e another in splendor of dress and number of
retinue, and every great lord had a sort of small court of his own.
The distinction of ranks was as yet strongly marked--a state of things
ardently to be desired by the dramatic poet. In conversation they took
pleasure in quick and unexpected answers; and the witty sally passed
rapidly like a ball from mouth to mouth, till the merry game could no
longer be kept up. This, and the abuse of the play on words (of which
King James was himself very fond, and we need not therefore wonder at
the universality of the mode), may, doubtless, be considered as
instances of a bad taste; but to take them for symptoms of rudeness
and barbarity is not less absurd than to infer the poverty of a people
from their luxurious extravagance. These strained repartees are
frequently employed by Shakespeare, with the view of painting the
actual tone of the society in his day; it does not, however, follow
that they met with his approbation; on the contrary, it clearly
appears that he held them in derision. Hamlet says, in the scene with
the gravedigger, "By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken
note of it: the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant
comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." And
Lorenzo, in the _Merchant of Venice_, alluding to Launcelot:

O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
The fool hath planted in his memory
An army of good words: and I do know
A many fools, that stand in better place,
Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word
Defy the matter.

Besides, Shakespeare, in a thousand places, lays great and marked
stress on a correct and refined tone of society, and lashes every
deviation from it, whether of boorishness or affected foppery; not
only does he give admirable discourses on it, but he represents it in
all its shades and modifications by rank, age, or sex. What foundation
is there, then, for the alleged barbarity of his age, its offences
against propriety? But if this is to be admitted as a test, then the
ages of Pericles and Augustus must also be described as rude and
uncultivated; for Aristophanes and Horace, who were both considered as
models of urbanity, display, at times, the coarsest indelicacy. On
this subject, the diversity in the moral feeling of ages depends on
other causes. Shakespeare, it is true, sometimes introduces us to
improper company; at others, he suffers ambiguous expressions to
escape in the