Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation Under the veil of wildness, which no doubt Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty. This at least is as probable an account of the progress of the poet's mind as we have met with in any of the Essays on the Learning of Shakespeare. Nothing can be better managed than the caution which the king gives the meddling Archbishop, not to advise him rashly to engage in the war with France, his scrupulous dread of the consequences of that advice, and his eager desire to hear and follow it. And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Or nicely charge your understanding soul With opening titles miscreate, whose right Suits not in native colours with the truth. For God doth know how many now in health Shall drop their blood, in approbation Of what your reverence shall incite us to. Therefore take heed how you impawn your person, How you awake our sleeping sword of war; We charge you in the name of God, take heed. For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 'Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality. Under this conjuration, speak, my lord; For we will hear, note, and believe in heart, That what you speak, is in your conscience wash'd, As pure as sin with baptism. Another characteristic instance of the blindness of human nature to everything but its own interests is the complaint made by the king of 'the ill neighbourhood' of the Scot in attacking England when she was attacking France. For once the eagle England being in prey, To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs. It is worth observing that in all these plays, which give an admirable picture of the spirit of the good old times, the moral inference does not at all depend upon the nature of the actions, but on the dignity or meanness of the persons committing them. 'The eagle England' has a right 'to be in prey', but 'the weazel Scot' has none 'to come sneaking to her nest', which she has left to pounce upon others. Might was right, without equivocation or disguise, in that heroic and chivalrous age. The substitution of right for might, even in theory, is among the refinements and abuses of modern philosophy. A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the effects of subordination in a commonwealth can hardly be conceived than the following: