Under the wizard influence of Shakspeare I had been walking all day in
a complete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of
poetry, which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. I
had been surrounded with fancied beings; with mere airy nothings,
conjured up by poetic power; yet which, to me, had all the charm of
reality. I had heard Jacques soliloquize beneath his oak: had beheld
the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring through the woodlands;
and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack
Falstaff and his contemporaries, from the august Justice Shallow, down
to the gentle Master Slender and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand
honors and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull
realities of life with innocent illusions; who has spread exquisite
and unbought pleasures in my chequered path; and beguiled my spirit in
many a lonely hour, with all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of
social life!
As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused to
contemplate the distant church in which the poet lies buried, and
could not but exult in the malediction, which has kept his ashes
undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults.
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