Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/313

Rh Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them? Perdita. For I have heard it said There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares With great creating nature. Polixenes. Say, there be: Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scyon to the wildest stock; And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather: but The art itself is nature. Perdita. So it is. Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them bastards. Perdita. I'll not put The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them; No more than, were I painted, I would wish This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore Desire to breed by me.—Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun. And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given To men of middle age. You are very welcome. Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. Perdita. Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now my fairest friends, I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might Become your time of day; and your's, and your's,