“_Jul._ The current that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage; But, when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with the enameled stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage; And so by many winding nooks he strays With willing sport, to the wild ocean. Then let me go, and hinder not my course, I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make my pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love; And then I’ll rest, as, after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium.” Shakespeare, whether from watching the sea from the shore, or from sailing on it, was evidently at home in describing it. The sea storm in “Pericles” (Act iii. Scene 1) is full of life and movement, made all the more terrible by the death of the queen on shipboard when the tempest is at its height. They are off the coast of Tharsus, and the ship is driving in upon it unmanageably, and will not answer to the helm:— “_1st Sailor._—Slack the bolins there; thou wilt not, wilt thou? Blow and split thyself. _2d Sailor._—But sea room, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not. _1st Sailor._—Sir, your queen must overboard; the sea works high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.” The human situation and the conflict of the elements combine each to heighten to the utmost the terror and despair of the other. The conjunction is no doubt finely imagined. But when a modern poet writes: “No poetry of shipwreck and the sea has ever equaled the great scene of ‘Pericles,’ no such note of music was ever struck out of the clash and contention of tempestuous elements,” one cannot but feel that he indulges in exaggeration. For coast scenery the description of Dover cliffs stands almost alone. But while with the forest and the sea-coast Shakespeare’s early life had made him familiar, he had not, as far as we know, had much, if any, experience of mountains. Of Nature, as of man, he painted for the most part what he had seen and known—idealizing it of course, but having caught the first hint from reality. And mountains formed no part of the Warwickshire or indeed of the England which he knew. Therefore while we find many notices of the fields, the forest, and the sea, and of the way they affect human imaginations, there is no allusion to the effect of mountain scenery. It could not have been said of him:— “The power of hills is on thee.”