CAPRICE OF FRIENDSHIPS. Coriolanus. Oh, world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn, Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, On a dissension of a doit, break out Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends, Coriolanus. Activ. Scene 4. SIGNS OF WANING FRIENDSHIP. Brutus. How he received you, let me be resolv'd. Nor with such free and friendly conference Brutus. Thou hast describ'd A hot friend cooling: ever note, Lucilius, There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Scene 2. THAT a resemblance of features and manners often runs through the whole of the same family is a matter of com mon observation; and, generally, we need go no further than known physiological facts, to account for it; but a more curious observation has been made, or a fancy has existed, that friends, (man and wife for instance) not previously related in blood, grow like one another, by the effect of constant social intercourse. Whether Shakspere had this idea in his mind when he wrote the preceding extract, touching the resemblance of friends to one another "In lineaments, in manners, and in spirit," or whether he meant that it was advisable that such resemblance should precede the establishment of the friendship, does not to me appear altogether certain. However that may be, I must take leave to doubt the growth of features previously unlike into a similarity; and think the fancied resemblance may result from a similarity of manner, which of course is easily and naturally acquired under such cir cumstances. There is plenty of wisdom in the other passages well worthy the attention of friends of all sorts, whether in embryo, or on the wane. GOVERNMENT. REQUIRES SYSTEM AND SUBORDINATION. Ulysses. W HEN that the general is not like the hive, To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,* Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order: Oh, when degree is shak'd, Which is the ladder of all high designs, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, *Alluding to our earth. The Ptolemaic astronomy being in vogue in our Author's time, Shakspere supposes the earth to be the centre of the solar system. Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, And the rude son should strike his father dead: power, Must make per force an universal prey, And, last, eat up himself. This chaos, when degree is suffocate, And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose Neither supreme, how soon confusion May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take Coriolanus. Act iii. Scene 1. WHAT a man this Shakspere is! One generally considers oneself safe from politics, when revelling in poetry; but this Shakspere positively writes on every thing, and is wise in every thing, I was going to say; but I stop short for fear of having a nest of hornets on me. Primogeniture! prerogative of the crown! and what not.-I really had better be done. I believe, however, I shall not offend any class of politicians in remarking, that whoever may be entitled to make laws, it is advisable when they are once properly made they should be strictly enforced and obeyed ;—that the executive, in short, should be powerful and prompt, and that an efficient executive presupposes different ranks of officers, through whose lines there should exist the most complete system of subordination.-Shakspere hardly meant more than this. I have done. |