cacy; so that the asperities of life do but make his thoughts run
the smoother. How sweet, yet how considerative and firm, is every
thing about his temper and moral frame! He sees all that is seen by
the most keen-eyed satirist, yet is never moved to be satirical,
because he looks with wiser and therefore kindlier eyes. The enmity of
Fortune is fairly disarmed by his patience; her shots are all wasted
against his breast, garrisoned as it is with the forces of charity and
peace: his soul is made storm-proof by gentleness and truth: exile,
penury, the ingratitude of men, the malice of the elements, what are
they to him? he has the grace to sweeten away their venom, and to
smile the sting out of them. He loves to stay himself upon the
compensations of life, and to feed his gentler affections by dwelling
upon the good which adversity opens to him, or the evil from which it
withdraws him; and so he rejoices in finding "these woods more free
from peril than the envious Court." In his philosophy, so bland,
benignant, and contemplative, the mind tastes the very luxury of rest,
and has an antepast of measureless content.

* * * * *

Touchstone, though he nowhere strikes so deep a chord within us as the
poor Fool in _King Lear_, is, I think, the most entertaining of
Shakespeare's privileged characters. And he is indeed a mighty
delectable fellow! wise too, and full of the most insinuative counsel.
How choicely does his grave, acute nonsense moralize the scenes
wherein he moves! Professed clown though he be, and as such ever
hammering away with artful awkwardness at a jest, a strange kind of
humorous respect still waits upon him notwithstanding. It is curious
to observe how the Poet takes care to let us know from the first, that
beneath the affectations of his calling some precious sentiments have
been kept alive; that far within the Fool there is laid up a secret
reserve of the man, ready to leap forth and combine with better
influences as soon as the incrustations of art are thawed and broken
up. This is partly done in the scene where Rosalind and Celia arrange
for their flight from the usurper's Court. Rosalind proposes,--

"But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
The clownish Fool out of your father's Court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?"

And Celia replies,--

"He'll go along o'er the wide world with me:
Leave me alone to woo him."

Where we learn that som