Fuller's characteristically shadowy hint of "wit-combats betwixt
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson" and of the contrasted characters of the
two combatants, suggests pretty convincingly that Shakespeare's name
presented to the seventeenth-century imagination and tongue a better
defined personality and experience than the embryonic biographer knew
how to disclose. The commemorative instinct never seeks satisfaction
in biographic effort exclusively, even when the art of biography has
ripened into satisfying fulness. A great man's reputation and the
moving incidents of his career never live solely in the printed book
or the literary word. In a great man's lifetime, and for many years
after, his fame and his fortunes live most effectually on living lips.
The talk of surviving kinsmen, fellow-craftsmen, admiring
acquaintances, and sympathetic friends is the treasure-house which
best preserves the personality of the dead hero for those who come
soon after him. When biography is unpractised, no other treasure-house
is available.
The report of such converse moves quickly from mouth to mouth. In its
progress the narration naturally grows fainter, and, when no
biographer lies in wait for it, ultimately perishes altogether.
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