50
n:--
(ii) "Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed!-- Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come! let me clutch thee! --I have thee not; and yet I see thee still."
In this passage there is only one Latin (or French) word-- the word mistress. If Shakespeare had used the word +lady+, the passage would have been entirely English. --The passage from the newspaper deals with large +generalisations+; that from Shakespeare with individual +acts+ and +feelings+-- with things that come +home+ "to the business and bosom" of man as man. Every master of the English language understands well the art of mingling the two elements-- so as to obtain a fine effect; and none better than writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Tennyson. Shakespeare makes Antony say of Cleopatra:--
"Age cannot wither her; nor custom stale Her infinite variety."
Here the French (or Latin) words custom and variety form a vivid contrast to the English verb stale, throw up its meaning and colour, and give it greater prominence. --Milton makes Eve say:--
"I thither went With inexperienc'd thought, and laid me down On the green bank, to look into the clear Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky."
Here the words inexperienced and clear give variety to the sameness of the English words. --Gray, in the Elegy, has this verse:--
"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."
Here incense, clarion, and echoing give a vivid colouring to the plainer hues of the homely English phrases. --Tennyson, in the Lotos-Eaters, vi., writes:--
"Dear is t