The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardly satisfactory; for nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passion of the mind for unknown good, but experience.—The forest of Arden in _As You Like It_ can alone compare with the mountain scenes in CYMBELINE: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one from the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in the other! Shakespear not only lets us into the minds of his characters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describes from the feelings of their supposed inhabitants. He at the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant sportsmen in CYMBELINE have to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer in CYMBELINE are only regarded as objects of prey, ‘The game’s a-foot,’ etc.—with Jaques they are fine subjects to moralise upon at leisure, ‘under the shade of melancholy boughs.’ We cannot take leave of this play, which is a favourite with us, without noticing some occasional touches of natural piety and morality. We may allude here to the opening of the scene in which Bellarius instructs the young princes to pay their orisons to heaven: ——‘See, boys! this gate Instructs you how t’ adore the Heav’ns; and bows you To morning’s holy office. _Guiderius._ Hail, Heav’n! _Arviragus._ Hail, Heav’n! _Bellarius._ Now for our mountain-sport, up to yon hill.’ What a grace and unaffected spirit of piety breathes in this passage! In like manner, one of the brothers says to the other, when about to perform the funeral rites to Fidele, ‘Nay, Cadwall, we must lay his head to the east; My Father hath a reason for ‘t’— —as if some allusion to the doctrines of the Christian faith had been casually dropped in conversation by the old man, and had been no farther inquired into. Shakespear’s morality is introduced in the same simple, unobtrusive manner. Imogen will not let her companions stay away from the chase to attend her when sick, and gives her reason for it— ‘Stick to your journal course; _the breach of custom Is breach of all_!’ When the Queen attempts to disguise her motives for procuring the poison from Cornelius, by saying she means to try its effects on ‘creatures not worth the hanging,’ his answer conveys at once a tacit reproof of her hypocrisy, and a useful lesson of humanity— ——‘Your Highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart.’ MACBETH