The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 2

'Ros'. You must be purged too, your sins are rank; You are attaint with fault and perjury: Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest...

There is no authority for any alteration;--but I never can help feeling how great an improvement it would be, if the two former of Hermia's exclamations were omitted;--the third...

The paucity of spondees in single words in English and, indeed, in the modern languages in general, makes, perhaps, the greatest distinction, metrically considered, between them...

Very Anacreon in perfectness, proportion, grace, and spontaneity! So far it is Greek;--but then add, O! what wealth, what wild ranging, and yet what compression and condensation...

There is a beauty here. The word 'boy' naturally provokes and awakens in Orlando the sense of his manly powers; and with the retort of 'elder brother,' he grasps him with firm h...

I question whether there exists a parallel instance of a phrase, that like this of 'horns' is universal in all languages, and yet for which no one has discovered even a plausibl...

Warburton's alteration of _is_ into _in_ is needless. 'Fancy' may very well be interpreted 'exclusive affection,' or 'passionate preference.' Thus, bird-fanciers, gentlemen of t...

And yet Viola was to have been presented to Orsino as a eunuch!--Act i. sc. 2. Viola's speech. Either she forgot this, or else she had altered her plan.

Theobald's etymology of 'cheveril' is, of course quite right;--but he is mistaken in supposing that there were no such things as gloves of chicken-skin. They were at one time a...

Surely Warburton could never have wooed by kisses and won, or he would not have flounder-flatted so just and humorous, nor less pleasing than humorous, an image into so profound...

It would be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest 'bastards,' for ''bated.' As it stands, in spite of Wa...

Shall we say here, that Shakspeare has unnecessarily made his loveliest character utter a lie?--Or shall we dare think that, where to deceive was necessary, he thought a pretend...

I cannot understand this. Perhaps there is a corruption both of words and speakers. Shallow no sooner corrects one mistake of Sir Hugh's, namely, 'louse' for 'luce,' a pike, but...

I cannot but think this rather an heroic resolve, than an infamous wish. It appears to me to be the grandest symptom of an immortal spirit, when even that bedimmed and overwhelm...

There can be little doubt of Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendations of 'courtiers' and 'king,' as to the sense;--only it is not impossible that Shakspeare's dramatic language may allow of t...

How is it that the commentators take no notice of the un-Shakspearian defect in the metre of the second line, and what in Shakspeare is the same, in the harmony with the sense a...

That Shakspeare never 'turned his genius to stage writing,' as Theobald most 'Theobaldice' phrases it, before he became an actor, is an assertion of about as much authority, as...

Mr. Pope (after Dryden) informs us, that the story of Troilus and Cressida was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard: but Dryden goes yet further; he declares it to have...

Should it be 'accosting?' 'Accost her, knight, accost!' in the Twelfth Night. Yet there sounds a something so Shakspearian in the phrase--'give a coasting welcome,' ('coasting'...

Mine emulation Hath not that honor in't, it had; for where I thought to crush him in an equal force, True sword to sword; I'll potch at him some way, Or wrath, or craft may get...

I have always thought this in itself so beautiful speech, the least explicable from the mood and full intention of the speaker, of any in the whole works of Shakspeare. I cheris...

The speeches of Flavius and Marullus are in blank verse. Wherever regular metre can be rendered truly imitative of character, passion, or personal rank, Shakspeare seldom, if ev...

It must be by his death; and, for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crown'd:-- How that might change his nature, there's the qu...

Pardon me, Julius--here wast thou bay'd, brave hart; Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy death. _O world! thou wast the fo...

This seemingly strange assertion of Brutus is unhappily verified in the present day. What is an immense army, in which the lust of plunder has quenched all the duties of the cit...

Warburton's conjecture of 'stool' is ingenious, and would be a probable reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his lap. But, represented as he is...

I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakspeare wrote the first 'mermaids.' He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless anticipation the fine image immediat...

Warburton's comment--'If the man be honest, for that reason he will be so in this, and not endeavour at the injustice of gaining my daughter without my consent'--is, like almost...

Either, methinks, 'plays' should be 'play'd,' or 'and' should be changed to 'while.' I can certainly understand it as a parenthesis, an interadditive of scorn; but it does not s...

How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!--takes virtuous copies to be wicked; _like those that under hot, ardent, zeal would set whole realms on fire. Of such a nature is hi...

