HARD WORDS. 201 



appropriation of sound to sense — so harmonious and yet so contrast- 

 ed — to snatch from his Macbeth an unpremeditated passage, the 

 soliloquy ! — 



£c This Duncan 

 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 

 So clear in his great office, that his virtues 

 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 

 The deep damnation of his taking-off." 



How the tones rise and fall, subsiding into softness or rising into 

 abrupt vehemence ! " Faculties so meek !" — What a faintness, 

 fondness of expression ! " Clear in his great office !" — What an 

 extension of meaning this involves ! rising to the climax " His vir- 

 tues will plead like angels trumpet-tongued !" The effect here is 

 two-fold, first, by the comparison of his mild virtues with their 

 powerful agency, that will plead like angels trumpet-tongued, with 

 voice so clamorous ; and secondly, the vibration of the word trum- 

 pet with the alliteration, which is very forcible ; those affections, 

 so kind and tender, will cry out 



" Against 

 The deep damnation of his taking off: 

 And pity, like a naked new-born babe. 

 Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd 

 Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 

 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 

 That tears shall drown the wind." 



What a grandeur there is in the full diapason of this sentence, 



<c And pity, like a naked new-born babe,"* 



glancing with the velocity of light, with the wild vehemence of 

 the blast. Shakspeare's are indeed e! winged words." 



The " iTca Tn^ivrcC of the Greeks is a noble expression ; they 

 must have been finely sensible of verbal effect. The Greek drama, 

 especially the tragedies of .ZEschylus, are the verisimilitude of 

 Shakspeare in the inflection, power, and variety of expression. 



* Not such a babe as Rubens painted, that looks cut out of a huge barm 

 dumpling, thick and spongy ; but like the Infant John of Murillo, whose 

 form of life and loveliness is the emblem of every virtue consummate in in- 

 nocence, every colour blending into one, unsullied and pure. Such was 

 Shakspeare's personification of pity, the tearful herald of grief. 



VOL. V. NO. XVIII. 2c 



