the shadow before she sees the beast (a fine idea!), nor does she in Ovid. In both poets it is a lioness seen by moonlight.

"With bloody mouth, of strangling of a beast."
Cæde leæna boum spumantes oblita rictus.
Metam., lib. iv., v. 97.

10 "Stood Dido with a willow in her hand."-The willow, a symbol of being forsaken, is not in Chaucer. It looks as if Shakspeare had seen it in a picture, where it would be more necessary than in a poem.

11 "Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs.”—Shakspeare has here gone from Chaucer to Gower. Warton, in his Observations on the Faerie Queene, vol. i., p. 361, edit. 1807, has noticed a passage in Gower's story, full of imagination. The poet is speaking of Medea going out upon the business noticed by Shakspeare.

Thus it fell upon a night,

When there was naught but starrie light,

She was vanish'd right as she list,

That no wight but herself wist,
And that was at midnight tide.
The world was still on every side.
With open head and foot all bare ;
Her hair too spread, she 'gan to fare;
Upon her clothés girt she was,

And speecheless, upon the grass,
She glode* forth, as an adder doth.

12 "There's not the smallest orb."-The "warbler of wood-notes wild" has here manifestly joined with Plato and other learned spirits to suggest to Milton his own account of the Music of the Spheres, which every reader of taste, I think, must agree with Mr. Knight in thinking "less perfect in sentiment and harmony."-Pictorial Shakspeare, vol. ii., p. 448. The best thing in it is what is observed by Warton: that the listening to the spheres is the recreation of the Genius of the Wood (the speaker) after his day's duty, "when he world is locked up in sleep and silence."

* Glode, is glided. If Chauser's contemporary had written often thus, his name would have been as famous.

Then listen I

To the celestial Sirens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie
To lull the daughters of Necessity,

And keep unsteady Nature in her law,
And the low world in measur'd motion draw
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear.

Arcades, v. 62.

The best account I remember to have read of the Music of the Spheres is in the History of Music by Hawkins.

13 Dear lady, welcome home."-Never was a sweeter or more fitting and bridal elegance, than in the whole of this scene, in which gladness and seriousness prettily struggle, each alternately yielding predominance to the other. The lovers are at once in heaven and earth. The new bride is "drawn home" with the soul of love in the shape of music; and to keep her giddy spirits down, she preached that little womanly sermon upon a good deed shining in a "naughty world." The whole play is, in one sense of the word, the most picturesque in feeling of all Shakspeare's. The sharp and malignant beard of the Jew (himself not unreconciled to us by the affections) comes harmlessly against the soft cheek of love.

ANTONY AND THE CLOUDS.

Ant. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?

Eros. Ay, noble lord.

Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's drag: nish:

A vapor sometime; like a bear, or lion,

A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon't that nod unto the world,

And mock our eyes with air; thou hast seen these signs,
They are black Vesper's pageants

Eros. Ay, my lord.

Ant That which is now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct,
As water is in water.

Eros. It does, my lord.

Ant. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body :-here I am,-Antony-
Yet cannot hold this shape.

YOUNG WARRIORS.

Hotspur. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul !

Sir Richard Vernon. Pray God, my news be worth a welcome, lord

The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,

Is marching hitherwards; with him, Prince John.

Hot. No harm: what more?

Ver. And further, I have learn'd,—

The king himself in person is set forth,

Or hitherwards intended speedily,

With strong and mighty preparation.

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside,
And bid it pass?

Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms,

All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind;
Bated like eagles having lately bath'd ;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls,
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuises on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,-
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,

As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

Hot. No more, no more; worse than the sun in March, This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;

They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,

All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them;
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,

Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours :-Come, let me take my horse,

Who is to bear me, like a thunder-bolt,

Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:

Harry to Harry shall, hot (query not?) horse to horse,14
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.

14" Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse.”—I cannot help thinking that the word hot in this line ought to be not. "Hot horse to horse" is not a very obvious mode of speech, and it is too obvious an image. The horses undoubtedly would be hot enough. But does not Hotspur mean to say that the usual shock of horses will not be sufficient for the extremity of his encounter with the Prince of Wales; their own bodies are to be dashed together, and not merely the horses:

14 Harry to Harry shall, not horse to horse:

so closely does he intend that their combat shall hug.

IMOGEN IN BED.

(FROM CYMBELINE.)

(Jachimo, dared by Imogen's husband to make trial of her fidelity, hides in her chamber in order to bring away pretended proofs against it.)

Imo. (reading in bed.) Who's there? my woman Helen?
Lady. Please you, madam.

Imo. What hour is it?

Lady. Almost midnight, madam.

Imo. I have read three hours then: mine eyes are weak
Fold down the leaf where I have left:-to bed:

Take not away the taper; leave it burning :

And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock,
I prithee, call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly.

Guard me, I beseech ye!

[Sleeps. JACHIMO, from the trunk.
Jach. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labor'd sense
Repairs itself by rest: our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,

How bravely thou com'st thy bed! fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets! that I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss!-Rubies unparagon'd,

How dearly they do 't-'Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus:—the flame o' the taper
Bows towards her; and would under-peep her lids,
To see the enclosed lights; now canopied

Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd
With blue of heaven's own tint. But my design
To note the chamber,-I will write all down:
Such and such pictures:-there the window: such
The adornment of her bed:-the arras, figures,
Why, such and such,—and the contents o' the story.
Ah, but some natural notes about her body
Above ten thousand meaner movables
Would testify, to enrich mine inventory.

O sleep, thou ape of Death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying!—Come off, come off;

[Takes off her bracelet.

As slippery, as the Gordian knot was hard!
'Tis mine, and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord.
A mole, cinque-spotted, like
I' the bottom of a cowslip.
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret

On her left breast,
the crimson drops
Here's a voucher,

Will force him think I have pick'd the lock, and ta'en
The treasure of her honor. No more. To what end?
Why should I write this down that's riveted,
Screw'd, to my memory? She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down
Where Philomel gave up :-I have enough :-
To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
May bare the raven's eye! I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.

[Clock strikes. [Goes into the trunk. The scene close

One, two, three,-Time, time!