On Obscure Virtue

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed.

On Laws not enforced

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.

On Gentleness

Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

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
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.

On Responsibility for Talents

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do—
Not light them for themselves-for, if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

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
Herself the glory of a creditor,

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.
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
Who does affect it.

On Death, by one not prepared to die :

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible, warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling:-'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise

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