the terror of our race into one long and awful sentence.  Perhaps Shakspere was stricken with momentary pity for the cowardice of his fellows, and, out of pure compassion, gave their agony a voice.  That may be; at any rate, the fragment of “Measure for Measure” in which the cry of loathing and fear is uttered stands as the most striking and unforgettable saying that ever was conceived in the brain of man.  Everybody knows the lines, yet we may once more touch our souls with solemnity by quoting them: 

  “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
  To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
  This sensible warm motion to become
  A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit
  To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
  In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
  To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
  And blown with restless violence round about
  The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
  Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
  Imagine howling!—­’tis too horrible! 
  The weariest and most loathed worldly life
  That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
  Can lay on nature is a paradise
  To what we fear of death.”

There is no more to be said in that particular line of reflection; the speech is flawless in its gruesome power, and every piercing word seems to leap from a shuddering soul.  The other utterance which is fit to be matched with Shakspere’s was written by Charles Lamb.  “Whatsoever thwarts or puts me out of my way brings death into my mind.  All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital plague-sore.  I have heard some profess an indifference to life.  Such hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge, and speak of the grave as of some soft arms in which they may slumber as on a pillow.  Some have wooed death—­but ‘Out upon thee,’ I say, ’thou foul, ugly phantom!  I detest, abhor, execrate thee, as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper, to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of!  In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation.  Those antidotes prescribed against the fear of thee are altogether frigid and insulting, like thyself.’”

Poor Charles’s wild humour flickers over this page like lambent flame; yet he was serious at heart without a doubt, and his whirling words rouse an echo in many a breast to this day.  But both Shakspere and Lamb had their higher moments.  Turn to “Cymbeline,” and observe the glorious triumph of the dirge which rings like the magnificent exultation of Beethoven’s Funeral March—­

  “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
    Nor the furious winter’s rages;
  Thou thy worldly task hast done,
    Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
  Golden lads and girls all must,
    As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  Fear no more the frown o’ the great—­
    Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
  Care no more to clothe and eat—­
    To thee the reed is as the oak;
  The sceptre, learning, physic, must
    All follow this, and come to dust.”