O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars: and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should Famine, Sword and Fire
Crouch for employment.

Well, this passage Burke, assuming his correspondent to be familiar with
it, boldly claps into prose and inserts into a long diatribe against Pitt
for having tamely submitted to the rebuffs of the French Directory. Thus
it becomes:--

On that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars: that
he would bid to be brought forth from their hideous Kennel (where his
scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs
of War, whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance
that feeds them; that he would let them loose in Famine, Plagues and
Death, upon a guilty race to whose frame and to all whose habit, Order,
Peace, Religion and Virtue, are alien and abhorrent.

Now Shakespeare is but apologising for the shortcomings of his'
play-house, whereas Burke is denouncing his country's shame and
prophesying disaster to Europe. Yet do you not feel with me that while
Shakespeare, using great words on the lowlier subject, contrives to make
them appropriate, with Burke, writing on the loftier subject, the same or
similar words have become tumid, turgid?