. ii., see _Modern Language
Review_ for Oct., 1908, and Jan., 1909.]]

[Footnote 141: This effect of the double action seems to have been
pointed out first by Schlegel.]

[Footnote 142: How prevalent these are is not recognised by readers
familiar only with English poetry. See Simpson's _Introduction to the
Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets_ (1868) and Mr. Wyndham's edition of
Shakespeare's Poems. Perhaps both writers overstate, and Simpson's
interpretations are often forced or arbitrary, but his book is valuable
and ought not to remain out of print.]

[Footnote 143: The monstrosity here is a being with a woman's body and a
fiend's soul. For the interpretation of the lines see Note Y.]

[Footnote 144: Since this paragraph was written I have found that the
abundance of these references has been pointed out and commented on by
J. Kirkman, _New Shaks. Soc. Trans._, 1877.]

[Footnote 145: _E.g._ in _As You Like It_, III. ii. 187, 'I was never so
berhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can
hardly remember'; _Twelfth Night_, IV. ii. 55, '_Clown._ What is the
opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl? _Mal._ That the soul of our
grandam might haply inhabit a bird. _Clown._ What thinkest thou of his
opinion? _Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his
opinion,' etc. But earlier comes a passage which reminds us of _King
Lear_, _Merchant of Venice_, IV. i. 128:

O be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!
And for thy life let justice be accused.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infused itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous.]

[Footnote 146: I fear it is not possible, however, to refute, on the
whole, one charge,--that the dog is a snob, in the sense that he
respects power and prosperity, and objects to the poor and despised. It
is curious that Shakespeare refers to this trait three times in _King
Lear_, as if he were feeling a peculiar disgust at it. See III. vi. 65,
'The little dogs and all,' etc.: IV. vi. 159, 'Thou hast seen a farmer's
dog bark at a beggar ... and the creature run from the cur? There thou
mightst behold the great im