“Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon;”
when he adds (l. 74),—
“Now my soul’s palace is become a prison;”
to which the more modern description corresponds,—
“The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.”
A far nobler emblem could be made, and I believe has been made, though I cannot remember where, from those lines in Richard II. (act ii. sc. 1, l. 267, vol. iv. p. 145), which allude to the death’s head and the light of life within. Northumberland, Ross and Willoughby are discoursing respecting the sad state of the king’s affairs, when Ross remarks,—
“We see the very wreck that we must suffer:
And unavoided is the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.”
And Northumberland replies in words of hope (l. 270),—