It is
indeed admirable both for strength and grace. It has sometimes
occurred to us that Shakespeare, in describing 'the reformation' of
the Prince, might have had an eye to himself--
Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow,
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.
Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness, which no doubt
Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
This at least is as probable an account of the progress of the
poet's mind as we have met with in any of the Essays on the Learning
of Shakespeare.
Nothing can be better managed than the caution which the king gives
the meddling Archbishop, not to advise him rashly to engage in the
war with France, his scrupulous dread of the consequences of that
advice, and his eager desire to hear and follow it.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth.
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