"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on his anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news; Who, with his shears and measure in his hand, Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet), Told of a many thousand warlike French That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent. Another lean, unwashed artificer, Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death." (Act 4, Sc. 2.) Macbeth, while sounding the murderers whom he intends to employ, and who say to him, "We are men, my liege," answers: "Ay, in the catalogue, ye go for men As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-sugs, and demi-wolves, are cleped All by the name of dogs." (Act 3, Sc. 1.) As Coriolanus is held up to our view as a pattern of noble bearing toward the people, so Richard II. condemns the courteous behavior of the future Henry IV. on his way into banishment. He says: "Ourselves, and Bushy, Bagot here and Green Observed his courtship to the common people; How he did seem to dive into their hearts With humble and familiar courtesy; What reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles And patient overbearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their effects with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen did God speed him well And had the tribute of his supple knee, With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends.'" (Richard II., Act 1, Sc. 4.) The King of France, in "All's Well that Ends Well," commends to Bertram the example of his late father in his relations with his inferiors: "Who were below him He used as creatures of another place, And bowed his eminent top to their low ranks, Making them proud of his humility In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times." (Act 1, Sc. 2.) Shakespeare had no fondness for these "younger times," with their increasing suggestion of democracy. Despising the masses, he had no sympathy with the idea of improving their condition or increasing their power. He saw the signs of the times with foreboding, as did his hero, Hamlet: "By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age has grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." There can easily be too much liberty, according to Shakespeare--"too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty" (Measure for Measure, Act 1, Sc. 3), but the idea of too much authority is foreign to him. Claudio, himself under arrest, sings its praises: