302. But ACT IV. SCENE I. I will go; yet I have no desire to it." Thus yields Cassio, in Othello: "I'll do't; but it dislikes me." SCENE III. 307. "We were never so much out of creatures." There is something very whimsical in this expression of the bawd's. 321. SCENE IV. A princess "To equal any single crown o'the earth, "I'the justice of compare. " We find something like this in Cymbeline : 325. A lady, "So fair, and fasten'd to an empiry, Thou art like the harpy, "Which, to betray, doth wear an angel's face." This thought occurs in Othello: "When devils would their blackest sins put on, "They do suggest at first with heavenly shews." And again, in Measure for Measure : O, cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, "With saints do'st bait thy hook. Most dan gerous "Is that temptation that doth lead us on "To sin in loving virtue." 327. "Sail seas in cockles.". By cockles, I apprehend, is meant, cock-boats. SCENE VI. 339. "Ever since I can remember." This is a common, but a very corrupt phrase, for as long ago as I can remember. 340. If you were born to honour, show it now; "If put upon you, make the judgment,” &c. "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Twelfth Night. Extremity, I believe, is desperation; and Pericles, I suppose, is alluding to the effect which Marina produces in composing his temper, and in dissipating his sorrows. SCENE III. 384. "When we with tears parted Pentapolis." "Parted," for left, departed-from." The phrase, is still in vulgar use in Ireland. 436 PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. This tragedy, I think, exhibits no equitable claim to be regarded as a work of Shakspeare's, any more than that with which it is most worthily associated, in the same volume, Titus Andronicus. If one of these compositions is ludicrously shocking, the other is shockingly ludicrous; and the poet's reputation, I believe, would have been better consulted, by dismissing them both to contempt and oblivion. There are, indeed, some circumstances relating to "The Prince of Tyre," which may render it worthy of preservation, as a curiosity. Unlike the concomitant tragedy just mentioned, there are some incidental parts of this which Shakspeare might have written, and that, had they appeared in any of his undisputed works, would never have raised suspicion as to their genuineness. The most striking of those parts which I think our poet may have written, are the first scene in the third act, and the scene in the fifth between Pericles and his daughter. The resemblance of particular passages to others in our author's authentic compositions, amounts, I think, to no more than an evidence that he had perused this play with attention, and adopted from it, occasionally, some peculiar thoughts and turns of expression; and I think it can hardly be doubted, that, in composing that part of the Winter's Tale which consigns Hermione to a supposed death, and Perdita, from her birth, to an obscure retreat, until matters become ripe at last for reconciliation, our poet had in view this wild story of Thaisa and Marina. THE END. Wright, Printer, St. John's Square, Clerkenwell. |