He is in nine parts Machiavel and Tacitus, for one part Sophocles or Seneca.

In this writer's estimate of the powers of the mind, the understanding must have held a most tyrannical preeminence.

Whether we look into his plays or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect.

The finest movements of the human heart, the utmost grandeur of which the soul is capable, are essentially comprised in the actions and speeches of Caelica and Camena.
Shakspeare, who seems to have had a peculiar delight in contemplating womanly perfection, whom for his many sweet images of female excellence all women are in an especial manner bound to love, has not raised the ideal of the female character higher than Lord Brooke, in these two women, has done.

But it requires a study equivalent to the learning of a new language to understand their meaning when they speak.