In the second scene of this act, the only one which bears reference to the main business of the piece, Emilia first muses over the pictures of her two suitors, and then hears from a messenger, in presence of Theseus and his attendants, a description, (taken in [44:1]its elements from the Knightes Tale,) of the warriors who were preparing for the field along with the champion lovers. Emilia's soliloquy on the pictures, not Shakspere's. In the soliloquy of the lady, while the poetical spirit is well preserved, the alternations of feeling are given with an abruptness and a want of insight into the nicer shades of association, which resemble the extravagant stage effects of the 'King and No King,' infinitely more than the delicate yet piercing glance with which Shakspeare looks into the human breast in the 'Othello'; the language, too, is smoother and less
powerful than Shakspeare's, and one or two classical allusions are a little too correct and studied for him. Act IV. scene ii. Fletcher's. One image occurs, not the clearest or most chastened, in which Fletcher closely repeats himself:—
His description of Arcite, paralleld in his Philaster.
What a brow,
Of what a spacious majesty, he car|ries!
Arched like the great-eyed Juno's, but far sweet|er,—
Smoother than Pelop's shoulder. Fame and Hon|our,
Methinks, from hence, as from a promontor|y
Pointed in Heaven, should clap their wings, and sing
To all the under-world, the loves and fights
Of gods and such men near them.[45:1]
Act V. is Shakspere's,
In the Fifth Act we again feel the presence of the Master of the Spell. Several passages in this portion are marked by as striking tokens of his art as anything which we read in 'Macbeth' or 'Coriolanus.' The whole act, a very long one, may be boldly attributed to him, with the exception of one episodical scene.
except scene iv. (Weber: sc. ii. Littledale).
The time has arrived for the combat. Three temples are exhibited, as in Chaucer, in which the rival Knights, and the [45:2]Lady of their Vows, respectively pay their adorations. One principal aim of their supplications is to learn the result of the coming contest; but the suspense is kept up by each of the Knights receiving a favourable response, and Emilia a doubtful one. Act V. sc. ii.[45:3] (i. L.) is lower in key. Act V. sc. i. iii. (Weber: both i. Littledale) are Shakspere's all through. Three scenes are thus occupied, the second of which is in somewhat a lower key than the other two; but even in it there is much beauty; and in the first and third the tense dignity and pointedness of the language, the gorgeousness and overflow of illustration, and the reach, the mingled familiarity and elevation of thought, are admirable, inimitable, and decisive.
From these exquisite scenes there is a temptation to quote too largely.
Act V. scene i.