Chapter 33

5. ‘To begin then with Shakspeare: he was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her there. I cannot say, he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him. No man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,Quantum lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi.’

Quantum lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi.’

6. Written in the Fleet Prison.

7. Pope also declares that he had a particular regard for an old post which stood in the court-yard before the house where he was brought up.

8. Burns.—These lines are taken from the introduction to Mr. Wordsworth’s poem of theLeech-gatherer.

9. Sonnet on Sherwood Forest, by J. H. Reynolds, Esq.

10. There is the same idea in Blair’s Grave.‘——Its visits,Like those of angels, short, and far between.’Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has spoiled it. ‘Few,’ and ‘far between,’ are the same thing.

10. There is the same idea in Blair’s Grave.

‘——Its visits,Like those of angels, short, and far between.’

‘——Its visits,

Like those of angels, short, and far between.’

Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has spoiled it. ‘Few,’ and ‘far between,’ are the same thing.

11. .sp 1‘O reader! hast thou ever stood to seeThe Holly Tree?The eye that contemplates it well perceivesIts glossy leaves,Ordered by an intelligence so wiseAs might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seenWrinkled and keen;No grazing cattle through their prickly roundCan reach to wound;But as they grow where nothing is to fear,Smooth and unarm’d the pointless leaves appear.I love to view these things with curious eyes,And moralize;And in the wisdom of the Holly TreeCan emblems seeWherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,Such as may profit in the after time.So, though abroad perchance I might appearHarsh and austere,To those who on my leisure would intrudeReserved and rude,Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,Some harshness show,All vain asperities I day by dayWould wear away,Till the smooth temper of my age should beLike the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.And as when all the summer trees are seenSo bright and green,The Holly leaves their fadeless hues displayLess bright than they,But when the bare and wintry woods we see,What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?So serious should my youth appear amongThe thoughtless throng,So would I seem amid the young and gayMore grave than they,That in my age as cheerful I might beAs the green winter of the Holly Tree.’—

11. .sp 1

‘O reader! hast thou ever stood to seeThe Holly Tree?The eye that contemplates it well perceivesIts glossy leaves,Ordered by an intelligence so wiseAs might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seenWrinkled and keen;No grazing cattle through their prickly roundCan reach to wound;But as they grow where nothing is to fear,Smooth and unarm’d the pointless leaves appear.I love to view these things with curious eyes,And moralize;And in the wisdom of the Holly TreeCan emblems seeWherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,Such as may profit in the after time.So, though abroad perchance I might appearHarsh and austere,To those who on my leisure would intrudeReserved and rude,Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,Some harshness show,All vain asperities I day by dayWould wear away,Till the smooth temper of my age should beLike the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.And as when all the summer trees are seenSo bright and green,The Holly leaves their fadeless hues displayLess bright than they,But when the bare and wintry woods we see,What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?So serious should my youth appear amongThe thoughtless throng,So would I seem amid the young and gayMore grave than they,That in my age as cheerful I might beAs the green winter of the Holly Tree.’—

‘O reader! hast thou ever stood to seeThe Holly Tree?The eye that contemplates it well perceivesIts glossy leaves,Ordered by an intelligence so wiseAs might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.

‘O reader! hast thou ever stood to see

The Holly Tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives

Its glossy leaves,

Ordered by an intelligence so wise

As might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seenWrinkled and keen;No grazing cattle through their prickly roundCan reach to wound;But as they grow where nothing is to fear,Smooth and unarm’d the pointless leaves appear.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen

Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round

Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,

Smooth and unarm’d the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,And moralize;And in the wisdom of the Holly TreeCan emblems seeWherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,Such as may profit in the after time.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,

And moralize;

And in the wisdom of the Holly Tree

Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,

Such as may profit in the after time.

