We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,
Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat:
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely.
The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardly
satisfactory; for nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passion
of the mind for unknown good, but experience.--The forest of Arden
in As You Like It can alone compare with the mountain scenes in
Cymbeline: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one from
the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in the
other! Shakespeare not only lets us into the minds of his
characters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describes
from the feelings of their imaginary inhabitants. He at the same
time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives
all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest
things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the
gallant sportsmen in Cymbeline have to encounter the abrupt
declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a
level path. The deer in Cymbeline are only regarded as objects of
prey, 'The game's a-foot', &c.--with Jaques they are fine subjects
to moralize upon at leisure, 'under the shade of melancholy boughs'.
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