world from which they are secluded, and find themes of consolation for the hard lot which had overtaken them. The dialogue is in many respects admirable. The verse of Act II. scene i. has the characteristics of Fletcher: double endings, end-stopt lines, vague images, It possesses much eloquence of description, and the character of the language is smooth and flowing; the versification is good and accurate, frequent in double endings, and usually finishing the sense with the line; and one or two allusions occur, which, being favourites of Fletcher's, may be in themselves a strong presumption of his authorship; the images too have in some instances a want of distinctness in application or a vagueness of outline, which could be easily paralleled from Fletcher's acknowledged writings. but romantic; The style is fuller of allusions than his usually is, but the images are more correct and better kept from confusion than Shakspeare's; some of them indeed are exquisite, but rather in the romantic and exclusively poetical tone of Fletcher, than in the natural and universal mode of feeling which animates Shakspeare. slack dialogue.The dialogue too proceeds less energetically than Shakspeare's, falling occasionally into a style of long-drawn disquisition which Fletcher often substitutes for the quick and dramatic conversations of the great poet. II. i. one of the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote. On the whole, however, this scene, if it be Fletcher's, (of which I have no doubt,) is among the very finest he ever wrote; and there are many passages in which, while he preserves his own distinctive marks, he has gathered no small portion of the flame and inspiration of his immortal friend and assistant. In the following speeches there are images and phrases, which are either identically Fletcher's, or closely resemble his, and the whole cast both of versification and idiom is strictly his:—
Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.
Palamon. Oh, cousin Ar|cite!
Where is Thebes now? where is our noble coun|try?
Where are our friends and kindreds? Never more
Must we behold those comforts; never see
The hardy youths strive in the games of hon|our,
Hung with the painted favours of their la|dies,
Like tall ships under sail; then start among | them,
And as an east wind leave them all behind | us
Like lazy clouds, while Palamon and Ar|cite,
Even in the wagging of a wanton leg,
Outstript the people's praises, won the gar|lands,
[37:1]Ere they have time to wish them ours. Oh, nev|er
Shall we two exercise, like twins of hon|our,
Our arms again, and feel our fiery hors|es
Like proud seas under us! our good swords now,
(Better the red-eyed god of war ne'er wore,)
Ravish'd our sides, like age must run to rust,
And deck the temples of the gods that hate | us:
These hands shall never draw them out like light|ning
To blast whole armies more.
Picture fully wrought out.
Romantic, pathetic sketch.
Arcite. ...
The sweet embraces of a loving wife,
Loaden with kisses, arm'd with thousand cu|pids,
Shall never clasp our necks: no issue know | us;
No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see,
To glad our age, and like young eagles teach | them
Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say,
"Remember what your fathers were, and con|quer."
—The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments,
And in their songs curse ever-blinded For|tune,
Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done
To youth and Nature.—This is all our world:
We shall know nothing here but one anoth|er,—
Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes;
The vine shall grow, but we shall never see | it:
Summer shall come, and with her all delights,
But dead-cold winter must inhabit here | still!
Palamon. 'Tis too true, Arcite! To our Theban hounds,
That shook the aged forest with their ech|oes,
No more now must we halloo; no more shake
Our pointed javelins, whilst the angry swine
Flies like a Parthian[37:2] quiver from our rag|es,
Struck with our well-steel'd darts....
In this scene there is one train of metaphors which is perhaps as characteristic of Fletcher as any thing that could be produced. Lines from II. i. on page [38], of slow orderly development of ideas, markt by Fletcher's characteristics. It is marked by a slowness of association which he often shews. Several allusions are successively introduced; but by each, as it appears, we are prepared for and can anticipate the next; we see the connection of ideas in the poet's mind through which the one has sprung out of the other, and that all are but branches, of which one original thought is the root. No leap to the end, and off with a fresh bound, like Shakspere. All this is the work of [37:3]a less
fertile fancy and a more tardy understanding than Shakspeare's: he would have leaped over many of the intervening steps, and, reaching at once the most remote particular of the series, would have immediately turned away to weave some new chain of thought:—
All workt out thro' every step.