On him, her brothers, me, her master; hitting Cym. All o'erjoy'd Save these in bonds; let them be joyful too, For they shall taste our comfort. My good master, Happy be you! Cym. The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought, He would have well becom❜d this place, and grac'd The thankings of a king. Post. I am, sir, The soldier that did company these three The purpose I then follow'd;-That I was he, Iach. I am down again: [Kneeling. And here the bracelet of the truest princess, Post. The power Kneel not to me; that I have on you, is to spare you; The malice towards you, to forgive you: Live, And deal with others better. Cym. We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law; Pardon's the word to all. Arv. Nobly doom'd: You holp us, sir, As you did mean indeed to be our brother; Post. Your servant, princes.-Good my lord of Rome, Call forth your soothsayer: As I slept, methought, Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows 28 Luc. Sooth. Here, my good lord. Philarmonus, Read, and declare the meaning. Sooth. [Reads.] When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty. Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp; The fit and apt construction of thy name, 28 Spritely shows are groups of sprites, ghostly appearances. 29 A collection is a corollary, a consequence deduced from premises. So in Davies's poem on The Immortality of the Soul: • When she from sundry arts one skill doth draw; Gath'ring from divers sights one act of war; From many cases like one rule of law: These her collections, not the senses are.' “ So the Queen in Hamlet says:- Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move Whose containing means the contents of which. The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about Cym. This hath some seeming. Sooth. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,. Personates thee: and thy lopp'd branches point Thy two sons forth: who, by Belarius stolen, For many years thought dead, are now reviv'd, To the majestic cedar join'd; whose issue Promises Britain peace and plenty. Cym. Well, My peace we will begin 30:-And, Caius Lucius, Although the victor, we submit to Cæsar, And to the Roman empire; promising Το pay our wonted tribute, from the which We were dissuaded by our wicked queen; Whom heavens, in justice (both on her and hers), Have laid most heavy hand 31. Sooth. The fingers of the powers above do tune The harmony of this peace. The vision Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant 30 It should apparently be, By peace we will begin.' The Soothsayer says, that the label promised to Britain peace and plenty. To which Cymbeline replies, We will begin with peace, to fulfil the prophecy.' 31 i. e. have laid most heavy hand on. Many such elliptical passages are found in Shakspeare. Thus in The Rape of Lu crece: Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty, And dotes on whom he looks [on] gainst law and duty.' So in The Winter's Tale : Is full accomplish'd: For the Roman eagle, Cym. Laud we the gods; And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils Friendly together: so through Lud's town march: Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts.— THIS play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation*. JOHNSON. * Johnson's remark on the gross incongruity of names and manners in this play is just, but it was the common error of the age; in The Wife for a Month, of Beaumont and Fletcher, we have Frederick and Alphonso among a host of Greek names, not to mention the firing of a pistol by Demetrius Poliocortes in The Humorous Lieutenant. PYE. It is hardly necessary to point out the extreme injustice of the unfounded severity of Johnson's animadversions upon this exquisite drama. The antidote will be found in the reader's appeal to his own feelings after reiterated perusal. It is with satisfaction I refer to the more just and discriminative opinion of a foreign critic, to whom every lover of Shakspeare is deeply indebted, cited in the preliminary remarks. S. W. S. 152 A SONG, SUNG BY GUIDERIUS AND ARVIRAGUS over fidele, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD. BY MR. WILLIAM COLLINS. To fair Fidele's grassy tomb, Soft maids and village hinds shall bring No wailing ghost shall dare appear And melting virgins own their love. No wither'd witch shall here be seen, When howling winds, and beating rain, The tender thought on thee shall dwell. Each lonely scene shall thee restore; |