Shakspeare," more favourable opinion of Sir Thomas than is left upon
his mind by the dramatist in the character of Justice Shallow. The
knight, indeed, is here exhibited in all his pride of birth and
station, in all his pride of theologian and poet; he is led by the
nose, while he believes that nobody can move him, and shows some
other weaknesses, which the least attentive observer will discover;
but he is not without a little kindness at the bottom of the heart,-
-a heart too contracted to hold much, or to let what it holds
ebulliate very freely. But, upon the whole, we neither can utterly
hate nor utterly despise him. Ungainly as he is. -


Circum praecordia ludit.


The author of the "Imaginary Conversations" seems, in his "Boccacio
and Petrarca," to have taken his idea of Sir Magnus from this
manuscript. He, however, has adapted that character to the times;
and in Sir Magnus the coward rises to the courageous, the unskilful
in arms becomes the skilful, and war is to him a teacher of
humanity. With much superstition, theology never molests him;
scholarship and poetry are no affairs of his. He doubts of himself
and others, and is as suspicious in his ignorance as Sir Thomas is
confident.

With these wide diversities, there are family features, such as are
likely to display themselves in different times and circumstances,
and some so generically prevalent as never to lie quite dormant in
the breed. In both of them there is parsimony, there is arrogance,
there is contempt of inferiors, there is abject awe of power, there