So, though abroad perchance I might appearHarsh and austere,To those who on my leisure would intrudeReserved and rude,Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

So, though abroad perchance I might appear

Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude

Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,

Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,Some harshness show,All vain asperities I day by dayWould wear away,Till the smooth temper of my age should beLike the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,

Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be

Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And as when all the summer trees are seenSo bright and green,The Holly leaves their fadeless hues displayLess bright than they,But when the bare and wintry woods we see,What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?

And as when all the summer trees are seen

So bright and green,

The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display

Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,

What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?

So serious should my youth appear amongThe thoughtless throng,So would I seem amid the young and gayMore grave than they,That in my age as cheerful I might beAs the green winter of the Holly Tree.’—

So serious should my youth appear among

The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay

More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be

As the green winter of the Holly Tree.’—

12. In some Roman Catholic countries, pictures in part supplied the place of the translation of the Bible: and this dumb art arose in the silence of the written oracles.

13. See a Voyage to the Straits of Magellan, 1594.

14. .sp 1‘The smiler with the knife under his cloke.’Knight’s Tale.

14. .sp 1

‘The smiler with the knife under his cloke.’

Knight’s Tale.

15. He died about 1594.

16. An anachronism.

17. This expression seems to be ridiculed by Falstaff.

18. .sp 1‘He sent a shaggy, tattered, staring slave,That when he speaks, draws out his grisly beard,And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;Whose face has been a grind-stone for men’s swords:His hands are hack’d, some fingers cut quite off,Who when he speaks, grunts like a hog, and looksLike one that is employ’d in catzerie,And cross-biting; such a rogueAs is the husband to a hundred whores;And I by him must send three hundred crowns.’Act IV.

18. .sp 1

‘He sent a shaggy, tattered, staring slave,That when he speaks, draws out his grisly beard,And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;Whose face has been a grind-stone for men’s swords:His hands are hack’d, some fingers cut quite off,Who when he speaks, grunts like a hog, and looksLike one that is employ’d in catzerie,And cross-biting; such a rogueAs is the husband to a hundred whores;And I by him must send three hundred crowns.’

‘He sent a shaggy, tattered, staring slave,

That when he speaks, draws out his grisly beard,

And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;

Whose face has been a grind-stone for men’s swords:

His hands are hack’d, some fingers cut quite off,

Who when he speaks, grunts like a hog, and looks

Like one that is employ’d in catzerie,

And cross-biting; such a rogue

As is the husband to a hundred whores;

And I by him must send three hundred crowns.’

Act IV.

19. .sp 1‘In spite of these swine-eating Christians(Unchosen nation, never circumcised;Such poor villains as were ne’er thought upon,Till Titus and Vespasian conquer’d us)Am I become as wealthy as I was.They hoped my daughter would have been a nun;But she’s at home, and I have bought a houseAs great and fair as is the Governor’s:And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,Having Ferneze’s hand; whose heart I’ll have,Aye, and his son’s too, or it shall go hard.I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,That can so soon forget an injury.We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please;And when we grin we bite; yet are our looksAs innocent and harmless as a lamb’s.I learn’d in Florence how to kiss my hand,Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,Or else be gather’d for in our synagogue,That when the offering bason comes to me,Even for charity I may spit into it.’

19. .sp 1

‘In spite of these swine-eating Christians(Unchosen nation, never circumcised;Such poor villains as were ne’er thought upon,Till Titus and Vespasian conquer’d us)Am I become as wealthy as I was.They hoped my daughter would have been a nun;But she’s at home, and I have bought a houseAs great and fair as is the Governor’s:And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,Having Ferneze’s hand; whose heart I’ll have,Aye, and his son’s too, or it shall go hard.I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,That can so soon forget an injury.We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please;And when we grin we bite; yet are our looksAs innocent and harmless as a lamb’s.I learn’d in Florence how to kiss my hand,Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,Or else be gather’d for in our synagogue,That when the offering bason comes to me,Even for charity I may spit into it.’

‘In spite of these swine-eating Christians

(Unchosen nation, never circumcised;

Such poor villains as were ne’er thought upon,

Till Titus and Vespasian conquer’d us)

Am I become as wealthy as I was.

