Why was it, that, of all
the books in the world, Charles Lamb should have fixed his affections
chiefly on the old English dramatists? He might have turned to old
Greece, admired the fruits of the classic ages, and become one of those
sparkling artistic Hellenists that are occasionally seen in modern
times. He might have turned to the mediaeval period. He had an eye
for cloisters and nuns. His fancy would have been struck with the
grotesqueness of many of the ideas and institutions of those times.
He would have got on finely with Gurth the swineherd and Burgundy the
tusk-toothed, and one of his masterly witticisms would have upset Duns
Scotus. Perhaps, of all the mediaeval characters, he would have been
most smitten with the court fool, and, if he could have been seated at
a princely table of the twelfth century, the bowl surely would not have
been round many times before he and the fool would have had a few passes
at each other. There was enough in the Middle Ages to have fascinated
him; and could he, like some romantic Novalis, have once penetrated
thither, and tasted the fruit, he would have found it a lotus, and
would have wished never to depart.
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