“See what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man.”
In the Merchant of Venice, too, act iii. sc. 2, lines 115–128, vol. ii. p. 328, when Bassanio opens the leaden casket and discovers the portrait of Portia, who but one endowed with a painter’s inspiration could speak of it as Shakespeare does!—
“Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god