I cannot see the necessity of this alteration. The editors and commentators are, all of them, ready enough to cry out against Shakspeare's laxities and licenses of style, forget...

'Cap'. He shall be endur'd. What, goodman boy!--I say, he shall:--Go to;-- Am I the master here, or you?--Go to. You'll not endure him!--God shall mend my soul-- You'll make a m...

Take notice in this enchanting scene of the contrast of Romeo's love with his former fancy; and weigh the skill shown in justifying him from his inconstancy by making us feel th...

'Mer.' No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough: 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man, &c.

O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body Upon a rapier's point:--Stay, Tybalt, stay!-- Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

I prefer the old text; the word 'devil' implies 'fiery.' You need only read the line, laying a full and strong emphasis on 'devil,' to perceive the uselessness and tastelessness...

I remember in the Sophoclean drama no more striking example of the [Greek (transliterated): To prepon kai semnon] than this speech; and the rhymes in the last six lines well exp...

'Ib.' sc. 4. See here the skill and judgment of our poet in giving reality and individual life, by the introduction of accidents in his historic plays, and thereby making them d...

A most obscure passage: but I think Theobalds' interpretation right, namely, that 'thirsty entrance' means the dry penetrability, or bibulous drought, of the soil. The obscurity...

Perhaps it is a misprint, or a provincial pronunciation, for 'leach,' that is, blood-suckers. Had it been gnats, instead of fleas, there might have been some sense, though small...

This 'nay' so to be dwelt on in speaking, as to be equivalent to a dissyllable--[Symbol: written as a U-shape, below the line], is characteristic of the solemn Glendower: but th...

I am sometimes disposed to think that this respectable young lady's name is a very old corruption for Tear-street--street-walker, 'terere stratum (viam.)' Does not the Prince's...

I know no argument by which to persuade any one to be of my opinion, or rather of my feeling; but yet I cannot help feeling that 'Happy low-lie-down!' is either a proverbial exp...

Does 'grace' mean the king's own peculiar domains and legal revenue, and 'highness' his feudal rights in the military service of his nobles?--I have sometimes thought it possibl...

Ludicrous as these introductory scraps of French appear, so instantly followed by good, nervous mother-English, yet they are judicious, and produce the impression which Shakspea...

Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky; And with them scourge the bad revolti...

There is something of disgust at the ruthless hypocrisy of her sisters, and some little faulty admixture of pride and sullenness in Cordelia's 'Nothing;' and her tone is well co...

external nature in a storm, all moral nature convulsed,--the real madness of Lear, the feigned madness of Edgar, the babbling of the Fool, the desperate fidelity of Kent--surely...

Ha! Goneril!--with a white beard!--They flattered me like a dog; and told me, I had white hairs in my beard, ere the black ones were there. To say _Ay_ and _No_ to every thing I...

How delightfully natural is the transition to the retrospective narrative! And observe, upon the Ghost's reappearance, how much Horatio's courage is increased by having translat...

In all things dependent on, or rather made up of, fine address, the manner is no more or otherwise rememberable than the light motions, steps, and gestures of youth and health....

This speech is of absolutely universal interest,--and yet to which of all Shakspeare's characters could it have been appropriately given but to Hamlet? For Jaques it would have...

Act. iv. sc. 5. Ophelia's singing. O, note the conjunction here of these two thoughts that had never subsisted in disjunction, the love for Hamlet, and her filial love, with the...

'Ib.' sc. 1 and 2. Shakspeare seems to mean all Hamlet's character to be brought together before his final disappearance from the scene;--his meditative excess in the grave-digg...

'Ib.' sc. 2. Now that the deed is done or doing--now that the first reality commences, Lady Macbeth shrinks. The most simple sound strikes terror, the most natural consequences...

this place with Schiller's mistaken scene between Butler, Devereux, and Macdonald in Wallenstein. (Part II. act iv. sc. 2.) The comic was wholly out of season. Shakspeare never...

'Ib.' sc. 2. This scene, dreadful as it is, is still a relief, because a variety, because domestic, and therefore soothing, as associated with the only real pleasures of life. T...

Observe the easy style of chitchat between Camillo and Archidamus as contrasted with the elevated diction on the introduction of the kings and Hermione in the second scene: and...

Fine as this is, and delicately characteristic of one who had lived and been reared in the best society, and had been precipitated from it by dice and drabbing; yet still it str...

