game of _death_ was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton
in his mischiefs, and his shrunk, hollow eyes smiled on his ruins."
There is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca": "Then did I see
these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy,
and hoot their fears to one another nightly." Not that it is a
personification, only it just caught my eye in a little extract-book I
keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which
authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical
fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with
Massinger? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of
his called "A Very Woman." The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised)
to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the
double endings.

You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose.
"Not far from where my father lives, _a lady_, a neighbor by, blest with
as great a _beauty_ as Nature durst bestow without _undoing_, dwelt, and
most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times
she _dwelt_ in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first
fire knew no adulterate _incense_, nor I no way to flatter but my
_fondness_; in all the bravery my friends could _show me_, in all the
faith my innocence could _give me_, in the best language my true tongue
could _tell me_, and all the broken sighs my sick heart _lend me_, I
sued and served; long did I serve this _lady_, long was my travail, long
my trade to _win her_; with all the duty of my soul I SERVED HER." "Then
she must love." "She did, but never me: she could not _love me_; she
would not love, she hated,--more, she _scorned me_; and in so a poor and
base a way _abused me_ for all my services, for all my _bounties_, so
bold neglects flung on me." "What out of love, and worthy love, I _gave
her_ (shame to her most unworthy mind!), to fools, to girls, to fiddlers