are bound to recognise that he had an individuality too, and
that he relieved his emotion, and gave to his own heart's
belief, desire and bitterness, what was essentially a lyric
deliverance, even in the pages allotted to his creature-subjects.
If we must let him go, hearing him say at the end with
Cleopatra--

"I am fire and air: my other elements
I give to baser life. So, have you done?
Come then and take the last warmth of my lips.
Farewell . . ."

finding he has upset the categories by his use of the dual
mode, we can only turn for a doubtful consolation to his own
account of the functions of music. He believed in its power
to liberate the mind from the sensual crust, and relate our
thoughts to the Pythagorean harmony, and the something
more that connects nature and supernature. In As you Like
It, Measure for Measure, and The Merchant of Venice, the
evidence is now clearly, now obscurely presented, as these
remarkable lines may show--

"There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubims:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

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