ot wither
Nor custom stale his infinite variety.

In the last line I have quoted there is a apa? ?e?? mue?a but it is a word
which I think you would hardly guess. It is the last word--_variety_.

On every average page of Shakespeare you are greeted and gladdened by at
least five words that you never saw before in his writings, and that you
never will see again, speaking once and then for ever holding their
peace--each not only rare, but a nonsuch--five gems just shown, then
snatched away. Each page is studded with five stars, each as unique as
the century-flower, and, like the night-blooming cereus, "the perfume
and suppliance of a minute"--_ipsa varietate variora_. The mind of
Shakespeare was bodied forth as Montezuma was apparelled, whose costume,
however gorgeous, was never twice the same. Hence the Shakespearian
style is fresh as morning dew and changeful as evening clouds, so that
we remain for ever doubtful in relation to his manner and his matter,
which of them owes the greater debt to the other. The Shakespearian
plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael, the characters to the
drawing of Michael Angelo, but the word-painting superadds the coloring
of Titian. Accordingly, in studying Shakespeare's diction I should long
ago have said, if I could, what I read in Arthur Helps, where he treats
of a perfect style--that "there is a sense of felicity about it,
declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that you feel it
will not happen again to that man who writes the sentence, nor to any
other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely,
mellifluously and completely."

In the central court of the Neapolitan Museum I saw grape-clusters,
mouldings, volutes, fingers and antique fragments of all sorts wrought
in rarest marble, lying scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and
rain, cast down the wrong side up, and as it were thrown away, as when
the stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street.
Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like this apparent
wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can afford to make
nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy of shrines. We say to
ourselves, "If such be the things she throws away, what must be her
jewels?" A similar feeling rises in me while exploring Shakespeare's
prodigality in apa? ?e?? mue?a. His exchequer appears more exhaustless
than the Bank of England.

James D. Butler.

AN EPISODE OF