is his only instance of comedy where
the wit seems to foam and sparkle up from a fountain of bitterness;
where even the humour is made pungent with sarcasm; and where the
poetry is marked with tragic austerity. In none of his plays does he
discover less of leaning upon pre-existing models, or a more manly
negligence, perhaps sometimes carried to excess, of those lighter
graces of manner which none but the greatest minds may safely
despise. His genius is here out in all its colossal individuality, and
he seems to have meant it should be so; as if he felt quite sure of
having now reached his mastership; so that henceforth, instead of
leaning on those who had gone before, he was to be himself a
leaning-place for those who should follow.

Accordingly the play abounds in fearless grapplings and strugglings of
mind with matters too hard to consist with much facility and
gracefulness of tongue. The thought is strong, and in its strength
careless of appearances, and seems rather wishing than fearing to have
its roughnesses seen: the style is rugged, irregular, abrupt,
sometimes running into an almost forbidding sternness, but everywhere
throbbing with life: often a whole page of meaning is condensed and
rammed into a clause or an image, so that the force thereof beats and
reverberates through the entire scene: with little of elaborate grace
or finish, we have bold, deep strokes, where the want of finer
softenings and shadings is more than made up by increased energy and
expressiveness; the words going right to the spot, and leaving none of
their work undone. Thus the workmanship is in a very uncommon degree
what I sometimes designate as _steep_, meaning thereby _hard to get to
the top of_. Hence it is perhaps, in part, that so many axioms and
"brief sententious precepts" of moral and practical wisdom from this
play have wrought themselves into the currency and familiarity of
household words, and live for instruction or comfort in the memory of
many who know nothing of their original source. As a strong instance
in point, take Isabella's meaty apothegm,--

"Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,--
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,--
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep; who, _with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal_."

Which means that, if the angels had our disposition to splenetic or
satirical mirth, the sight