They hoped my daughter would have been a nun;

But she’s at home, and I have bought a house

As great and fair as is the Governor’s:

And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,

Having Ferneze’s hand; whose heart I’ll have,

Aye, and his son’s too, or it shall go hard.

I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,That can so soon forget an injury.We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please;And when we grin we bite; yet are our looksAs innocent and harmless as a lamb’s.I learn’d in Florence how to kiss my hand,Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,Or else be gather’d for in our synagogue,That when the offering bason comes to me,Even for charity I may spit into it.’

I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,

That can so soon forget an injury.

We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please;

And when we grin we bite; yet are our looks

As innocent and harmless as a lamb’s.

I learn’d in Florence how to kiss my hand,

Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,

And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:

Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,

Or else be gather’d for in our synagogue,

That when the offering bason comes to me,

Even for charity I may spit into it.’

20. Sir John Harrington’s translation.

21. See the conclusion of Lecture IV.

22. ‘Am I not thy Duchess?Bosola.Thou art some great woman, sure; for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid’s. Thou sleep’st worse than if a mouse should be forced to take up his lodging in a cat’s ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bed-fellow.Duch.I am Duchess of Malfy still.’

22. ‘Am I not thy Duchess?

Bosola.Thou art some great woman, sure; for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid’s. Thou sleep’st worse than if a mouse should be forced to take up his lodging in a cat’s ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bed-fellow.

Duch.I am Duchess of Malfy still.’

23. Euphrasia as the Page, just before speaking of her life, which Philaster threatens to take from her, says,——‘’Tis not a life;’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.’What exquisite beauty and delicacy!

23. Euphrasia as the Page, just before speaking of her life, which Philaster threatens to take from her, says,

——‘’Tis not a life;’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.’What exquisite beauty and delicacy!

——‘’Tis not a life;’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.’

——‘’Tis not a life;

’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.’

What exquisite beauty and delicacy!

