After he lost her, he went back to her;
but the wound of her frailty cankered and took on proud flesh in him,
and tortured him to nervous breakdown and to madness. When at length he
won to peace, after ten years, it was the peace of exhaustion. His love
for his "gipsy-wanton" burned him out, as one is burnt to ashes at the
stake, and his passion only ended with his life.
There is no room for doubt in my mind, no faintest suspicion. Hallam and
Heine, and all the cry of critics, are mistaken in this matter.
Shakespeare admired Lord Herbert's youth and boldness and beauty, hoped
great things from his favour and patronage; but after the betrayal, he
judged him inexorably as a mean traitor, "a stealer" who had betrayed "a
twofold trust"; and later, cursed him for his ingratitude, and went
about with wild thoughts of bloody revenge, as we shall soon see in
"Hamlet" and "Othello," and then dropped him into oblivion without a
pang.
It is bad enough to know that Shakespeare, the sweetest spirit and
finest mind in all literature, should have degraded himself to pretend
such an affection for the profligate Herbert as has given occasion for
misconstruction.
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