“One whose mind
Appears more like a ceremonious chapel
Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence.”
“What is death?
The safest trench i’ th’ world to keep man free
From Fortune’s gunshot.”
“It has ever been my opinion
That there are none love perfectly indeed,
But those that hang or drown themselves for love,”
says Julio, anticipating Butler’s
“But he that drowns, or blows out ’s brains,
The Devil’s in him, if he feigns.”
He also anticipated La Rochefoucauld and Byron in their apophthegm concerning woman’s last love. In “The Devil’s Law-Case,” Leonora says,—
“For, as we love our youngest children best,
So the last fruit of our affection,
Wherever we bestow it, is most strong,
Most violent, most unresistible;
Since ’t is, indeed, our latest harvest-home,
Last merriment ’fore winter.”
In editing Webster, Mr. Hazlitt had the advantage (except in a single doubtful play) of a predecessor in the Rev. Alexander Dyce, beyond all question the best living scholar of the literature of the times of Elizabeth and James I. If he give no proof of remarkable fitness for his task, he seems, at least, to have been diligent and painstaking. His notes are short and to the point, and—which we consider a great merit—at the foot of the page. If he had added a glossarial index, we should have been still better pleased. Mr. Hazlitt seems to have read over the text with some care, and he has had the good sense to modernize the orthography, or, as he says, has “observed the existing standard of spelling throughout.” Yet—for what reason we cannot imagine—he prints “I” for “ay,” taking the pains to explain it every time in a note, and retains “banquerout” and “coram” apparently for the sake of telling us that they mean “bankrupt” and “quorum.” He does not seem to have a quick ear for scansion, which would sometimes have assisted him to the true reading. We give an example or two:—
“The obligation wherein we all stood bound
Cannot be concealed [cancelled] without great reproach.”
“The realm, not they,
Must be regarded. Be [we] strong and bold,
We are the people’s factors.”