SHAKESPEARE. 239 



even as a mere play upon words, carrying him on to 

 others. 



The same question, and perhaps the same conclu- 

 sion, may be applied to those frequent changes from 

 prose to verse and verse to prose, even in the same scene 

 and with the same persons on the stage, which, though 

 often connected with the relative dignity of the persons 

 and subjects handled, yet in many other cases can be 

 referred only to that free and copious licence which he 

 ever gave to the inspiration or even whim of the 

 moment. He may be said and it can equally be said 

 of none other to have written without fear of criti- 

 cism and without eagerness for fame. 



Almost it may be cited as a proof of his genius that 

 he could afford to be so inveterate a player with the 

 sound and double sense of words. Dr. Johnson, to 

 give pith to one of his own phrases, describes the love 

 of Shakespeare for a quibble as c the fatal Cleopatra 

 for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.' 

 The world he did not lose, but he carried so far this 

 current foible of the age as to show that it was a fashion 

 of speech in which his mind revelled. He delights, too, 

 in spinning out a sort of verbal logic, of which the long 

 speech of Pandulph, in 'King John' (act iii. scene 1), 

 is a striking example. Words flowed upon him so 

 exuberantly that they became playthings in his hands. 



In Sheridan's play the slipslop blunders of Mrs. 

 Malaprop, like her name, are felt to be got up by the 

 art of the writer. The wit of Shakespeare in this way 

 has the higher art of concealing art. Every blunder of 

 Dogberry, Elbow, Launcelot, c. has an appropriate 



