cannot, for my part, find that Shakespeare had such an invincible and immoderate passion for this verbal witticism.  It is true, he sometimes makes a most lavish use of this figure; at others, he has employed it very sparingly; and at times (for example, in Macbeth) I do not believe a vestige of it is to be found.  Hence, in respect to the use or the rejection of the play upon words, he must have been guided by the measure of the objects and the different style in which they required to be treated, and probably have followed here, as in everything else, principles which, fairly examined, will bear a strict examination.

The objection that Shakespeare wounds our feelings by the open display of the most disgusting moral odiousness, unmercifully harrows up the mind, and tortures even our eyes by the exhibition of the most insupportable and hateful spectacles, is one of greater and graver importance.  He has, in fact, never varnished over wild and bloodthirsty passions with a pleasing exterior—­never clothed crime and want of principle with a false show of greatness of soul; and in that respect he is every way deserving of praise.  Twice he has portrayed downright villains, and the masterly way in which he has contrived to elude impressions of too painful a nature may be seen in Iago and Richard the Third.  I allow that the reading, and still more the sight, of some of his pieces, is not advisable to weak nerves, any more than was the Eumenides of AEschylus; but is the poet, who can reach an important object only by a bold and hazardous daring, to be checked by considerations for such persons?  If the effeminacy of the present day is to serve as a general standard of what tragical composition may properly exhibit to human nature, we shall be forced to set very narrow limits indeed to art, and the hope of anything like powerful effect must at once and forever be renounced.  If we wish to have a grand purpose, we must also wish to have the grand means, and our nerves ought in some measure to accommodate themselves to painful impressions, if, by way of requital, our mind is thereby elevated and strengthened.  The constant reference to a petty and puny race must cripple the boldness of the poet.  Fortunately for his art, Shakespeare lived in an age extremely susceptible of noble and tender impressions, but which had yet inherited enough of the firmness of a vigorous olden time not to shrink with dismay from every strong and forcible painting.  We have lived to see tragedies of which the catastrophe consists in the swoon of an enamored princess:  if Shakespeare falls occasionally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble error, originating in the fulness of a gigantic strength.  And this tragical Titan, who storms the heavens and threatens to tear the world off its hinges, who, more terrible than AEschylus, makes our hair stand on end and congeals our blood with horror, possessed at the same time the insinuating loveliness of the sweetest poesy; he toys with love