He is the creature of bad habits as Caliban is of
gross instincts. He has, however, a strong notion of the natural
fitness of things, according to his own sensations--'He has been
drinking hard all night, and he will not be hanged that day'--and
Shakespeare has let him off at last. We do not understand why the
philosophical German critic, Schlegel, should be so severe on those
pleasant persons, Lucio, Pompey, and Master Froth, as to call them
'wretches'. They appear all mighty comfortable in their occupations,
and determined to pursue them, 'as the flesh and fortune should
serve'. A very good exposure of the want of self-knowledge and
contempt for others, which is so common in the world, is put into
the mouth of Abhorson, the jailer, when the Provost proposes to
associate Pompey with him in his office--'A bawd, sir? Fie upon him,
he will discredit our mystery.' And the same answer would serve in
nine instances out of ten to the same kind of remark, 'Go to, sir,
you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.' Shakespeare was
in one sense the least moral of all writers; for morality (commonly
so called) is made up of antipathies; and his talent consisted in
sympathy with human nature, in all its shapes, degrees, depressions,
and elevations. The object of the pedantic moralist is to find out
the bad in everything: his was to show that 'there is some soul of
goodness in things evil'.
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