Page:A study of Shakespeare (IA cu31924013158393).pdf/264

 more frequently noticeable than elsewhere. A student of imperfect memory but not of defective intuition might pardonably assign such couplets, on hearing them cited, to the master-hand itself; but such a student would be likelier to refer them to the sonnetteer than to the dramatist. And a casual likeness to the style of Shakespeare's sonnets is not exactly sufficient evidence to warrant such an otherwise unwarrantable addition of appendage to the list of Shakespeare's plays.

A little further on we come upon the first and last passage which does actually recall by its wording a famous instance of the full and ripened style of Shakespeare.

He that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp Shall die, my lord: and will your sacred self Commit high treason 'gainst the King of heaven, To stamp his image in forbidden metal, Forgetting your allegiance and your oath? In violating marriage' sacred law You break a greater honour than yourself; To be a king is of a younger house Than to be married: your progenitor, Sole reigning Adam on the universe, By God was honoured for a married man, But not by him anointed for a king.

Every possible reader, I suppose, will at once bethink himself of the famous passage in Measure for Measure which here may seem to be faintly prefigured:

It were as good To pardon him that hath from nature stolen