chard the Second_, beginning,
"As in a theatre the eyes of men," and the passage in _Macbeth_ where
Macduff first learns of the slaughter of his wife and children. Both
are indeed very noble in their way; but I think no reader of
disciplined taste can fail to see the vast superiority of the latter,
and that this is owing not so much to any difference of character in
the speakers as to a far higher stage of art in the Poet. I must add
that the rhetorical or speech-making style appears more or less in all
the plays of his first period: we find something of it even in such
high specimens as _The Merchant of Venice_ and _King Henry the
Fourth_.

I have spoken of the fault in question as specially marking the _more
serious_ parts of the Poet's earlier plays. The more comic portions of
the same plays are much less open to any such reproof. The Poet's
style in comedy from the first ran closer to nature, and had much more
of freedom, simplicity, and heartiness in its goings. The reason of
this difference seems to be, that the lessons of nature in sport are
more quickly learnt than those of nature in her graver moods. The
child plays, the man works. And there needs a ripe soul of manhood,
with much discipline besides, before a man warms into his work with
the free gust and spirit of play.

In what more I have to say under this head, I shall spare further
reference to the Poet's faults of imitation, and speak only of his
characteristic or idiomatic traits of style.

* * * * *

In regard to Shakespeare's choice of words there probably need not
much be said. Here the point I shall first consider is the relative
proportion of Saxon and Latin words in his writing.--Students somewhat
curious in this behalf have found his words of Latin derivation to
average about forty per cent. This, I believe, does not greatly differ
from the average used by the most select and accomplished writers of
that age. I suspect that Hooker has a somewhat larger proportion of
Latin words, but am not sure of it.--The English had already grown to
be a learned tongue; and, which is far better, the learned portion of
it had got thoroughly diffused and domesticated in the popular mind:
for centuries the Saxon and Latin elements had been in process of
blending and fusing together, so as to work smoothly and even lovingly
side by side in the same thought; common people using both with the
same easy and unstudied naturalness. The