"The plague of Greece upon thee," &c. THERSITES has been termed by Coleridge "the Caliban of demagogic life;" and he goes on to describe him as "the admirable portrait of intellectual power deserted by all grace, all moral principle, all not momentary impulse; just wise enough to detect the weak head, and fool enough to provoke the armed fist, of his betters." This is the Thersites of Shakspere; he of Homer is merely a deformed jester. The wonderful finished portrait is made out of the slightest of sketches:

"All sat, and audience gave; Thersites only would speak all. A most disorder'd store Of words he foolishly pour'd out; of which his mind held

more

In Troy's brave siege: he was squint-eyed, and lame of either foot:

So crook-back'd that he had no breast: sharp-headed, where did shoot

(Here and there sperst) thin mossy hair. He most of all envied

Ulysses and acides, whom still his spleen would chide; Nor could the sacred king himself avoid his saucy vein, Against whom, since he knew the Greeks did vehement

From Troy's knights, to redeem their sons? whom, to be dearly sold,

again

Force from some other lord his prize, to soothe the lusts that reign

In thy encroaching appetite? It fits no prince to be
A prince of ill, and govern us; or lead our progeny
By rape to ruin. O base Greeks, deserving infamy,

And ills eternal! Greekish girls, not Greeks, ye are: Come, fly

Home with our ships; leave this man here, to perish with his preys,

And try if we help'd him, or not: he wrong'd a man that weighs

Far more than he himself in worth: he forc'd from Thetis' son,

And keeps his prize still: nor think I that mighty man hath won

The style of wrathful worthily; he's soft, he's too remiss, Or else, Atrides, his had been thy last of injuries.'

Thus he the people's pastor chid; but straight stood up

5 SCENE II." You are for dreams and
slumbers, brother priest."

From his 'Homer' Shakspere` turned to the old Gothic romancer, and there he found the reproach of Troilus to Helenus, in the following very characteristic passage:

"Then arose up on his feet Troylus, the youngest son of King Pryamus, and began to speak in this manner:-O noblemen and hardy, how be ye abashed for the words of this cowardly priest here? If Helenus be

afraid, let him go into the Temple, and sing the divine service, and let the other take revenge of their injurious wrongs by strength and force of arms. * * All they that heard Troylus thus speak allowed him, saying that he had very well spoken. And thus they finished their parliament, and went to dinner."

SCENE III." The elephant hath joints," &c.

Up to the time when Sir Thomas Brown wrote his 'Vulgar Errors' (about 1670), there was a prevailing opinion that the elephant had no joints, and that it could not lie down. Its joints, according to the passage before us, were not "for flexure." Sir T. Brown refutes the error by appealing to the experience of those who had "not many years past" seen an elephant in England, "kneeling, and lying down."

11 SCENE V.

the instance of Calcas, but the Troyans blamed sore Calcas, and called him evil and false traitor, and worthy to die, that had left his own land and his natural lord, for to go into the company of his mortal enemies: yet at the petition and earnest I desire of the Greeks, the King Priamus sent Briseyda to her father."

* SCENE IV.-" Be thou but true of heart." The parting of Troilus and Cressida is very beautifully told by Chaucer; but as Shakspere's conception of the character of Cressida is altogether different from that of Chaucer, we see little in the scene before us to make us believe that Cressida will keep her vows. In the elder poet she manifests a loftiness of character which ought to have preserved her faith. Shakspere has made her consistent :

"And o'er all this, I pray you, quod she tho⚫,
Mine owné heartés sothfast suffisance!
Sith I am thine all whole withouten mo,
That while that I am absent, no pleasance
Of other do me from your rémembrance,
For I am e'er aghast; for why? men redeb
That love is thing aye full of busy drede.
"For in this world there liveth lady none,
If that ye were untrue, as God defend!
That so betrayed were or woe begone
As I, that allé truth in you intend:
And doubtéless, if that I other ween'd,

I n'ere but dead, and ere ye cause yfind,
For Goddes love, so be me nought unkind.

"To this answered Troilus, and said,

Now God, to whom there is no cause awry,
Me glad, as wis I never to Cressid',
Sith thilké day I saw her first with eye,
Was false, nor ever shall till that I die:

At short wordés, well ye may me believe;
I can no more; it shall be found at preves.
"Grand mercy, good heart mine! I wis, (quod she,)
And, blissful Venus! let me never sterved
Ere I may stand of pleasance in degree
To quite him well that so well can deserve;
And while that God my wit will me conserve
1 shall so do, so true I have you found,
That aye honour to me-ward shall rebound:
"For trusteth well that your estate royal,
Nor vain delight, nor only worthiness,
Of you in war or tourney martiál,
Nor pomp, array, nobley, or eke richess,
Ne maden me to rue on your distress,

But moral virtue, grounded upon truth;-
That was the cause I first had on you ruth:
"Eke gentle heart, and manhood that ye had,
And that ye had (as me thought) in despite
Every thing that sounéd into bad,

As rudeness, and peoplish & appetite,
And that your reason bridled your delight;
This made aboven ev'ry creáture

That I was yours, and shall while I may dure."

(Book iv.)

"Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son."

This incident, which is one of the occasions in which Shakspere, following the old romance writers, desires to exhibit the magnanimity of Hector, is found in the 'Destruction of Troy:'

"As they were fighting, they spake and talked together, and thereby Hector knew that he was his cousin-german, son of his aunt and then Hector for courtesy, embraced him in his arms, and made great cheer, and offered to him to do all his pleasure, if he desired anything of him, and prayed him that he would come to Troy with him for to see his lineage of his mother's side: but the said Thelamon, that intended to nothing but to his best advantage, said that he would not go at this time. But he prayed Hector, requesting that, if he loved him so much as he said, that he would for his sake, and at his instance, cease the battle for that day, and that the Troyans should leave the Greeks in peace. The unhappy Hector accorded unto him his request, and blew a horn, and made all his people to withdraw into the city."

18 SCENE II." Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve." THE story of Cressida's falsehood is prettily told by Chaucer. Shakspere has literally copied one of the incidents:

"She made him wear a pencell of her sleeve." But we still trace the inconsistency of character in Chaucer's Cressida. Mr. Godwin laments that Shakspere has not interested us in his principal female, as Chaucer has done. Such an interest would have been bought at the expense of truth. The passages which we give will enable the reader to compare the two characters:

"The morrow came, and ghostly for to speak,
This Diomed is come unto Creseid';
And, shortly, lest that ye my talé break,
So well he for himselfen spake and said
That all her sighés sore adown he laid;
And, finally, the sothé for to sain,
He reft her of the great of all her pain.

"And after this the story telleth us

That she unto him gave the fair bay steed
The which she onés won of Troilus,
And eke a brooch (and that was little need)
That Troilus' was, she gave this Diomed;

And eke the bet from sorrow him to relieve,
She made him wear a pencell of her sleeve.

"I find eke in the story ellés where,

When through the body hurt was Diomed
Of Troilus, then wept she many a tear
When that she saw his widé woundés bleed,
And that she took to keepen him good heed,
And for to heal him of his woundés smart ;
Men say,-I n'ot,-that she gave him her heart.
"But truely the story telleth us

There maden never women more woe
Than she when that she falsed Troilus;
She said, Alas! for now is clean ago
My name in truth of love for evermo,
For I have falsed one of the gentillest
That ever was, and one of the worthiest."

(Book v.) 14 SCENE III.-"My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day."