Zi) BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
poets who were less severe in their recognition of 
the limits of the art. FalstafF “babbling o' green 
fields/' is a subjective incident of priceless value, whether 
we adopt the view that he was muttering the 23rd Psalm, 
or that he was renewing, in the visions of his death-bed, 
the sports and pastimes of his youth. Transferring the 
incident to the poet himself, who bore some likeness to 
his own wondrous creation, how it suggests the scenery 
of the Avon, the musings of the boy, the earnest activity 
of that marvellous spirit which must find room for action, 
now in Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and anon in the wide 
empire of Nature and human life. Silently flows the 
•river through its wall of willows, past its bright bays of 
white ranunculus, eddying round its little'green islets, all 
unconscious of the fame it is to have hereafter in every 
language of the w r orld, by association with a name which 
stands highest and brightest in all the records of the 
human race. The playground of the great poet was also 
his school, and by carrying in his marvellous mind the 
memories of the Avon, he was enabled to intermingle 
with his grand conceptions, pictures of natural scenes 
that stand all alone for their truth and beauty. 
The “ verdant mead " is an expression that acquires 
a sickly hue beside Shakspere's “ lush and lusty grass 
the “smooth lawn" is an unattractive object when 
he presents his “grassy carpet/' and the speech of 
Lysander has the freshness of the scene it paints 
64 To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold 
Her silver visage in the watery glass, 
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass/'* 
* Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act i., sc. 1. 