24. The following criticism on this play has appeared in another publication, but may be not improperly inserted here:‘A New Way to Pay Old Debts is certainly a very admirable play, and highly characteristic of the genius of its author, which was hard and forcible, and calculated rather to produce a strong impression than a pleasing one. There is considerable unity of design and a progressive interest in the fable, though the artifice by which the catastrophe is brought about, (the double assumption of the character of favoured lovers by Wellborn and Lovell), is somewhat improbable, and out of date; and the moral is peculiarly striking, because its whole weight falls upon one who all along prides himself in setting every principle of justice and all fear of consequences at defiance.‘The character of Sir Giles Overreach (the most prominent feature of the play, whether in the perusal, or as it is acted) interests us less by exciting our sympathy than our indignation. We hate him very heartily, and yet not enough; for he has strong, robust points about him that repel the impertinence of censure, and he sometimes succeeds in making us stagger in our opinion of his conduct, by throwing off any idle doubts or scruples that might hang upon it in his own mind, ‘like dew-drops from the lion’s mane.’ His steadiness of purpose scarcely stands in need of support from the common sanctions of morality, which he intrepidly breaks through, and he almost conquers our prejudices by the consistent and determined manner in which he braves them. Self-interest is his idol, and he makes no secret of his idolatry: he is only a more devoted and unblushing worshipper at this shrine than other men. Self-will is the only rule of his conduct, to which he makes every other feeling bend: or rather, from the nature of his constitution, he has no sickly, sentimental obstacles to interrupt him in his headstrong career. He is a character of obdurate self-will, without fanciful notions or natural affections; one who has no regard to the feelings of others, and who professes an equal disregard to their opinions. He minds nothing but his own ends, and takes the shortest and surest way to them. His understanding is clear-sighted, and his passions strong-nerved. Sir Giles is no flincher, and no hypocrite; and he gains almost as much by the hardihood with which he avows his impudent and sordid designs as others do by their caution in concealing them. He is the demon of selfishness personified; and carves out his way to the objects of his unprincipled avarice and ambition with an arm of steel, that strikes but does not feel the blow it inflicts. The character of calculating, systematic self-love, as the master-key to all his actions, is preserved with great truth of keeping and in the most trifling circumstances. Thus ruminating to himself he says, “I’ll walk, to get me an appetite: ’tis but a mile; and exercise will keep me from being pursy!”—Yet to show the absurdity and impossibility of a man’s being governed by any such pretended exclusive regard to his own interest, this very Sir Giles, who laughs at conscience, and scorns opinion, who ridicules every thing as fantastical but wealth, solid, substantial wealth, and boasts of himself as having been the founder of his own fortune, by his contempt for every other consideration, is ready to sacrifice the whole of his enormous possessions—to what?—to a title, a sound, to make his daughter “right honourable,” the wife of a lord whose name he cannot repeat without loathing, and in the end he becomes the dupe of, and falls a victim to, that very opinion of the world which he despises!The character of Sir Giles Overreach has been found fault with as unnatural; and it may, perhaps, in the present refinement of our manners, have become in a great measure obsolete. But we doubt whether even still, in remote and insulated parts of the country, sufficient traces of the same character of wilful selfishness, mistaking the inveteracy of its purposes for their rectitude, and boldly appealing to power as justifying the abuses of power, may not be found to warrant this an undoubted original—probably a fac-simile of some individual of the poet’s actual acquaintance. In less advanced periods of society than that in which we live, if we except rank, which can neither be an object of common pursuit nor immediate attainment, money is the only acknowledged passport to respect. It is not merely valuable as a security from want, but it is the only defence against the insolence of power. Avarice is sharpened by pride and necessity. There are then few of the arts, the amusements, and accomplishments that soften and sweeten life, that raise or refine it: the only way in which any one can be of service to himself or another, is by his command over the gross commodities of life; and a man is worth just so much as he has. Where he who is not ‘lord of acres’ is looked upon as a slave and a beggar, the soul becomes wedded to the soil by which its worth is measured, and takes root in it in proportion to its own strength and stubbornness of character. The example of Wellborn may be cited in illustration of these remarks. The loss of his land makes all the difference between “young master Wellborn” and “rogue Wellborn;” and the treatment he meets with in this latter capacity is the best apology for the character of Sir Giles. Of the two it is better to be the oppressor than the oppressed.‘Massinger, it is true, dealt generally in extreme characters, as well as in very repulsive ones. The passion is with him wound up to its height at once, and he never lets it down afterwards. It does not gradually arise out of previous circumstances, nor is it modified by other passions. This gives an appearance of abruptness, violence, and extravagance to all his plays. Shakespear’s characters act from mixed motives, and are made what they are by various circumstances. Massinger’s characters act from single motives, and become what they are, and remain so, by a pure effort of the will, in spite of circumstances. This last author endeavoured to embody an abstract principle; labours hard to bring out the same individual trait in its most exaggerated state; and the force of his impassioned characters arises for the most part, from the obstinacy with which they exclude every other feeling. Their vices look of a gigantic stature from their standing alone. Their actions seem extravagant from their having always the same fixed aim—the same incorrigible purpose. The fault of Sir Giles Overreach, in this respect, is less in the excess to which he pushes a favourite propensity, than in the circumstance of its being unmixed with any other virtue or vice.‘We may find the same simplicity of dramatic conception in the comic as in the tragic characters of the author. Justice Greedy has but one idea or subject in his head throughout. He is always eating, or talking of eating. His belly is always in his mouth, and we know nothing of him but his appetite; he is as sharpset as travellers from off a journey. His land of promise touches on the borders of the wilderness: his thoughts are constantly in apprehension of feasting or famishing. A fat turkey floats before his imagination in royal state, and his hunger sees visions of chines of beef, venison pasties, and Norfolk dumplings, as if it were seized with a calenture. He is a very amusing personage; and in what relates to eating and drinking, as peremptory as Sir Giles himself.—Marrall is another instance of confined comic humour, whose ideas never wander beyond the ambition of being the implicit drudge of another’s knavery or good fortune. He sticks to his stewardship, and resists the favour of a salute from a fine lady as not entered in his accounts. The humour of this character is less striking in the play than in Munden’s personification of it. The other characters do not require any particular analysis. They are very insipid, good sort of people.’

