But splendid as this is, Mr. Stephens can make the force of bathos go a
little further. The passage continues ("_a pause_" intervening, to allow
breathing ime, after the splitting pace with which Love has been riding
upon Thought) thus:--

"Are your lips free? A smile will make no noise.
What ignorance! So! Well! _I'll to breakfast straight_!"

Again:--

ISABELLA. "Ha! ha! These forms are air--mere counterfeits
Of my _imaginous_ heart, _as are the whirling
Wainscot and trembling floor_!"

The idea of transferring the seat of imagination from the head to the
heart, and causing it to exhibit the wainscot in a pirouette, and the
floor in an ague, is highly _Shakesperesque_, and, as the _Courier_ is
made to say at page 3 of the _Opinions_, "is worthy of the best days of
that noble school of dramatic literature in which Mr. Stephens has so
successfully studied."

This well-deserved praise--the success with which the author has studied,
in a school, the models of which were human feelings and nature,--we have
yet to illustrate from other passages. Mr. Stephens evinces his full
acquaintance with Nature by a familiarity with her convulsions:
whirlwinds, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and volcanoes--are this
gentleman's playthings. When, for instance, _Rupert_ is going to be
gallant to Queen Isabella, she exclaims:--