taste by which the knowledge was vivified and adorned. While thus gratifying my admiring curiosity, I was accosted by the Librarian, who had entered the room unobserved by me.
“Ay,” said he, glancing over my shoulder at the volume in my hand—“Shakespeare; I see you have chanced there upon one of Sir Percival’s most interesting speculations. He seeks first to prove how much more largely than is generally supposed Shakespeare borrowed, in detail, from others; and next, to show how much more patently than is generally supposed Shakespeare reveals to us his own personal nature, his religious and political beliefs, his favourite sentiments and cherished opinions. In fact, it is one of Sir Percival’s theories, that though the Drama is, of all compositions, that in which the author can least obtrude on us his personality, yet that of all dramatists Shakespeare the most frequently presents to us his own. Our subtle host seeks to do this by marking all the passages of assertion or reflection in Shakespeare’s plays which are not peculiarly appropriate to the speaker, nor called for by the situation—often, indeed, purely episodical to the action; and where in such passages the same or similar ideas are repeated, he argues that Shakespeare himself is speaking, and not the person in the dialogue. I observe in the page you have opened, that Sir Percival is treating of the metaphysical turn of mind so remarkably developed in Shakespeare, and showing how much that turn of mind was the character of the exact time in which he lived. You see how appositely he quotes from Sir John Davies, Shakespeare’s contemporary—who, though employed in active professional pursuits, a lawyer—nay, even an Attorney-General and a Serjeant; a member of Parliament, nay, even a Speaker, and in an Irish House of Commons—prepared himself for those practical paths of life by the composition of a poem the most purely and profoundly metaphysical which England, or indeed modern Europe, has ever produced: at this day it furnishes the foundation of all our immaterial schools of metaphysics. You will see, if you look on, how clearly Sir Percival shows that Shakespeare had intently studied that poem, and imbued his own mind, not so much with its doctrines, as with its manner of thought.”
“Tracey was always fond of metaphysics, and of applying his critical acuteness to the illustration of poets. I am pleased to see he has, in the tastes of his youth, so pleasing a resource in his seclusion.”
“But it is not only in metaphysics or poetry that he occupies his mind; you might be still more forcibly struck with his information and his powers of reasoning if you opened any of the historians he has interleaved—Clarendon, for instance, or our earlier Chronicles. I cannot but think he would have been a remarkable writer, if he had ever acquired the concentration of purpose, for which, perhaps, the idea of publishing what one writes is indispensably necessary.”
“Has he never had the ambition to be an author?”
“Never since I have known him; and he never could conceive it now. You look as if you thought that a pity.”