These latter lines are of a character which is perfectly and singularly Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Shakspere's gravity and seriousness.] The shade of gravity which so usually darkens his poetry, is often heightened to the most solemn seriousness. The religious thought presented here is most alien from Fletcher's turn of thought.--The ensuing speech offers much of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Shakspere sometimes harsh and coarse.] His energy, sometimes confined within [29:1]due limits, often betrays him into harshness; and his liking for familiarity of imagery and expression sometimes makes him careless though both should be coarse, a fault which we find here, and of which Fletcher is not guilty. [Sidenote: His bold coinages of words:] Here also are more than one of those bold coinages of words, forced on a mind for whose force of conception common terms were too weak. [Sidenote: to _urn_ ashes;] [Sidenote: to _chapel_ bones.] _1 Queen._ We are three queens, whose sovrans fell before The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites, And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes. He will not suffer us to burn their bones, To _urn_ their ashes, nor to take the offence Of mortal loathesomeness from the blest eye Of holy Phœbus, but infects the air With stench of our slain lords. Oh, pity, Duke! Thou purger[29:2] of the earth! draw thy fear'd sword, That does good turns i' the world: give us the bones Of our dead kings, that we may _chapel_ them! And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note, That for our crowned heads we have no roof Save this, which is the lion's and the bear's, And vault to every thing. [Sidenote: Shakspere reflective.] We now begin to trace more and more that reflecting tendency which is so deeply imprinted on Shakspeare's writings:-- _Theseus._ . . . . . King Capanëus[29:3] was your lord: the day That he should marry you, at such a seas|on As it is now with me, I met your groom By Mars's altar. You were that time fair; Not Juno's mantle fairer than your tress|es, Nor in more bounty spread: your wheaten wreath Was then nor threshed nor blast|ed |: Fortune, at you, Dimpled her cheek with smiles: Hercules our kins|man (Then weaker than your eyes) laid by his club,-- He tumbled down upon his Némean hide, [30:1]And swore his sinews thawed. O, Grief and Time, Fearful consumers, you will all devour! _1 Queen._ Oh, I hope some god, Some god hath put his mercy in your man|hood, Whereto he'll infuse power, and press you forth, Our undertaker! _Theseus._ Oh, no knees; none, wid|ow! Unto the helmeted Bellona use | them, And pray for me, your sol|dier.|--Troubled I am. (_Turns away._) [Sidenote: A Shakspere fancy.] [Sidenote: A Shakspere simile.]