Page:A study of Shakespeare (IA cu31924013158393).pdf/269

 The loathèd carrion that it seems to kiss; Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe; That sin doth ten times aggravate itself That is committed in a holy place; An evil deed, done by authority, Is sin, and subornation: Deck an ape In tissue, and the beauty of the robe Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast.

(Here are four passably good lines, which vaguely remind the reader of something better read elsewhere; a common case enough with the more tolerable work of small imitative poets.)

A spacious field of reasons could I urge Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame: That poison shows worst in a golden cup; Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds; And every glory that inclines to sin, The shame is treble by the opposite. So leave I, with my blessing in thy bosom; Which then convert to a most heavy curse, When thou convert'st from honour's golden name To the black faction of bed-blotting shame! Countess. I'll follow thee:—And when my mind turns so, My body sink my soul in endless woe!

So much for the central and crowning scene, the test, the climax, the hinge on which the first part of this play turns; and seems to me, in turning, to emit but a feeble and rusty squeak. No probable reader will need to be reminded that the line which I have perhaps unnecessarily italicised appears also as the last verse in the ninety-fourth of those "sugared sonnets" which we know were in circulation about the time of this play's first appearance among Shakespeare's "private friends"; in other words, which