his is in keeping with the spirit of adventure and
uncertainty in the rest of the story, and with the scenes in which they
are afterwards called on to act. How admirably the youthful fire and
impatience to emerge from their obscurity in the young princes is opposed
to the cooler calculations and prudent resignation of their more
experienced counsellor! How well the disadvantages of knowledge and of
ignorance, of solitude and society, are placed against each other!

"_Guiderius._ Out of your proof you speak: we poor unfledg'd
Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest; nor know not
What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life is best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed,
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.

_Arviragus._ What should we speak of
When we are old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December! How,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.
We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,
Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat;
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely."

The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardly satisfactory; for
nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passion of the mind for unknown
good, but experience.--The forest of Arden in _As you like it_ can alone
compare with the mountain scenes in CYMBELINE: yet how different the
contemplative quiet of the one from the enterprising boldness and
precarious mode of subsistence in the other! Shakspeare not only lets us
into the minds of his characters, but gives a tone and colour to the
scenes he describes from the feelings of their supposed inhabitants. He at
the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and
gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest
things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant
sportsmen in CYMBELINE have to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill
and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer in
CYMBELINE are only regarded as objects of prey, "The game's a-foot,"
etc.--with Jaques they are fine subjects to moralise upon at leisure,
"under the shade of melancholy boughs."

We cannot take leave of this play