Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,

And never stays to greet him. Ay, quoth Jaques,

Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;

'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?"[434:A]

As might be imagined, music, the food of melancholy as well as of love, is the chief consolation of Jaques; he tells Amiens, who, on finishing a song, had objected to his request of singing again, that it would make him melancholy. "I thank it. More, I pr'ythee more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs: More, I pr'ythee, more[434:B];" and we can well conceive with what exquisite pleasure he listened to the subsequent song of the same nobleman:

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,