His L ife and Genius 1 2 1 



cedar-tops with gold and gild pale streams with 

 heavenly alchemy. Had he never witnessed the 

 pompous stupidity of the parish constable, big 

 with his sense of office, and the vain and testy 

 feebleness of the self-important justice of the 

 peace, he could hardly have presented with such 

 rare force and humour the characters of Dogberry 

 and Justice Shallow ; and without the memory- 

 ache of his own lustful youth, he might not have 

 thought of making Prosper© twice grossly obtrude 

 a coarse warning against incontinence before 

 marriage,^ and recount its odious consequences in 

 words whose grating shock goes near to spoil the 

 sweet idyll of the loves of Ferdinand and Miranda. 

 Why again the somewhat gratuitous admonition 

 to the supposed page in Twelfth Night not to 

 marry a woman older than himself, and the 

 explicit reason why such marriage will not turn 

 out well, if he was not generalizing too largely 

 from his own unfortunate experience ? * A 

 marriage in his case which, as things turned out, 

 was a fortunate folly, a rashness that might well 

 be praised, seeing that had prudence always ruled 

 his conduct at Stratford he might have lived a 

 quiet undistinguished life there, as many a person 

 of equal natural endowments to his, never having 



* In Midsummer s Night's Dream, again, one reason why 

 the course of true love never did run smooth is a disproportion 

 of years. 



Lysander. — Or else misgraffed in respect of years. 



Hermione. — Oh spite ! too old to be engaged to young. 



