Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/343

Rh to say which to admire most, the unaccountableness of his actions, or the unalterableness of his resolutions. It is a character which most husbands ought to study, unless perhaps the very audacity of Petruchio's attempt might alarm them more than his success would encourage them. What a sound must the following speech carry to some married ears!

Not all Petruchio's rhetoric would persuade more than "some dozen followers" to be of this heretical way of thinking. He unfolds his scheme for the, on a principle of contradiction, thus:—

"I'll woo her with some spirit when she comes. Say that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale; Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew; Say she be mute, and will not speak a word, Then I'll commend her volubility,