P. 51. _Dr. Johnson is of opinion_. "It may be observed that in many of
his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself
near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the
labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he
should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably
produced or imperfectly represented." (Nichol Smith: "Eighteenth Century
Essays on Shakespeare," p. 123.)
_It is the peculiar excellence_, etc. Cf. Coleridge's Works, IV, 75-76:
"In Shakespeare all the elements of womanhood are holy, and there is the
sweet, yet dignified feeling of all that _continuates_ society, a sense of
ancestry and of sex, with a purity unassailable by sophistry, because it
rests not in the analytic process, but in that sane equipoise of the
faculties, during which the feelings are representative of all past
experience,--not of the individual only, but of all those by whom she has
been educated, and their predecessors even up to the first mother that
lived. Shakespeare saw that the want of prominence which Pope notices for
sarcasm, was the blessed beauty of the woman's character, and knew that it
arose not from any deficiency, but from the exquisite harmony of all the
parts of the moral being constituting one living total of head and heart.
He has drawn it indeed in all its distinctive energies of faith, patience,
constancy, fortitude,--shown in all of them as following the heart, which
gives its results by a nice tact and happy intuition, without the
intervention of the discursive faculty, sees all things in and by the
light of the affections, and errs, if it ever err, in the exaggerations of
love alone."
P. 52. _Cibber, in speaking_. See "Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley
Cibber" (1740), I, iv.
_My lord_. i, 6, 112.
P. 53. _What cheer_. iii, 4, 41. The six quotations following are in the
same scene.
P. 54. _My dear lord_. iii, 6, 14.
_And when with wild wood-leaves_. iv, 2, 389.
P. 55. _With fairest flowers_. iv, 2, 218.
_Cytherea, how bravely_. ii, 2, 14.
_Me of my lawful pleasure_. ii, 5, 9.
P. 56. _whose love-suit_. iii, 4, 136.
_the ancient critic_. Aristophanes of Byzantium, who lived in the third
century before the Christian era.
_the principle of analogy_. This point is enforced by Hazlitt in
connection with "Lear," "The Tempest," "Midsummer Night's Dream," and "As
You Like It." Coleridge had previously remarked, "A unity of feeling and
character pervades every drama of Shakespeare" (Works IV, 61), and
Schlegel had written in the same manner concerning "Romeo and Juliet":
"The sweetest and the bitterest love and hatred, festive rejoicings and
dark forebodings, tender embraces and sepulchral horrors, the fulness of
life and self-annihilation, are here all brought close to each other; and
yet these contrasts are so blended into a unity of impression, that the
echo which the whole leaves behind in the mind resembles a single but
endless sigh." (ed. Bohn, p. 401).
P. 57. _Out of your proof_. iii, 3, 27.
P. 58. _The game's afoot_. "The game is up," iii, 3, 107.
_Under the shade_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 111.
P. 59. _See, boys_. "Stoop, boys," iii, 3, 2.
_Nay, Cadwell_. iv, 2, 255.
_Stick to your journal course_. iv, 2, 10.
_Your highness_. i, 5, 23.