The old physiology in English literature / by P. Ansell Robin.

  • Robin, P. Ansell (Percy Ansell)
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The old physiology in English literature / by P. Ansell Robin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sympathy of Lord Angelo because he is “ A man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense.” Cleopatra1 refers to her younger days as comparatively free from passion :— “ My salad days, When I was green in judgment : cold in blood, To say as 1 said then.” Lack of spirit is attributed to coldness of blood by Henry IV. who says2 :— “ My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities”; and Falstaff (as we have seen3) marks this absence of passion as characteristic of that king. The weak Henry VI. is scornfully addressed by Warwick4 as one who lacks all manly feeling :— “ Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king, In whose cold blood no spark of honour lies” ; and in the same play Richard of Gloucester speaks of dyeing the white rose in “the lukewarm blood of Henry’s heart.” 1 Ant. and Cleop. I. v. 74 ; cf. III. 13, 158-160. 2 I Hen. IF., I. iii. 1. 3 2 Hen. IV., IV. iii. 128. 4 3 Hen. VI., I. i. 184. Cf. Hen. V., III. v. 20.