That from the prime creation e’er she framed.’
Thus both are gone with conscience and remorse;
They could not speak.”
The glances at infancy, though infrequent, are touched with strong human feeling. Ægeon, narrating the strange adventures of his shipwreck, tells of the
“Piteous plainings of the pretty babes
That mourned for fashion, ignorant what to fear;”
and scattered throughout the plays are passages and lines which touch lightly or significantly the realm of childhood: as,—
“Pity like a naked, new-born babe;”
“’Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil,”