to his
"White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine,
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves—"[286]
or his
"… magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn—"[287]
in which the very same note is struck as in those extracts which I quoted from Celtic romance, and struck with authentic and unmistakable power.
Shakespeare, in handling nature, touches this Celtic note so exquisitely, that perhaps one is inclined to be always looking for the Celtic note in him, and not to recognize his Greek note when it comes. But if one attends well to the difference between the two notes, and bears in mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil's "moss-grown springs and grass softer than sleep:"—
"Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba—"[288]
as his charming flower-gatherer, who—
"Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens
Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi—"[289]
as his quinces and chestnuts:—