. William Shakespere : a biography. on of them, but the commonest things, even the vulgarest things, hidicroubbut for their management, become in the highest degree poetical. Many a timein the low meadows of the Avon would Shakspere have seen the irritation of theherd under the torments of the gad-fly. The poet takes this common thing todescribe an event which changed the destinies of the world :— Yon ribald uag of Egypt,Whom leprosy oertake ! i the midst o the fight,—When vantage like a pair of twins appeard,Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,—The hrize upon her, like a cow in June,Ho
. William Shakespere : a biography. on of them, but the commonest things, even the vulgarest things, hidicroubbut for their management, become in the highest degree poetical. Many a timein the low meadows of the Avon would Shakspere have seen the irritation of theherd under the torments of the gad-fly. The poet takes this common thing todescribe an event which changed the destinies of the world :— Yon ribald uag of Egypt,Whom leprosy oertake ! i the midst o the fight,—When vantage like a pair of twins appeard,Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,—The hrize upon her, like a cow in June,Hoists sails, and flies. * When Hector is in the field, The strawy Greeks, ripe for his down before him, like the mowers swath. t Brutus, speculating upon the probable consequences of Cresar becoming :— It is the bright day that brings forth the addur,And that craves wary walking.^ • Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii., Scene TroiluB and Creeaida, Act v., Scene v. * Julius Caesar, Act ii., Scene, i. i^Meadowa neai Welfoi WILLIAM SHAKSPERE : The same object had been seen and described in an earlier play, without its grandassociation:— The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun. * The snake seems a Uege subject of the domain of poetry. Her enamel skin isa weed for a fairy ; f the green and gilded snake wreathed around the sleepingman:}: is a picture. But what ordinary writer would not shrink from the poet-ical handling of a snail ? It is the surpassing accuracy of the naturalist thathas introduced the snail into one of the noblest passages of the poet, in juxta-position with the Hesperides and Apollos lute :—■ Loves feeling is more soft and sensibleThan are the tender horns of cockled snails. § One of the grandest scenes of a tragedy of the mature poet is full of the mostfamiliar images derived from an accurate observation of the natural world. Theimages seem to rise up spontaneously out of the minute recollections of a lifespent in wat
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookpublisherlondon, booksubjectshakespearewill
