[633]This is why, in the eyes of a writer of the seventeenth century, Shakespeare's style is the most obscure, pretentious, painful, barbarous, and absurd, that could be imagined.
[634]Shakespeare's vocabulary is the most copious of all. It comprises about 15,000 words; Milton's only 8,000.
[635]See the conversation of Laertes and his sister, and of Laertes and Polonius, in "Hamlet." The style is foreign to the situation; and we see here plainly the natural and necessary process of Shakespeare's thought.
[636]"Winter's Tale," I. 2.
[637]One of Molière's characters in "Tartuffe."—Tr.
[638]"Romeo and Juliet," III. 5.
[639]"Henry VIII," II. 3, and many other scenes.
[640]"Much Ado about Nothing." See also the manner in which Henry V in Shakespeare's "King Henry V" pays court to Katharine of France (V. 2).
[641]Ibid. II. 1.
[642]Act IV. 2.