36 



Inhabits in the finest wits of all. 

 Valentine. And writers say, as the most forward bud 



Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, 

 Even so by love, the young slender wit 

 Is turned to folly : blasting in the bud. 

 Losing his verdure even in the prime." 



Two Gentleinen of Verona, i., 1. 



Not always is the " worm " a " canker." Othello when he 

 demands the handkerchief, venerated as the dying gift of his 

 mother, says — 



" The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk." 



Othello, iii., 4. 



The temptation to use the nut without a kernel as a figure could 

 hardly be overlooked, and we find it often used as in the terse 

 sketch of the character, or rather absence of character, of Parolles — 



" There can be no kernel in this light nut." 



All's Well that Ends Well, ii., 5. 



The wretched Thersites in his scurrilous abuse of the defenders 

 of Greece, Achilles and Ajax, against Hector, says — 



" Hector shall have a great catch if he knock out either of your 

 brains ; a' were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel." 



Troilus and Cressida,.n., 1. 



When Rosalind is angry with her lover as he " comes not," Bella 

 adds fuel to the fire by her remarks that she thought him — 



" as concave as a worm-eaten nut."— ^« You Like It, iii., 4. 



Very pretty is the passage where the equipage of the fairy Queen 

 Mab is described — 



" Her chariot is an empty hazel nut 

 Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub. 

 Time out of mind the fairies coach-maker." 



Romeo and Juliet, i., 4. 



'Tis not always that " worm " in Shakspere means larva, for no 

 doubt we remember Cleopatra's request — 



" Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus here, that kills and pains 

 not ? " — Antony and Cleopatra, v., 2. 



When Hamlet is at supper with the king, subsequent to the kill- 

 ing of the poor old eavesdropper, Polonius, he says that Polonius 

 is " at supper," " not where he eats but where he is eaten," and goes 

 on to say — 



