In short and in fact, the whole elaborate
machinery by which the complete and completely unsatisfactory result of
the whole plot is attained is so thoroughly worthy of such a contriver as
"the old fantastical duke of dark corners" as to be in a moral sense, if
I dare say what I think, very far from thoroughly worthy of the wisest
and mightiest mind that ever was informed with the spirit or genius of
creative poetry.
I have one more note to add in passing which touches simply on a musical
point in lyric verse; and from which I would therefore give any biped who
believes that ears "should be long to measure Shakespeare" all timely
warning to avert the length of his own. A very singular question, and
one to me unaccountable except by a supposition which on charitable
grounds I should be loth to entertain for a moment--namely, that such
ears are commoner than I would fain believe on heads externally or
ostensibly human,--has been raised with regard to the first immortal song
of Mariana in the moated grange. This question is whether the second
verse appended by Fletcher to that divine Shakespearean fragment may not
haply have been written by the author of the first.
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