in a coranto?  My very walk should be a jig!  I would not so much as make water but in a cinque-pace.  What dost thou mean?  Is this a world to hide virtues in?  I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was framed under the star of a galliard!’—­How Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown afterwards chirp over their cups, how they ’rouse the night-owl in a catch, able to draw three souls out of one weaver’!—­What can be better than Sir Toby’s unanswerable answer to Malvolio, ’Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?’ In a word, the best turn is given to everything, instead of the worst.  There is a constant infusion of the romantic and enthusiastic, in proportion as the characters are natural and sincere:  whereas, in the more artificial style of comedy, everything gives way to ridicule and indifference, there being nothing left but affectation on one side, and incredulity on the other.—­Much as we like Shakespeare’s comedies, we cannot agree with Dr. Johnson that they are better than his tragedies; nor do we like them half so well.  If his inclination to comedy sometimes led him to trifle with the seriousness of tragedy, the poetical and impassioned passages are the best parts of his comedies.  The great and secret charm of twelfth night is the character of Viola.  Much as we like catches and cakes and ale, there is something that we like better.  We have a friendship for Sir Toby; we patronize Sir Andrew; we have an understanding with the Clown, a sneaking kindness for Maria and her rogueries; we feel a regard for Malvolio, and sympathize with his gravity, his smiles, his cross-garters, his yellow stockings, and imprisonment in the stocks.  But there is something that excites in us a stronger feeling than all this—­it is Viola’s confession of her love.

   Duke.  What’s her history?

   Viola.  A blank, my lord, she never told her love: 
     She let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud,
     Feed on her damask cheek, she pin’d in thought,
     And with a green and yellow melancholy,
     She sat like Patience on a monument,
     Smiling at grief.  Was not this love indeed? 
     We men may say more, swear more, but indeed,
     Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
     Much in our vows, but little in our love.

   Duke.  But died thy sister of her love, my boy?

   Viola.  I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
     And all the brothers too; and yet I know not.

Shakespeare alone could describe the effect of his own poetry.

     Oh, it came o’er the ear like the sweet south
     That breathes upon a bank of violets,
     Stealing and giving odour.

What we so much admire here is not the image of Patience on a monument, which has been generally quoted, but the lines before and after it.  ‘They give a very echo to the seat where love is throned.’  How long ago it is since we first learnt to repeat them; and still, still they vibrate on the heart, like the sounds which the passing wind draws from the trembling strings of a harp left on some desert shore!  There are other passages of not less impassioned sweetness.  Such is Olivia’s address to Sebastian whom she supposes to have already deceived her in a promise of marriage.