shape in which language comes down to us, this is seldom perceptibly
the case, an imagination which has been powerfully excited is fond of
laying hold of any congruity in sound which may accidentally offer
itself, that by such means he may, for the nonce, restore the lost
resemblance between the word and the thing. For example, how common
was it and is it to seek in the name of a person, however arbitrarily
bestowed, a reference to his qualities and fortunes--to convert it
purposely into a significant name. Those who cry out against the play
upon words as an unnatural and affected invention, only betray their
own ignorance of original nature. A great fondness for it is always
evinced among children, as well as with nations of simple manners,
among whom correct ideas of the derivation and affinity of words have
not yet been developed, and do not, consequently, stand in the way of
this caprice. In Homer we find several examples of it; the Books of
Moses, the oldest written memorial of the primitive world, are, as is
well known, full of them. On the other hand, poets of a very
cultivated taste, like Petrarch, or orators, like Cicero, have
delighted in them. Whoever, in _Richard the Second_, is disgusted with
the affecting play of words of the dying John of Gaunt on his own
name, should remember that the same thing occurs in the _Ajax_ of
Sophocles. We do not mean to say that all playing upon words is on all
occasions to be justified. This must depend on the disposition of
mind, whether it will admit of such a play of fancy, and whether the
sallies, comparisons, and allusions, which lie at the bottom of them,
possess internal solidity. Yet we must not proceed upon the principle
of trying how the thought appears after it is deprived of the
resemblance in sound, any more than we are to endeavor to feel the
charm of rhymed versification after depriving it of its rhyme. The
laws of good taste on this subject must, moreover, vary with the
quality of the languages. In those which possess a great number of
homonymes, that is, words possessing the same, or nearly the same,
sound, though quite different in their derivation and signification,
it is almost more difficult to avoid, than to fall on such a verbal
play. It has, however, been feared, lest a door might be opened to
puerile witticism, if they were not rigorously proscribed. But I
cannot, for my part, find that Shakespeare had such an invincible and
immoderate passion for this