[1] See Richard Garnett: The Age of Dryden, p. 249
[2] Froude: History of England, vol. xii. p. 254.
[3] J. St. Loe Strachey: Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. i. p. xv.
[4] It is Falstaff who says in the First Part of Henry IV. (Act v. sc. 4), "The better part of valour is discretion." This parallel has been overlooked both in Ingleby's Shakespeare's Century of Praise and in Furnivall's Fresh Allusions to Shakespeare.
"Know I have lost
The only difference betwixt man and beast,
My reason.
PANTHEA.
Heaven forbid!
ARBACES.
Nay, it is gone,
And I am left as far without a bound
As the wide ocean that obeys the winds;
Each sudden passion throws me where it lists,
And overwhelms all that oppose my will.
I have beheld thee with a lustful eye;
My heart is set on wickedness, to act
Such sins with thee as I have been afraid
To think of....
I have lived
To conquer men, and now am overthrown
Only by words, brother and sister. Where
Have those words dwelling? I will find 'em out
And utterly destroy'em; but they are
Not to be grasped
Accursed man!
Thou bought'st thy reason at too dear a rate;
For thou hast all thy actions bounded in
With curious rules, where every beast is free;
What is there that acknowledges a kindred
But wretched man? Who ever saw the bull
Fearfully leave the heifer that he liked
Because they had one dam?"