place of an inference."

* * * * *

"We are ashamed at sight of a monkey,--somehow as we are shy of poor
relations."

* * * * *

"C---- imagined a Caledonian compartment in Hades, where there should be
fire without sulphur."

* * * * *

"Absurd images are sometimes irresistible. I will mention two. An
elephant in a coach-office gravely coming to have his trunk booked;--a
mermaid over a fish-kettle cooking her own tail."

* * * * *

"It is the praise of Shakspeare, with reference to the playwriters, his
contemporaries, that he has so few revolting characters. Yet be has one
that is singularly mean and disagreeable,--the King in 'Hamlet.' Neither
has he characters of insignificance, unless the phantom that stalks over
the stage as Julius Caesar, in the play of that name, may be accounted
one. Neither has he envious characters, excepting the short part of
Don John, in 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Neither has he unentertaining
characters, if we except Parolles, and the little that there is of the
Clown, in 'All's Well that Ends Well.'"