234 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



makes us find the swelling of the old king s heart, and that the 

 bodily results of mental anguish have gone so far as to deaden 

 for the moment all intellectual consciousness and forbid all ex 

 pression of grief, is hardly finer than the broken verse which 

 \Vebster puts into the mouth of Ferdinand when he sees the 

 body of his sister, murdered by his own procurement : 



Cover her face : mine eyes dazzle : she died young. 



He has not the condensing power of Shakspeare, who squeezed 

 meaning into a phrase with an hydraulic press, but he could 

 carve a cherry-stone with any of the concettisti, and abounds in 

 imaginative quaintnesses that are worthy of Donne, and epi 

 grammatic tersenesses that remind us of Fuller. Nor is he 

 wanting in poetic phrases of the purest crystallisation. Here are 

 a few examples : 



Oh, if there be another world i th moon, 

 As some fantastics dream, I could wish all wen, 

 The whole race of them, for their inconstancy, 

 Sent thither to people that ! 



(Old Chaucer was yet slier. After saying that Lamech was the 

 first faithless lover, he adds, 



And he invented tents, unless men lie, 



implying that he was the prototype of nomadic men.) 



Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds : 



In the trenches, for the soldier ; in the wakeful study, 



For the scholar ; in the furrows of the sea, 



For men of our profession [merchants] ; all of which 



Arise and spring up honour. 



( Of all which, Mr. Hazlitt prints it.) 



Poor Jolenta ! should she hear of this, 



She would not after the report keep fresh 



So long as flowers on graves. 



For sin and shame are ever tied together 



With Gordian knots of such a strong thread spun, 



They cannot without violence be undone. 



One whose mind 



Appears more like a ceremonious chapel 

 Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence. 



What is death? 



The safest trench i th world to keep man free 

 From Fortune s gunshot. 



It has ever been my opinion 

 That there are none love perfectly indeed, 

 But those that hang or drown themselves for love, 



says Julio, anticipating Butler s 



But he that drowns, or blows out s brains, 

 The Devils in him, if he feigns. 



