_Arc._ I am in la|bour To push your name, your ancient love, our kin|dred, Out of my memory, and i' the self-same place To seat something I would confound.--Act V. scene i. And afterwards their lady-love, listening to the noise of the fight, speaks thus:-- [Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.] Each stroke laments The place whereon it falls, and sounds more like A bell than blade.--Act V. scene v. Shakspeare's fondness for thought, the tendency of that train of thought to run into the abstract, and his burning imagination, have united in producing another quality which strongly marks his style, and is more pleasing than those last noticed. [Sidenote: Shakspere's personification of mental powers, passions.] He abounds in Personification, and delights particularly in personifications of mental powers, passions, and relations. [Sidenote: In _Venus and Adonis_.] This metaphysico-poetical mood of musing tinges his miscellaneous poems deeply, especially the Venus and Adonis, which is almost lyrical throughout; and even in his dramas the style is often like one of Collins's exquisite odes. [Sidenote: Fletcher uses it but little.] This quality is common to him with the narrative poets of his age, from whom [25:1]he received it; but it is adopted to no material extent by any of his dramatic contemporaries, and by Fletcher less than any. [Sidenote: Shakspere's distinctive use of Personification.] The other dramatists, indeed, are full of metaphysical expressions, of the names of affections and faculties of the soul; but they do not go on as Shakspeare's kindling fancy impelled him to do, to look on them as independent and energetic existences. This figure is one of the most common means by which he elevates himself into the tragic and poetic sphere, the compromise between his reason and his imagination, the felicitous mode by which he reconciles his fondness for abstract thought, with his allegiance to the genius of poetry. [Sidenote: The _Two Noble Kinsmen_ is rich in personifications which must be Shakspere's.] 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' is rich in personifications both of mental qualities and others, which have all Shakspeare's tokens about them, and vary infinitely, from the uncompleted hint to the perfected portrait. [Sidenote: Instances of these.] Oh Grief and Time, Fearful consumers, you will all devour!--Act I. scene i. Peace might purge For her repletion, and retain anew Her charitable heart, now hard, and harsh|er Than Strife or War could be.--Act I. scene ii. A most unbounded tyrant, whose success Makes heaven unfeared, and villainy assured Beyond its power there's nothing,--almost puts Faith in a fev|er,| and deifies alone Voluble Chance.--Act I. scene ii. This funeral path brings to your household graves; Joy seize on you again--Peace sleep with him!