Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/129

114 blinded him? to this exact and subtle apprehension of reason that has put him beside his own? to this curious and laborious search after sciences, that has reduced him to imbecility? and to this rare aptitude to the exercises of the soul, that has rendered him without exercise and without soul? I was more angry, if possible, than compassionate, to see him at Ferrara in so pitiful a condition, surviving himself, forgetting both himself and his works, which, without his knowledge, though before his face, have been published unformed and incorrect.

"Would you have a man healthy, would you have him regular, and in a steady and secure posture? Muffle him upon the shades of stupidity and sloth. We must be made beasts to be made wise, and hood-winked before we are fit to be led. And if one shall tell me that the advantage of having a dull sense of pain and other evils brings this disadvantage along with it, to render us consequently less sensible also in the fruition of good and pleasure, this is true; but the misery of our condition is such, that we have not so much to enjoy as to avoid, and that the extremest pleasure does not affect us to the degree that a light grief does; "Segnius homines bona quam mala sentiunt." 'We are not so sensible of the most perfect health as we are of the least sickness.'