24. The following criticism on this play has appeared in another publication, but may be not improperly inserted here:

‘A New Way to Pay Old Debts is certainly a very admirable play, and highly characteristic of the genius of its author, which was hard and forcible, and calculated rather to produce a strong impression than a pleasing one. There is considerable unity of design and a progressive interest in the fable, though the artifice by which the catastrophe is brought about, (the double assumption of the character of favoured lovers by Wellborn and Lovell), is somewhat improbable, and out of date; and the moral is peculiarly striking, because its whole weight falls upon one who all along prides himself in setting every principle of justice and all fear of consequences at defiance.

‘The character of Sir Giles Overreach (the most prominent feature of the play, whether in the perusal, or as it is acted) interests us less by exciting our sympathy than our indignation. We hate him very heartily, and yet not enough; for he has strong, robust points about him that repel the impertinence of censure, and he sometimes succeeds in making us stagger in our opinion of his conduct, by throwing off any idle doubts or scruples that might hang upon it in his own mind, ‘like dew-drops from the lion’s mane.’ His steadiness of purpose scarcely stands in need of support from the common sanctions of morality, which he intrepidly breaks through, and he almost conquers our prejudices by the consistent and determined manner in which he braves them. Self-interest is his idol, and he makes no secret of his idolatry: he is only a more devoted and unblushing worshipper at this shrine than other men. Self-will is the only rule of his conduct, to which he makes every other feeling bend: or rather, from the nature of his constitution, he has no sickly, sentimental obstacles to interrupt him in his headstrong career. He is a character of obdurate self-will, without fanciful notions or natural affections; one who has no regard to the feelings of others, and who professes an equal disregard to their opinions. He minds nothing but his own ends, and takes the shortest and surest way to them. His understanding is clear-sighted, and his passions strong-nerved. Sir Giles is no flincher, and no hypocrite; and he gains almost as much by the hardihood with which he avows his impudent and sordid designs as others do by their caution in concealing them. He is the demon of selfishness personified; and carves out his way to the objects of his unprincipled avarice and ambition with an arm of steel, that strikes but does not feel the blow it inflicts. The character of calculating, systematic self-love, as the master-key to all his actions, is preserved with great truth of keeping and in the most trifling circumstances. Thus ruminating to himself he says, “I’ll walk, to get me an appetite: ’tis but a mile; and exercise will keep me from being pursy!”—Yet to show the absurdity and impossibility of a man’s being governed by any such pretended exclusive regard to his own interest, this very Sir Giles, who laughs at conscience, and scorns opinion, who ridicules every thing as fantastical but wealth, solid, substantial wealth, and boasts of himself as having been the founder of his own fortune, by his contempt for every other consideration, is ready to sacrifice the whole of his enormous possessions—to what?—to a title, a sound, to make his daughter “right honourable,” the wife of a lord whose name he cannot repeat without loathing, and in the end he becomes the dupe of, and falls a victim to, that very opinion of the world which he despises!

