Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/115

Rh (Between whose endless jar Justice resides) Would lose their names, and so would Justice too. Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite (an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power) Must make perforce an universal prey, And last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking: And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdained By him one step below; he, by the next; That next, by him beneath: so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation; And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength."

It cannot be said of Shakespear, as was said of some one, that he was "without overflowing full." He was full, even to o'erflowing. He gave heaped measure, running over. This was his greatest fault. He was only in danger "of losing distinction in his thoughts" (to borrow his own expression)

There is another passage, the speech of Ulysses to Achilles, shewing him the thankless