t there are few in which he impresses the notion of
angelic strength so much;--perhaps none in which he impresses it more
strongly. This is greatly owing to the manner in which the fiery force is
sustained throughout, and to the numerous momentary flashes of nature
counteracting the historic abstraction. As a wonderful specimen of the way
in which Shakespeare lives up to the very end of this play, read the last
part of the concluding scene. And if you would feel the judgment as well
as the genius of Shakespeare in your heart's core, compare this
astonishing drama with Dryden's _All For Love_.

Act i. sc. 1. Philo's speech:--

... "His captain's heart
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, _reneges_ all temper."

It should be "reneagues," or "reniegues," as "fatigues," &c.

_Ib._--

"Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's _fool_."

Warburton's conjecture of "stool" is ingenious, and would be a probable
reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his
lap. But, represented as he is walking and jesting with her, "fool" must
be the word. Warburton's objection is shallow, and implies that he
confounded the dramatic with the epic style. The "pillar" of a state is so
common a metaphor as to have lost the image in the thing meant to be
imaged.

_Ib._ sc. 2.--

... "Much is breeding;
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison."

This is so far true to appearance, that a horse-hair, "laid," as
Hollinshed says, "in a pail of water," will become the supporter of
seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy
water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it.
It is a common experiment with school boys in Cumberland and Westmoreland.

Act ii. sc. 2. Speech of Enobarbus:--

"Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many _mermaids_, tended her i' th' eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers."

I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakespeare wrote the
first "mermaids." He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless
anticipation the fine image immediately following. The epithet "seeming"
becomes so extremely improper after the whole number had been positively
called "so many mermaids."

"Timon Of Athens."

Act i. sc. 1.--

"_Tim