The character of Sir Giles Overreach has been found fault with as unnatural; and it may, perhaps, in the present refinement of our manners, have become in a great measure obsolete. But we doubt whether even still, in remote and insulated parts of the country, sufficient traces of the same character of wilful selfishness, mistaking the inveteracy of its purposes for their rectitude, and boldly appealing to power as justifying the abuses of power, may not be found to warrant this an undoubted original—probably a fac-simile of some individual of the poet’s actual acquaintance. In less advanced periods of society than that in which we live, if we except rank, which can neither be an object of common pursuit nor immediate attainment, money is the only acknowledged passport to respect. It is not merely valuable as a security from want, but it is the only defence against the insolence of power. Avarice is sharpened by pride and necessity. There are then few of the arts, the amusements, and accomplishments that soften and sweeten life, that raise or refine it: the only way in which any one can be of service to himself or another, is by his command over the gross commodities of life; and a man is worth just so much as he has. Where he who is not ‘lord of acres’ is looked upon as a slave and a beggar, the soul becomes wedded to the soil by which its worth is measured, and takes root in it in proportion to its own strength and stubbornness of character. The example of Wellborn may be cited in illustration of these remarks. The loss of his land makes all the difference between “young master Wellborn” and “rogue Wellborn;” and the treatment he meets with in this latter capacity is the best apology for the character of Sir Giles. Of the two it is better to be the oppressor than the oppressed.

‘Massinger, it is true, dealt generally in extreme characters, as well as in very repulsive ones. The passion is with him wound up to its height at once, and he never lets it down afterwards. It does not gradually arise out of previous circumstances, nor is it modified by other passions. This gives an appearance of abruptness, violence, and extravagance to all his plays. Shakespear’s characters act from mixed motives, and are made what they are by various circumstances. Massinger’s characters act from single motives, and become what they are, and remain so, by a pure effort of the will, in spite of circumstances. This last author endeavoured to embody an abstract principle; labours hard to bring out the same individual trait in its most exaggerated state; and the force of his impassioned characters arises for the most part, from the obstinacy with which they exclude every other feeling. Their vices look of a gigantic stature from their standing alone. Their actions seem extravagant from their having always the same fixed aim—the same incorrigible purpose. The fault of Sir Giles Overreach, in this respect, is less in the excess to which he pushes a favourite propensity, than in the circumstance of its being unmixed with any other virtue or vice.

‘We may find the same simplicity of dramatic conception in the comic as in the tragic characters of the author. Justice Greedy has but one idea or subject in his head throughout. He is always eating, or talking of eating. His belly is always in his mouth, and we know nothing of him but his appetite; he is as sharpset as travellers from off a journey. His land of promise touches on the borders of the wilderness: his thoughts are constantly in apprehension of feasting or famishing. A fat turkey floats before his imagination in royal state, and his hunger sees visions of chines of beef, venison pasties, and Norfolk dumplings, as if it were seized with a calenture. He is a very amusing personage; and in what relates to eating and drinking, as peremptory as Sir Giles himself.—Marrall is another instance of confined comic humour, whose ideas never wander beyond the ambition of being the implicit drudge of another’s knavery or good fortune. He sticks to his stewardship, and resists the favour of a salute from a fine lady as not entered in his accounts. The humour of this character is less striking in the play than in Munden’s personification of it. The other characters do not require any particular analysis. They are very insipid, good sort of people.’

25.‘Ithocles.Soft peace enrich this room.Orgilus.How fares the lady?Philema.Dead!Christalla.Dead!Philema.Starv’d!Christalla.Starv’d!Ithocles.Me miserable!’

25.

‘Ithocles.Soft peace enrich this room.Orgilus.How fares the lady?Philema.Dead!Christalla.Dead!Philema.Starv’d!Christalla.Starv’d!Ithocles.Me miserable!’

‘Ithocles.Soft peace enrich this room.

Orgilus.How fares the lady?

Philema.Dead!

Christalla.Dead!

Philema.Starv’d!

Christalla.Starv’d!

Ithocles.Me miserable!’

26. ‘High as our heart.’—See passage from the Malcontent.

27. Or never known one otherwise than patient.

28. Sonnet to Cambridge, by Charles Lamb.

29. The name of Still has been assigned as the author of this singular production, with the date of 1566.

30. So in Rochester’s Epigram.‘Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms,When they translated David’s Psalms.’

30. So in Rochester’s Epigram.

‘Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms,When they translated David’s Psalms.’

‘Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms,

When they translated David’s Psalms.’

