say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

_Hor._ So have I heard and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

This bewitching music is heard again in Hamlet's farewell to Horatio:

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

But after _Hamlet_ this music is heard no more. It is followed by a
music vaster and deeper, but not the same.

The changes observable in _Hamlet_ are afterwards, and gradually, so
greatly developed that Shakespeare's style and versification at last
become almost new things. It is extremely difficult to illustrate this
briefly in a manner to which no just exception can be taken, for it is
almost impossible to find in two plays passages bearing a sufficiently
close resemblance to one another in occasion and sentiment. But I will
venture to put by the first of those quotations from _Hamlet_ this from
_Macbeth_:

_Dun._ This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

_Ban._ This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate;

and by the second quotation from _Hamlet_ this from _Antony and
Cleopatra_:

The miserable change now at my end
Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
In feeding them with those my former fortunes
Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,
The noblest; and do now not basely die,
Not cowardly put off my helmet to
My countryman,--a Roman by a Roman
Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going;
I can no more.

It would be almost an impertinence to point out in detail how greatly
these two passages, and especially the