That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
     Is near to England; look upon the years
     Of Lewis the Dauphin, and that lovely maid. 
     If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
     Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch? 
     If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
     Where should he find it purer than in Blanch? 
     If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
     Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch? 
     Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
     Is the young Dauphin every way complete: 
     If not complete of, say he is not she;
     And she again wants nothing, to name want,
     If want it be not, that she is not he. 
     He is the half part of a blessed man,
     Left to be finished by such as she;
     And she a fair divided excellence,
     Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. 
     O, two such silver currents, when they join,
     Do glorify the banks that bound them in;
     And two such shores to two such streams made one,
     Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, kings,
     To these two princes, if you marry them.

Another instance, which is certainly very happy as an example of the simple enumeration of a number of particulars, is Salisbury’s remonstrance against the second crowning of the king.

     Therefore to be possessed with double pomp,
     To guard a title that was rich before;
     To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
     To throw a perfume on the violet,
     To smooth the ice, to add another hue
     Unto the rainbow, or with taper light
     To seek the beauteous eye of heav’n to garnish: 
     Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

This is justly considered as one of the most delightful of Shakespeare’s comedies.  It is full of sweetness and pleasantry.  It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy.  It has little satire, and no spleen.  It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous.  It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind, not despise them, and still less bear any ill-will towards them.  Shakespeare’s comic genius resembles the bee rather in its power of extracting sweets from weeds or poisons, than in leaving a sting behind it.  He gives die most amusing exaggeration of the prevailing foibles of his characters, but in a way that they themselves, instead of being offended at, would almost join in to humour; he rather contrives opportunities for them to show themselves off in the happiest lights, than renders them contemptible in the perverse construction of the wit or malice of others.—­There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not.  This gives rise to a corresponding