rvation of
his friends, much less his enemies. A friend and former pupil of his
own,--Sir Wm. Cornwallis, speaking in high praise of Florio's
translation of Montaigne, observes,--"It is done by a fellow less
beholding to Nature for his fortune than to wit; yet lesser for his
_face_ than his fortune. The truth is, he looks more like a good
fellow than a wise man; and yet he is wise beyond either his fortune
or education." [9] It is certain, then, that, behaving like a fool in
some things, he looked very like a fool in others.

Is it not a remarkable coincidence, that both his supposed dramatic
counterparts have the same peculiarity? When Armado tells the
'country lass' he is wooing, that he will 'tell her wonders,' she
exclaims,--'skittish female' that she is,--'What, with that _face_?'
And when Holofernes, nettled with the ridicule showered on his
abortive impersonation of Judas Maccabaeus, says, 'I will not be put
out of countenance,'--Byron replies, 'Because thou hast no face.'
The indignant pedant justifies, and, pointing to his physiognomy,
inquires, 'What is this?' Whereupon the waggish courtiers proceed to
define it: it is 'a cittern-head,' 'the head of a bodkin,' 'a
death's-face in a ring,' 'the face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen,'
and so forth.

The satire here embodied is of a nature too personal to be
considered the mere work of a riotous fancy. It is a trait
individualizing and particularising the person at whom the more
general satire is aimed; and, coupled with the infirmities of the
victim's moral nature, it fastens upon poor Florio identity with
"the brace of coxcombs." Such satire may be censured as ungenerous;
we cannot help that,--_litera scripta manet_,--and we cannot rail
the seal from the bond. Such attacks were the general, if not
universal, practice of the age in which Shakspeare flourished; and we
have no right to blame him for not being as far in advance of his age,
morally, as he was intellectually. A notorious instance of a
personal attack under various characters in one play is to be found
in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," wherein he boasts of having,
under the characters of Lanthorn, Leatherhead, the Puppet-showman,
and Adam Overdo, satirized the celebrated Inigo Jones,--

"By all his titles and whole style at once
Of tireman, montebank, and Justice Jones."

It was probably to confront and outface "Aristophanes and his
comedians," and to "abrogate the scurrility" of the "sea-