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the Poet's moral principles; here we are left in no doubt as to what
moral traits of character he in heart approved, whether his own moral
character exemplified them or not. What sort of a man he represents
this his favorite hero to be; how modest in his greatness, how great
in his modesty; how dutiful and how devout; how brave, how gentle, how
generous, how affable, how humane; how full of religious fervor, yet
how bland and liberal in his piety; with "a tear for pity, and a hand
open as day for melting charity"; how genuine and unaffected withal
these virtues grow in him; in short, how all alive he is with the
highest and purest Christian _ethos_ which the old "ages of faith"
could breathe into a man;--all this must stand over till I come to the
plays wherein he is delineated.

Something further to the same point may be gathered, not so much from
the Poet's treatment of particular good characters, as from the
general style of character which he evidently prefers to draw in that
class, and from the peculiar complexion and grain of goodness which he
ascribes to them. Antonio the Merchant, Orlando, the Sebastian of
_Twelfth Night_, Horatio, Kent, Edgar, Ferdinand, Florizel,
Posthumus, Pisanio, are instances of what I mean. All these indeed
differ very widely from each other as individuals; but they all have
this in common, that their virtues sit easy and natural upon them, as
native outgrowths, not as things put on: there is no ambition, no
pretension, nothing at all boastful or fictitious or pharisaical or
squeamish or _egoish_ in their virtues; we never see the men hanging
over them, or nursing and cosseting them, as if they were specially
thoughtful and tender of them, and fearful lest they might catch cold.
Then too, with all these men, the good they do, in doing it, pays
itself: if they do you a kindness, they are not at all solicitous to
have you know and remember it: if sufferings and hardships overtake
them, if wounds and bruises be their portion, they never grumble or
repine at it, as feeling that Providence has a grudge against them, or
that the world is slighting them: whether they live or die, the mere
conscience of rectitude suffices them, without further recompense. So
that the simple happiness they find in doing what is right is to us a
sufficient pledge of their perseverance in so doing. Now all this is,
in its degree, just the ideal of virtue which Christian morality
teaches and exemplifies. For so th