44
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.
they speak is the best preparation for the temper of that Third Period, and enables us to understand it. The fierce and stern decree of that Period seems to me to be, "there shall be vengeance, death, for misjudgment, failure in duty, self-indulgence, sin," and the innocent who belong to the guilty shall suffer with them: Portia, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia, lie beside Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Lear.
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