of pathos and images of horror? Never was simplicity more sweet, never was pomp more magnificent. Beauty unfolds before us modest as the violet, fair as the lily, lovely as the rose greatness rises up, fearful as the incantation, daring as the battle, terrible as the storm. He is every thing that he describes wand could not wave more awfully from magician's hand, crook could not recline more easily on shepherd's arm, diadem could not rest more gracefully around monarch's brow, wing could not flap more buoyantly in spirit's flight. The mask is no portion of his tragic paraphernalia, and he but strikes, for his most touching and most stirring chords, the strings of the human heart."1

"He has a magic power over words: they come winged at his bidding; and seem to know their places. They are struck out at a heat, on the spur of the occasion, and have all the truth and vividness which arise from an actual impression of the objects. His epithets and single phrases are like sparkles thrown off from an imagination fired by the whirling rapidity of its own motion. His language is hieroglyphical. It translates thoughts into visible images. It abounds in sudden transitions and elliptical expressions. This is the source of his mixed metaphors, which are only abbreviated forms of speech. These, however, give no pain from long custom, they have in fact, become idioms in the language. They are the building, and not the scaffolding to thought. We take the meaning and effect of a well-known passage entire, and no more stop to scan and spell out the particular words and phrases, than the syllables of which they are composed."2

VERSIFICATION. "His versification is no less powerful, sweet, and varied. It has every occasional excellence of sullen intricacy, crabbed and perplexed, or of the smoothest and loftiest expansion-from the ease and familiarity of measured conversation to the lyrical sounds

'Of ditties highly penned,

Sung by a fair queen in a bower of beauty,
With ravishing division to her lute.""3

It is the only blank verse in the language, except Milton's, that for itself is readable. It is not stately and uniformly swelling like his, but varied and broken by the inequalities of the ground it has to pass over in its uncertain course."

1 Dr. Hamilton. 66 Nugæ Literariæ," p. 233. 2 Hazlitt. "Lectures, &c., " p. 107.

994

3 Id.

4 Id. p. 108.

EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS PLAYS.

WOLSEY'S FALL.1

FAREWELL, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening-nips his root,
And then he falls as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
These many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown2 pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream,3 that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!
I feel my heart new opened. Oh, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspèct of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And, when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

Cromwell I did not think to shed a tear

In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell:
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of-say, I taught thee;
Say, Wolsey-that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour-

Henry VIII," Act iii, Scene 2. Wolsey is here addressing Cromwell,

Earl of Essex.

2 High-blown-puffed up and swollen like a bladder.

3 Rude stream-i. e. that which was a sea of glory has suddenly become a boisterous and hostile ocean of billows-that which before held me up buoyantly floating on its surface now overwhelms and hides me.

4 New opened-i.e. now I see things as they are.

T

Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.1

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not :
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, Ŏ Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king,
And-Pr'ythee, lead me in:-

There, take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's my robe,
And my integrity to Heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, He would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies!

WOLSEY'S DEATH.2

At last, with easy roads,3 he came to Leicester,
Lodged in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably received him;
To whom he gave these words, "O FATHER ABBOT,
AN OLD MAN BROKEN WITH THE STORMS OF STATE,
IS COME TO LAY HIS WEARY BONES AMONG YE;
GIVE HIM A LITTLE EARTH FOR CHARITY !"
So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold should be his last,) full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

1 Honesty-from the Latin honestas, honour, virtue-uprightness, integrity.

2 "Henry VIII," Act iv, Scene 2.

3 Boads-as we now say, journeys.

WOLSEY'S CHARACTER.1

The dark side.

He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach,2 ever ranking
Himself with princes; one that by suggestion3
Tied all the kingdom: simony was fair play;
His own opinion was his law: i' th' presence
He would say untruths; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful:

His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
Of his own body he was ill, and gave
The clergy ill example.

The bright side.

THIS Cardinal

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashioned to much honour from his cradle.
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading;
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting,
(Which was a sin,) yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely: ever witness for him
Those twins of learning that he raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! 6 one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to out-live the good that did it ;
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,

1 "Henry VIII," Act iv, Scene 2. Queen Katharine describes the evil, and Griffith, her gentleman-usher, the good, of Wolsey's character.

4

2 Stomach-in the old sense-arrogance, haughtiness.

3 By suggestion, &c.-By secret influence ruled all the kingdom.

Simony-the buying or selling of church preferment; so called from Simon Magus. See Acts viii, 20.

5 I' th' presence-from the Latin in præsentia, time at the present-to suit his immediate purpose; or perhaps it means, in the king's presence.

6 Ipswich and Oxford-Wolsey founded a college, which had a very brief existence, in his native town of Ipswich, as well as the noble college of Cardinal's, now called Christ Church, Oxford.

7

That did it-that made or founded it.

So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
His overthrow heaped happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little;
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died fearing God.

BEES.1

So work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king,2 and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, arméd in their stings,
Make boot upon3 the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home,
To the tent-royal of their emperor ;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.

LIFE AND DEATH.4

To be, or not to be, that is the question :—
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,5

1 "Henry V," Act i, Scene 2.

2 King-king seems here used in the general sense of sovereign-the referencce is of course to the queen bee.

"Hamlet," Act iii, Scene 1.

3 Make boot upon-despoil, feed on. 5 Sea of troubles-Pope proposed to alter this into "a siege of troubles," upon which Mr. Knight, in his Pictorial Edition, remarks, "Surely the metaphor of the sea, to denote an overwhelming flood of troubles, is highly beautiful." This is unquestionable, the difficulty however lies in the expression "to take arms against a sea," which, strictly speaking, presents an incongruous image. If we consider the words "a sea," as unemphatic, and merely used for "a host" or great number, the whole will be harmonised.