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.""
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
