PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 81 



In fortune's love — for there the bold and coward, 

 The wise and fool seem all affin'd and kin ! 

 But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, 

 Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, 

 Puffing at all, winnows the light away ; 

 And what hath mass, and matter, by itself 

 Lies, RICH IN VIRTUE and unmingled " — 



The expansive force of our poet's imagination occasionally 

 proves too great for the capability of his language, and it is an 

 even chance whether the explosion then taking place, is productive 

 of more or less than grandeur. 



In King Lear, we have an instance of a bursting thought lead- 

 ing to a great branch of propriety. 



" Blow, winds and crack your cheeks ! " 

 and again ^ 



'* Rumble thy belly full! " 



Here are faults, which are in truth no faults. Faulty in respect 

 to the " cracked cheek " and the " belly full,'' but testifying at 

 the same time, our author's "fraught" of feeling. His wish was 

 to express a something past the force of nature ; and, in the im- 

 mediate lack of a legitimate vent, propriety is burst asunder. 



In Coriolanus, we find this o'erbearing power equally aroused 

 but extending itself with far more grace. Perhaps, throughout 

 the whole range of Shakspeare, there is not a brief passage more 

 remarkable than the following, evidently perfected in the moment 

 of conception : — roused by the taunting appellation of "boy!" 

 applied to him by Aufidius, Coriolanus answers, — 



-Boy ! false hound ! 



If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there. 

 That, like an eagle in a dove-cot, I 

 Fluttered your Voices in Corioli : 

 Alone I did it ! " 



How completely does this gem of impassioned poetry bring 

 before us the irresistible Martins ! beautiful is the simile of the 

 eagle in the dovecot ; but the word " fluttered " magnifies its 

 force tenfold. We see the astounded Volcians so unexpectedly 

 caged with the mighty hero — bewildered, ere conquered — and 

 "amazing the welkin with their broken staves!" 



We would gladly follow the lecturer, through the remainder 

 of his most interesting paper, but we again put forward our old 

 excuse, want of room— Oh ! the glory of a big book. 



VOL. IV. — 1834. L 



