When in the midst of fears we are surprised With unexpected happiness, the first _Degrees of joy are mere astonishment_. Fear, the shadow Of danger, like the shadow of our bodies, _Is greater, then, when that which is the cause Is farthest off_." The blinded prince's soliloquy, in the first scene of the fifth act, is worthy of Shakspeare. We must quote the following lines:-- "Reason, my soul's eye, still sees Clearly, and clearer for the want of eyes, For gazing through the windows of the body It met such several, such distracting objects; But now confined within itself it sees A strange and unknown world, and there discovers _Torrents of anger, mountains of ambition, Gulfs of desire, and towers of hope, large giants_, Monsters and savage beasts; to vanquish these Will be a braver conquest, than the old Or the new world." Shortly after the appearance of "Sophy," he was admitted, by the form then usual, Sheriff of Surrey, and appointed governor of Farnham Castle for the king; this important post, however, he soon resigned, and retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published his poem entitled "Cooper's Hill." This instantly became popular, and many who might have seen in "Sophy" greater powers than were disclosed in this new effort, envied its fame, and gave out that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. For this there was, of course, no proof, and it is only worth mentioning because it is one of a large class of cases, in which envious mediocrity, or crushed dulness, or jealous rivalry, has sought to snatch hard-won laurels from the brow of genius. As if these laurels were so smooth, and so soothing, as always to invite ambition, or as if they were so flexible as to suit every brow! As if FIRE lurked not sometimes in their leaves, and as if there were not, besides, a nobler jealousy in the public mind ready to watch and to avenge their misappropriation. Certain it is that not only, as Johnson remarks, was the attempt made to rob Addison of "Cato," and Pope of the "Essay of Criticism," but it has a hundred times taken place in the history of poetry. Rolt, as we saw in our late life of Akenside, tried to snatch the honour of writing "The Pleasures of Imagination" from its author. Lauder accused Milton of plundering the Italians wholesale. Scott's early novels have only the other day been most absurdly claimed for his brother Thomas. And notwithstanding Shakspeare's well-known lines over his sepulchre at Stratford-- "Bless'd be the man who spares these stones, But curs'd be he who moves my bones"--