Shakspearian, in the introduction of Roderigo, as the dupe on whom Iago shall first exercise his art, and in so doing display his own character. Roderigo, without any fixed prin...

'Æmil.' Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having the world for your labour,'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right.

Thus it is for no-poets to comment on the greatest of poets! To make Othello say that he, who had killed his wife, was like Herod who killed Mariamne!--O, how many beauties, in...

It would form an interesting essay, or rather series of essays, in a periodical work, were all the attempts to ridicule new phrases brought together, the proportion observed of...

'Arr'. And dead, it comes to Drusus. Should he fail, To the brave issue of Germanicus; And they are three: too many (ha?) for him To have a plot upon?

Adultery! it is the lightest ill I will commit. A race of wicked acts Shall flow out of my anger, and o'erspread The world's wide face, which no posterity Shall e'er approve, no...

irrational. To believe, and yet to scoff at, a present miracle is little less than impossible. Sejanus should have been made to suspect priestcraft and a secret conspiracy again...

It should be 'quit', no doubt; but not meaning 'discharged from working,' &c.--but quit, that is, acquitted. The pewterer was at his holiday diversion as well as the other appre...

What does 'trunk' mean here and in the 1st scene of the 1st act? Is it a large ear-trumpet?--or rather a tube, such as passes from parlour to kitchen, instead of a bell?

Another reading is 'Testament.' Probably, the meaning is,--that intending to give false evidence, he carried a Greek Xenophon to pass it off for a Greek Testament, and so avoid...

A fondness for judging one work by comparison with others, perhaps altogether of a different class, argues a vulgar taste. Yet it is chiefly on this principle that the Catiline...

This is either an unintelligible, or, in every sense, a most unnatural, passage,--improbable, if not impossible, at the moment of signing and swearing such a conspiracy, to the...

What a strange notion Ben must have formed of a determined, remorseless, all-daring, fool-hardiness, to have represented it in such a mouthing Tamburlane, and bombastic tongue-b...

Does not this confirm, what the passage itself cannot but suggest, the propriety of substituting 'booty' for 'beauty' in Falstaff's speech, Henry IV. Pt. I. act i. sc. 2. 'Let n...

Compare this exquisite piece of sense, satire, and sound philosophy in 1616 with Sir M. Hale's speech from the bench in a trial of a witch many years afterwards. [1]

Now, however, I doubt the legitimacy of my transposition of the 'of' from the beginning of this latter line to the end of the one preceding;--for though it facilitates the metre...

Instead of reading with Whalley 'ply' for 'play,' I would suggest 'horse' for 'house.' The meaning would then be obvious and pertinent. The punlet, or pun-maggot, or pun intenti...

confessed, was in the right in considering the Fly, Tipto, Bat Burst, &c. of this play mere dotages. Such a scene as this was enough to damn a new play; and Nick Stuff is worse...

This is an instance of that modifying of quantity by emphasis, without which our elder poets cannot be scanned. 'Power,' here, instead of being one long syllable--pow'r--must be...

What strange self-trumpeters and tongue-bullies all the brave soldiers of Beaumont and Fletcher are! Yet I am inclined to think it was the fashion of the age from the Soldier's...

It is worth noticing that of the three greatest tragedians, Massinger was a democrat, Beaumont and Fletcher the most servile _jure divino_ royalist, and Shakspeare a philosopher...

It would be amusing to learn from some existing friend of Mr. Seward what he meant, or rather dreamed, in this note. It is certainly a difficult passage, of which there are two...

Did I for this consume my _quarters_ in meditations, vows, and woo'd her in heroical epistles? Did I expound the Owl, and undertake, with labor and expense, the recollection of...

Licentious as the comic metre of B. and F. is,--a far more lawless, and yet far less happy, imitation of the rhythm of animated talk in real life than Massinger's--still it is m...

Jealous of Virgil's honor, he is afraid lest, by referring to the Georgics alone, he might be understood as undervaluing the preceding work. 'Not that I do not admire the Bucoli...

I can make sense of this passage as little as Mr. Seward;--the passage from Philaster is nothing to the purpose. Instead of 'a story,' I have sometimes thought of proposing 'Ast...

Nonsense! 'Whiteness of name,' is in apposition to 'the serious part of life,' and means a deservedly pure reputation. The following line--'You _must_ be mine!' means--'Though I...

