among whom correct ideas of the derivation and affinity of words have
not yet been developed, and do not, consequently, stand in the way of
this caprice. In Homer we find several examples of it; the Books of
Moses, the oldest written memorial of the primitive world, are, as is
well known, full of them. On the other hand, poets of a very
cultivated taste, like Petrarch, or orators, like Cicero, have
delighted in them. Whoever, in _Richard the Second_, is disgusted with
the affecting play of words of the dying John of Gaunt on his own
name, should remember that the same thing occurs in the _Ajax_ of
Sophocles. We do not mean to say that all playing upon words is on all
occasions to be justified. This must depend on the disposition of
mind, whether it will admit of such a play of fancy, and whether the
sallies, comparisons, and allusions, which lie at the bottom of them,
possess internal solidity. Yet we must not proceed upon the principle
of trying how the thought appears after it is deprived of the
resemblance in sound, any more than we are to endeavor to feel the
charm of rhymed versification after depriving it of its rhyme. The
laws of good taste on this subject must, moreover, vary with the
quality of the languages. In those which possess a great number of
homonymes, that is, words possessing the same, or nearly the same,
sound, though quite different in their derivation and signification,
it is almost more difficult to avoid, than to fall on such a verbal
play. It has, however, been feared, lest a door might be opened to
puerile witticism, if they were not rigorously proscribed. But I
cannot, for my part, find that Shakespeare had such an invincible and
immoderate passion for this verbal witticism. It is true, he sometimes
makes a most lavish use of this figure; at others, he has employed it
very sparingly; and at times (for example, in _Macbeth_) I do not
believe a vestige of it is to be found. Hence, in respect to the use
or the rejection of the play upon words, he must have been guided by