e that makes him so. But then it is to be
observed, on the other hand, that as in such cases men find only what
they bring the faculties for finding, so the meeting with her would
not have elicited such music from him, had not his nature been
originally responsive to hers. For he is manifestly drawn and held to
her by a powerful instinct of congeniality. And none but a living
abstract and sum-total of all that is manly could have so felt the
perfections of such a woman. The difference between them is, that she
was herself before she saw him, and would have been the same without
him; whereas he was not and could not be himself, as we see him, till
he caught inspiration from her; so that he is but right in saying,--

"I bless the time
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father's ground."

Nevertheless it is a clear instance of the pre-established harmony of
souls: but that his spirit were akin to hers, he could not have
recognized his peer through such a disguise of circumstances. For any
one to be untouched and unsweetened by the heavenly purity of their
courtship, were indeed a sin almost too great to be forgiven.

Shakespeare knew,--none better,--that in order to be a lover in any
right sense of the term, one must first be a man. He therefore does
not leave the Prince without an opportunity to show that he is such.
And it is not till after the King has revealed himself, and blown up
the mirth of the feast by his explosion of wrath, that the Prince
displays his proper character in this respect. I need not stay to
remark how well the Poet orders the action for that purpose; suffice
it to say that the Prince then fully makes good his previous
declaration:

"Were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve; had force and knowledge
More than was ever man's; I would not prize them,
Without her love; for her employ them all;
Commend them or condemn them to her service,
Or to their own perdition."

The minor characters of this play are both well conceived and
skilfully disposed, the one giving them a fair personal, the other a
fair dramatic interest. The old Shepherd and his clown of a son are
near, if not in, the Poet's happiest comic vein. Autolycus, the
"snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," is the most amiable and
ingenious rogue we should desire to see; who cheats almost as div