31. His mistress.

32. Scotch for send’st, for complain’st, &c.

33. ‘I was all ear,’ see Milton’s Comus.

34. Chapman’s Hymn to Pan.

35. Alluding to the fulfilment of the prophecies and the birth of the Messiah.

36. ‘He spreads his sail-broad vans.’—Par. Lost, b. ii. l. 927.

37. See Satan’s reception on his return to Pandemonium, in bookX.of Paradise Lost.

38. Sir Thomas Brown has it, ‘The huntsmen are up in America,’ but Mr. Coleridge prefers reading Arabia. I do not think his account of the Urn-Burial very happy. Sir Thomas can be said to be ‘wholly in his subject,’ only because he iswholly out of it. There is not a word in the Hydriotaphia about ‘a thigh-bone, or a skull, or a bit of mouldered coffin, or a tomb-stone, or a ghost, or a winding-sheet, or an echo,’ nor is ‘a silver nail or a giltanno dominithe gayest thing you shall meet with.’ You do not meet with them at all in the text; nor is it possible, either from the nature of the subject, or of Sir T. Brown’s mind, that you should! He chose the subject of Urn-Burial, because it was ‘one of no mark or likelihood,’ totally free from the romantic prettinesses and pleasing poetical common-places with which Mr. Coleridge has adorned it, and because, being ‘without form and void,’ it gave unlimited scope to his high-raised and shadowy imagination. The motto of this author’s compositions might be—‘De apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio.’ He created his own materials: or to speak of him in his own language, ‘he saw nature in the elements of its chaos, and discerned his favourite notions in the great obscurity of nothing!‘

39. The above passage is an inimitably fine paraphrase of some lines on the tombs in Westminster Abbey by F. Beaumont. It shows how near Jeremy Taylor’s style was to poetry, and how well it weaves in with it.‘Mortality, behold, and fear,What a charge of flesh is here!Think how many royal bonesSleep within this heap of stones:Here they lie, had realms and lands,Who now want strength to stir their hands.Where from their pulpits seal’d in dust,They preach “In greatness is no trust.”Here’s an acre sown indeedWith the richest, royal’st seedThat the earth did e’er suck in,Since the first man died for sin.Here the bones of birth have cried,Though Gods they were, as men they died.Here are sands, ignoble things,Dropp’d from the ruin’d sides of kings.Here’s a world of pomp and stateBuried in dust, once dead by fate.’

‘Mortality, behold, and fear,What a charge of flesh is here!Think how many royal bonesSleep within this heap of stones:Here they lie, had realms and lands,Who now want strength to stir their hands.Where from their pulpits seal’d in dust,They preach “In greatness is no trust.”Here’s an acre sown indeedWith the richest, royal’st seedThat the earth did e’er suck in,Since the first man died for sin.Here the bones of birth have cried,Though Gods they were, as men they died.Here are sands, ignoble things,Dropp’d from the ruin’d sides of kings.Here’s a world of pomp and stateBuried in dust, once dead by fate.’

‘Mortality, behold, and fear,

What a charge of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones

Sleep within this heap of stones:

Here they lie, had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands.

Where from their pulpits seal’d in dust,

They preach “In greatness is no trust.”

Here’s an acre sown indeed

With the richest, royal’st seed

That the earth did e’er suck in,

Since the first man died for sin.

Here the bones of birth have cried,

Though Gods they were, as men they died.

Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropp’d from the ruin’d sides of kings.

Here’s a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.’

40. He and his wife both died from fright, occasioned by the great fire of London in 1665, and lie buried in St. Giles’s church-yard.

41. The difference in the tone of moral sentiment is the greatest of all others.

Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A.Constable

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESP.20, changed “was an effeminate as” to “was as effeminate as”.P.89, changed “that that of the torrid zone” to “than that of the torrid zone”.P.150, changed “Procustes” to “Procrustes”.Other spelling errors were left uncorrected.Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

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