These quartered squadrons and these regiments
Before, behind us, and on either hand,
Are but a power: When we name a man,
His hand, his foot, his head, have several strengths;
And being all but one self instant strength,
Why, all this many, Audley, is but one,
And we can call it all but one man's strength.
He that hath far to go tells it by miles;
If he should tell the steps, it kills his heart:
The drops are infinite that make a flood,
And yet, thou know'st, we call it but a rain.
There is but one France, one king of France, {270}
That France hath no more kings; and that same king
Hath but the puissant legion of one king;
And we have one: Then apprehend no odds;
For one to one is fair equality.
_Bien coupe, mal cousu_; such is the most favourable verdict I can pass
on this voluminous effusion of a spirit smacking rather of the schools
than of the field. The first six lines or so might pass muster as the
early handiwork of Shakespeare; the rest has as little of his manner as
his matter, his metre as his style.
The poet can hardly be said to rise again after this calamitous collapse.
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