And his failure is only not complete; he is but just redeemed
from utter discomfiture by the fluency and simplicity of his equable but
inadequate style. Here as before we find plentiful examples of the
gracefully conventional tone current among the lesser writers of the
hour.
_Warwick_. How shall I enter on this graceless errand?
I must not call her child; for where's the father
That will in such a suit seduce his child?
Then, _Wife of Salisbury_;--shall I so begin?
No, he's my friend; and where is found the friend
That will do friendship such endamagement?--{255}
Neither my daughter, nor my dear friend's wife,
I am not Warwick, as thou think'st I am,
But an attorney from the court of hell;
That thus have housed my spirit in his form
To do a message to thee from the king.
This beginning is fair enough, if not specially fruitful in promise; but
the verses following are of the flattest order of commonplace. Hay and
grass and the spear of Achilles--of which tradition
the moral is,
What mighty men misdo, they can amend--
these are the fresh and original types on which our little poet is
compelled to fall back for support and illustration to a scene so full of
terrible suggestion and pathetic possibility.
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