'Shakspeare to thee was dull, whose best wit lies
I' th' ladies' questions, and the fool's replies.
* * * * *
Whose wit our nice times would obsceneness call.
* * * * *
Nature was all his art; thy vein was free
As his, but without his scurrility;' {4}


while even Milton, who, Puritan as he was, loved art with all his
soul, only remarks on Shakspeare's marvellous lyrical sweetness, 'his
native wood-notes wild'; what shame to the Puritans if they, too, did
not discover the stork among the cranes?

An answer has often been given to arguments of this kind, which
deserves a few moments' consideration. It is said, 'the grossness of
the old play-writers was their misfortune, not their crime. It was
the fashion of the age. It is not our fashion, certainly; but they
meant no harm by it. The age was a free-spoken one; and perhaps none
the worse for that.' Mr. Dyce, indeed, the editor of Webster's
plays, seems inclined to exalt this habit into a virtue. After
saying that the licentious and debauched are made 'as odious in
representation as they would be if they were actually present'--an
assertion which must be flatly denied, save in the case of
Shakspeare, who seldom or never, to our remembrance, seems to forget
that the wages of sin is death, and who, however coarse he may be,
keeps stoutly on the side of virtue--Mr. Dyce goes on to say, that
'perhaps the language of the stage is purified in proportion as our
morals are deteriorated; and we dread the mention of the vices which