A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen Part 13

[19:2] A singularly rich and energetic piece of colouring in this sort is near the beginning of the poem, commencing,

I have been wooed, as I entreat thee now, Even by the stern and direful G.o.d of War--

and extending through three stanzas.

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[24:1] The is to show the double endings.

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[29:2] Perhaps it is worth while to direct attention to this form of speech. Verbal names expressing the agent occur, it is true, in Fletcher and others, but they are in an especial manner frequent with Shakspeare, who invents them to preserve his brevity, and always applies them with great force and quaintness.

[29:3] Probably Fletcher would not have committed this false quant.i.ty.

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[30:2] 3 middle-rymes, _key_, _three_, _knee_.

[30:3] _in her eyes_

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[33:2] The remainder of this speech, an extremely fine one, has been quoted incidentally in page 26. Its richness of fancy is wonderful and most characteristic.

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[37:2] This allusion is repeatedly found in Fletcher. Here the expression of it is defective in precision.

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[45:1] In Philaster, Act IV. last scene.

Place me, some G.o.d, upon a Piramis, Higher than hill of earth, and lend a voice, Loud as your thunder, to me, that from thence I may discourse, to all the under world, The worth that dwells in him.

Shakspeare, too, was not the most likely person to have given the true meaning of the ??p?? p?t??a ???. I am not aware that either Hall or Chapman shewed him the way. Chapman in the First Book (v. 551) has it; "She with the cowes fair eyes, Respected Juno."

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[45:3] _2 N. K._, Act V. sc. i, ii, iii. Weber, are V. i. Littledale.

[46:1] This beautiful address has been spoken of already.

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[49:1] Romeo and Juliet:--Midsummer Night's Dream:--also in Don Quixote, Parte II. capit. xi.: "Los ojos de Dulcinea deben ser de _verdes esmeraldas_."

[49:2-49:2] This is the character of Emilia, by Chaucer and Shakspere, but not by Fletcher of IV. ii., and the author of V. v. (or iii.

Littledale)--if he is not Fletcher--with their inconsistencies of Emilia's weak balancing of Palamon against Arcite, now liking one best, then the other, and being afraid that Palamon may get his _figure spoilt_! F. J. F.

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