(Between whose endless jar Justice resides) Would lose their names, and so would Justice too. So doubly seconded with will and power) Follows the choking: And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose By him one step below; he, by the next; And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, It cannot be said of Shakespear, as was said of some one, that he was "without o'erflowing full." He was full, even to o'erflowing. He gave heaped measure, running over. This was his greatest fault. He was only in danger "of losing distinction in his thoughts" (to borrow his own expression) "As doth a battle when they charge on heaps The enemy flying." There is another passage, the speech of Ulysses of popularity, which has a still greater depth of moral observation and richness of illustration than the former. It is long, but worth the quoting. The sometimes giving an entire argument from the unacted plays of our author may with one class of readers have almost the use of restoring a lost passage; and may serve to convince another class of critics, that the poet's genius was not confined to the production of stage effect by preternatural means.- Ulysses. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion ; A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes : Those scraps are good deeds past, Which are devour'd as fast as they are made, Forgot as soon as done. Persev'rance, dear my lord, : Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; That one by one pursue; if you give way, And leave you hindmost ; Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, For Time is like a fashionable host, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek To envious and calumniating time: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. And still it might, and yet it may again, The throng of images in the above lines is prodigious; and though they sometimes josle against one another, they every where raise and carry on the feeling, which is intrinsically true and profound. The debates between the Trojan chiefs on the restoring of Helen are full of knowledge of human motives and character. Troilus enters well into the philosophy of war, when he says in answer to something that falls from Hector, 66 Why there you touch'd the life of our design: Than the performance of our heaving spleens, But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad. But, when the planets, In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents? what mutinies? What raging of the sea? shaking of the earth? Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and marred calm of states Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shaken, (Which is the ladder to all high designs) The enterprize is sick! How could communities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, Take but degree away, untune that string, (Between whose endless jar Justice resides) Would lose their names, and so would Justice too. So doubly seconded with will and power) Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, And this neglection of degree it is, And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, It cannot be said of Shakespear, as was said of some one, that he was "without o'erflowing full." He was full, even to o'erflowing. He gave heaped measure, running over. This was his greatest fault. He was only in danger "of losing distinction in his thoughts" (to borrow his own expression) "As doth a battle when they charge on heaps The enemy flying." There is another passage, the speech of Ulysses |