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 neighbour 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 _scorn'd me_; and
in so 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 and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me." One
more passage strikes my eye from B. and F.'s "Palamon and Arcite." One
of 'em complains in prison: "This is all our world; we shall know