In this scene there is one train of metaphors which is perhaps as characteristic of Fletcher as any thing that could be produced. [Sidenote: Lines from II. i. on page 38, of slow orderly development of ideas, markt by Fletcher's characteristics.] It is marked by a slowness of association which he often shews. Several allusions are successively introduced; but by each, as it appears, we are prepared for and can anticipate the next; we see the connection of ideas in the poet's mind through which the one has sprung out of the other, and that all are but branches, of which one original thought is the root. [Sidenote: No leap to the end, and off with a fresh bound, like Shakspere.] All this is the work of [37:3]a less fertile fancy and a more tardy understanding than Shakspeare's: he would have leaped over many of the intervening steps, and, reaching at once the most remote particular of the series, would have immediately turned away to weave some new chain of thought:-- [Sidenote: All workt out thro' every step.] _Arcite._ ... What worthy bless|ing Can be, but our imaginatiöns May make it ours? and here, being thus togeth|er, We are an endless mine to one anoth|er: We are one another's wife, ever beget|ting New births of love; we are fathers, friends, acquaint|ance; We are, in one another, families; I am your heir and you are mine; this place Is our inheritance; no hard oppress|or Dare take this from us.... But the contentment of the prison is to be interrupted. The fair Emilia appears beneath, walking in the garden "full of branches green," skirting the wall of the tower in which the princes are confined. She converses with her attendant, and Palamon from the dungeon-grating beholds her as she gathers the flowers of spring. He ceases to reply to Arcite, and stands absorbed in silent ecstasy. _Arcite._ Cousin! How do you, sir? Why, Palamon! _Palamon._ Never till now I was in prison, Ar|cite. _Arcite._ Why, what's the matter, man? _Palamon._ Behold and won|der: By heaven, she is a goddess; _Arcite._ Ha! _Palamon._ Do rev|erence; She is a goddess, Arcite! The beauty of the maiden impresses Arcite no less violently than it previously had his kinsman; and he challenges with great heat a right to love her. [Sidenote: The sharp and spirited quarrel between the Kinsmen, not Shakspere's.] An animated and acrimonious dialogue ensues, in which Palamon reproachfully pleads his prior admiration of the lady, and insists on his cousin's obligation to become his abettor instead of his rival. It is spirited even to excess; and probably Shakspeare would have tempered, or abstained from treating so sudden and perhaps unnatural an access of anger and jealousy, and so utter an abandonment to [38:1]its vehemence, as that under which the fiery Palamon is here represented as labouring.