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There are periods fruitful of great men; others, barren; or, as the world is always equal to itself, periods when the heat is latent, — others when it is given out.

They are like the great wine years, -the vintage of 1847, is it? or 1835?-which are not only noted in the carte of the table d'hôte, but which, it is said, are always followed by new vivacity in the politics of Europe. His birth marked a great wine year when wonderful grapes ripened in the vintage of God, when Shakspeare and Galileo were born within a few months of each other, and Cervantes was his exact contemporary, and, in short space before and after, Montaigne, Bacon, Spenser, Raleigh and Jonson. Yet Shakspeare, not by any inferiority of theirs, but simply by his colossal proportions, dwarfs the geniuses of Elizabeth as easily as the wits of Anne, or the poor slipshod troubadours of King René.

In our ordinary experience of men there are some men so born to live well that, in whatever company they fall, high or low, they fit well, and lead it! but, being advanced to a higher class, they are just as much in their element as before, and easily command: and being again preferred to selecter companions, find no

obstacle to ruling these as they did their earlier mates; I suppose because they have more hu manity than talent, whilst they have quite as much of the last as any of the company. It would strike you as comic, if I should give my own customary examples of this elasticity, though striking enough to me. I could name in this very company or not going far out of it - very good types, but in order to be parliamentary, Franklin, Burns and Walter Scott are examples of the rule; and king of men, by this grace of God also, is Shakspeare.

The Pilgrims came to Plymouth in 1620. The plays of Shakspeare were not published until three years later. Had they been published earlier, our forefathers, or the most poetical among them, might have stayed at home to read them.

XXIV

HUMBOLDT

AN ABSTRACT OF MR. EMERSON'S

REMARKS MADE

AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ALEXANDER VON

HUMBOLDT, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869

IF a life prolonged to an advanced period bring with it several inconveniences to the individual, there is a compensation in the delight of being able to compare older states of knowledge with that which now exists, and to see great advances in knowledge develop themselves under our eyes in departments which had long slept in inactivity."

HUMBOLDT, Letter to Ritter.

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