On Obscure Virtue From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, On Laws not enforced We must not make a scarecrow of the law, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it On Gentleness Oh, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous On the principle, observed by St. Augustine, that past sins may be made the stepping-stones to virtue They say, best men are moulded out of faults On Responsibility for Talents Heaven doth with us as we with torches do— As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Both thanks and use. On Little Things He that of greatest works is finisher Oft does them by the weakest minister. So Holy Writ in babes hath judgment shown, When judges have been babes. On Popularity I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes. On Death, by one not prepared to die : Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, Imagine howling:-'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life To what we fear of death. As has been already hinted, the comic element is not very prominent in these Graver Comedies; and, it must be added, what there is of it is not particularly successful. The author, indeed, strains after it; but it is gone, like the buoyant step of youth. Besides, a good deal of what was amusing to the audiences for which Shakspeare wrote is now like salt which has lost its savour. Unfortunately, too, it must be confessed that in nearly all of these plays a considerable part of the action turns on incidents and ideas which are to our minds revolting and nauseous, though to the playgoing public of Shakspeare's age they appear to have been acceptable and entertaining. Parolles, in All's Well That Ends Well, is a kind of reproduction of the character of Falstaff, but his heavy wit is stiff as a poker in comparison with the nimble genius of that prince of jesters. There is, however, played on him a practical joke, which is rather amusing. He is a braggart and a coward; and his fellow-soldiers, to test his vaunted valour, propose to him an adventure, which he does not dare to decline-namely, to recover a drum, left on the field of battle. He goes forth alone, shaking in his shoes, and, whilst he is discussing with himself the propriety of inflicting some wounds on his own person, to cause it to be believed that he has been fighting, he is surrounded by a band of his own comrades in disguise, who talk a jabber of nonsensical sounds, to make him think they are the enemy, and carry him off, blindfolded, to the general; by whom he is examined through an interpreter, to make him think he is in the enemy's head-quarters. In abject fear of death, he tells everything he knows about the numbers and the plans of his own side, slanders his officers and, in short, proves himself an irredeemable poltroon and liar; whereupon the bandage is removed from his eyes, and he sees himself surrounded by the jeering faces of his fellow-soldiers. A situation not dissimilar to this appears in Measure for Measure, where Lucio, an inveterate gossip and scandalmonger, in conversing with the Duke, whom he does not recognise in the disguise of a friar, begins to throw out hints disparaging to the Duke's own character, and is drawn on from one pretended revelation to another, till he has thoroughly blackened his friend and benefactor, who thereupon throws off his disguise and confounds his accuser. The whole play of Measure for Measure is occupied with the unmasking of a hypocrite, and in this operation there of course resides a grim irony; but it is too painful for mirth. Indeed, though Measure for Measure is counted, technically, among the Comedies, it is, in its total scope, one of the most solemn and tragic of all the poet's productions. In the beginning of The Tempest there occurs a description of a shipwreck into which a good deal of amusement is infused. The King and his councillors, who are on board, come on deck; but the boatswain shouts to them: "Keep your cabins!" and, when one asks him if he knows to whom he is speaking, he replies, pointing to the angry billows, "What care these roarers for the name of king?" When another says, "Remember whom thou hast on board," he answers promptly, "None that I love more than myself. You are a councillor-if you can command these elements to silence and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts (to the sailors),—Out of our way, I say!" (to the King and councillors). There is another scene of the same drift in Pericles; but the wit has a sharper point: "Master," says one sailor, "I marvel how the fishes live in the sea"; to which the answer is given: "Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones. I can compare |