midnight
Principles , not people , absorbed the mammoth mind of Shakspere , who paid little attention to the princes and philosophers of his day . Schools , universities , monks , priests and popes were rungs in the ladder of his mind , and only noticed to scar and satirize their hypocrisy , bigotry and tyranny with his javelins of matchless wit . The flower and fruit of thought sprang spontaneously from his seraphic soul . He flung his phrases into the intellectual ocean of thought , and they still shine and shower down the ages like meteors in a midnight sky . Like the busy bee , he banqueted on all the blossoms of the globe and stored the honey of his genius in the lofty crags of Parnassus . Shakspere and Nature were confidential friends , and , while she gave a few sheaves of knowledge to her other children , the old Dame bestowed upon the `` Divine '' William the harvest of all the ages . Shakspere 's equipoise of mind , placidity of conduct and control of passion rendered him invulnerable to the shafts of envy , malice and tyranny , making him always master of the human midgets or vultures that circled about his pathway .