The present text, and that proposed by Seward, are equally vile. I have endeavoured to make the lines sense, though the whole is, I suspect, incurable except by bold conjectural...

The editors, and their contemporaries in general, were ignorant of any but the regular iambic verse. A study of the Aristophanic and Plautine metres would have enabled them to r...

This worse than superfluous 'like' is very like an interpolation of some matter of fact critic--all 'pus, prose atque venenum'. The 'your' in the next line, instead of 'their,'...

It is well worthy of notice, and yet has not been, I believe, noticed hitherto, what a marked difference there exists in the dramatic writers of the Elizabetho-Jacobæan age--(Me...

Mr. Seward discards the words 'for lying', because 'most of the things spoke of Estifania are true, with only a little exaggeration, and because they destroy all appearance of m...

The poet intended no allusion to the word 'Erota' itself; but says that her very name, 'the proud Erota,' became a character and adage; as we say, a Quixote or a Brutus: so to s...

tolerable temper towards Fletcher. So very slavish--so reptile--are the feelings and sentiments represented as duties. And yet remember he was a bishop's son, and the duty to Go...

The whole of this speech seems corrupt; and if accurately printed,--that is, if the same in all the prior editions, irremediable but by bold conjecture. ''Till' my tackle,' shou...

sort of talisman, or strange something, that might be lost without the least fault on the part of the owner. In short, their chaste ladies value their chastity as a material thi...

This character of Aubrey, and the whole spirit of this and several other plays of the same authors, are interesting as traits of the morals which it was fashionable to teach in...

Pity, that the editor did not explain wherein the sense, 'seemingly enforced by the next line,' consists. May the true word be 'a sable,' that is, a black fox, hunted for its pr...

This Mr. Seward is a blockhead of the provoking species. In his itch for correction, he forgot the words--'lies my safe way!' The Bear is the extreme pole, and thither he would...

hit off; but this scene with Roderigo is truly excellent. Altogether, indeed, this play holds the first place in B. and F.'s romantic entertainments, 'Lustspiele', which collect...

In respect of style and versification, this play and the following of Bonduca may be taken as the best, and yet as characteristic, specimens of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramas. I...

Pshaw! 'Sit' is either a misprint for 'set,' or the old and still provincial word for 'set,' as the participle passive of 'seat' or 'set.' I have heard an old Somersetshire gard...

Nay, some will swear they love their mistress so, They would hazard lives and fortunes to preserve One of her hairs brighter than Berenice's, Or young Apollo's; and yet, after t...

It would be very easy to restore all this passage to metre, by supplying a sentence of four syllables, which the reasoning almost demands, and by correcting the grammar. Read th...

In this (as, indeed, in all other respects; but most in this) it is that Shakspeare is so incomparably superior to Fletcher and his friend,--in judgment! What can be conceived m...

I conjecture 'imports,' that is, duties or offices of importance. The flow of the versification in this speech seems to demand the trochaic ending--/u/; while the text blends ji...

Notwithstanding the sentiment of the Roman satirist, which denies the divinity of fortune; and the opinion of Seneca to the same purpose; Cicero, who was, I believe, a wiser man...

Even in the most questionable part of Tom Jones, I cannot but think, after frequent reflection, that an additional paragraph, more fully and forcibly unfolding Tom Jones's sense...

That refined degree of Platonic affection which is absolutely detached from the flesh, and is indeed entirely and purely spiritual, is a gift confined to the female part of the...

Yet there want not learned writers (whom I need not name) of the opinion that even the instrumental penmen of the Scripture might commit [Greek: hamartaemata mnaemonika]: though...

The historical origin of this scandal, which in nine cases out of ten is the honour of the medical profession, may, perhaps, be found in the fact, that Ænesidemus and Sextus Emp...

Let me be nothing, if within the compass of myself, I do not finde the battaile of Lepanto, passion against reason, 'reason against faith', faith against the devil, and my consc...

Cardanus--is of singular use unto a prudent reader; but unto him that only desireth 'hoties', or to replenish his head with varieties,--he may become no small occasion of error.

astringent power, comparatively uncounteracted by the dilative, the diminution of which is the proportional increase of the contractive. Hence the astringent, or power of negati...

The rivers from Eden were, perhaps, meant to symbolize, or rather expressed only, the great primary races of mankind. Sir T.B. was the very man to have seen this; but the supers...