IFG

ཁམས་ཟས་
4
نام
1837
ARTES
LIBRARY
VERITAS
SCIENTIA
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E PLURIBUS UNUM:
TUEBOR
SQUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAMI
CIRCUMSPICE
PATOI
Booksel
3.South
(ED
CHARACTERISTICS
OF
WOMEN.

Emmy Nov. 7.183.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF
WOMEN,
MORAL, POETICAL, AND HISTORICAL.
With Filty Vignette Etchings.
BY MRS. JAMESON,
??
CC
AUTHOR OF
THE DIARY OF AN ENNUYEE,
MEMOIRS OF
FEMALE SOVEREIGNS," &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
Fourth Edition.
LONDON
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.
1846.
HERMIONE
DESDEMONA
IMOGEN
CORDELIA
CLEOPATRA
OCTAVIA
VOLUMNIA
CONTENTS.
VOL. II.
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CONSTANCE OF BRETAGNE
ELINOR OF GUIENNE
BLANCHE OF CASTILE
MARGARET OF ANJOU
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON
LADY MACBETH
PAGE
1
31
50
88
•
117
•
169
175
191
•
233
•
236
245
260
299
SUBJECTS OF THE VIGNETTES
CONTAINED IN THE SECOND VOLUME.
27. HERMIONE (as a Statue.)
28. HYACINTHE.
29. OTHELLO AND DESDEMONA.
30. INNOCENCE PERISHING IN THE COIL OF A FIEND.
31. IMOGEN CONTEMPLATING HER BRACELET.
32. THE EXILE FROM BRITAIN.
33. "O FOR A HORSE WITH WINGS!"
34. LEAR AND CORDELIA.
35. ENVY, FALSEHOOD, AND TRUTH.
36. FAME, (after Albert Durer.)
37. THE EGYPTIAN CIRce.
38. THE FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM.
39. EGYPT.
40. THE ROMAN LADY.
41. THE ROMAN EAGLE.
42. THE MAJESTY OF GRIEF.
viii
LIST OF ETCHINGS.
43. RUINED BARONIAL TOWER.
44. GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET ARMED FOR THE TOURNAMENT.
45. THE WARS OF THE TWO ROSES.
46. THE THRONE OF QUEEN KATHERINE.
47. THE ARRIVAL OF QUEEN KATHERINE.
48. THE QUEEN LILY.
49. SPIRITS OF PEACE.
50. LADY MACBETH.
51. THE MEDUSA.

CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
CHARACTERS in which the affections and the moral
qualities predominate over fancy and all that bears
the name of passion, are not, when we meet with
them in real life, the most striking and interesting,
nor the easiest to be understood and appreciated;
but they are those on which, in the long run, we
22
2
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
repose with increasing confidence and ever-new
delight. Such characters are not easily exhibited
in the colours of poetry, and when we meet with
them there, we are reminded of the effect of Raf-
faelle's pictures. Sir Joshua Reynolds assures us
that it took him three weeks to discover the beauty
of the frescos in the Vatican; and many, if they
spoke truth, would prefer one of Titian's or Mu-
rillo's Virgins to one of Raffaelle's heavenly Ma-
donnas. The less there is of marked expression or
vivid colour in a countenance or character, the
more difficult to delineate it in such a manner as to
captivate and interest us: but when this is done,
and done to perfection, it is the miracle of poetry
in painting, and of painting in poetry. Only
Raffaelle and Correggio have achieved it in one.
case, and only Shakspeare in the other.
When, by the presence or the agency of some
predominant and exciting power, the feelings and
affections are upturned from the depths of the
heart, and flung to the surface, the painter or the
poet has but to watch the workings of the pas-
sions, thus in a manner made visible, and transfer
HERMIONE.
3
them to his page or his canvas, in colours more or
less vigorous but where all is calm without and
around, to dive into the profoundest abysses of
character, trace the affections where they lie hidden
like the ocean springs, wind into the most intri-
cate involutions of the heart, patiently unravel its
most delicate fibres, and in a few graceful touches
place before us the distinct and visible result,-to
do this demanded power of another and a rarer
kind.
There are several of Shakspeare's characters
which are especially distinguished by this profound
feeling in the conception, and subdued harmony
of tone in the delineation. To them may be parti-
cularly applied the ingenious simile which Goëthe
has used to illustrate generally all Shakspeare's
characters, when he compares them to the old-
fashioned watches in glass cases, which not only
showed the index pointing to the hour, but the
wheels and springs within, which set that index in
motion.
Imogen, Desdemona, and Hermione, are three
women placed in situations nearly similar, and
VOL. II.
B
4
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
equally endowed with all the qualities which can
render that situation striking and interesting.
They are all gentle, beautiful, and innocent; all
are models of conjugal submission, truth, and ten-
derness; and all are victims of the unfounded
jealousy of their husbands. So far the parallel is
close, but here the resemblance ceases; the cir-
cumstances of each situation are varied with won-
derful skill, and the characters, which are as
different as it is possible to imagine, conceived and
discriminated with a power of truth and a delicacy
of feeling yet more astonishing.
Critically speaking, the character of Hermione
is the most simple in point of dramatic effect, that
of Imogen is the most varied and complex. Her-
mione is most distinguished by her magnanimity
and her fortitude, Desdemona by her gentleness
and refined grace, while Imogen combines all the
best qualities of both, with others which they do
not possess; consequently she is, as a character,
superior to either; but considered as women, I
suppose the preference would depend on individual
taste.
HERMIONE.
5
Hermione is the heroine of the three first acts
of the Winter's Tale. She is the wife of Leontes,
king of Sicilia, and though in the prime of beauty
and womanhood, is not represented in the first
bloom of youth.
Her husband on slight grounds
suspects her of infidelity with his friend Polixenes,
king of Bohemia; the suspicion once admitted,
and working on a jealous, passionate, and vin-
dictive mind, becomes a settled and confirmed
opinion. Hermione is thrown into a dungeon; her
new-born infant is taken from her, and by the
order of her husband, frantic with jealousy, ex-
posed to death on a desert shore; she is herself
brought to a public trial for treason and incon-
tinency, defends herself nobly, and is pronounced
innocent by the oracle. But at the very moment
that she is acquitted, she learns the death of the
prince her son, who
Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,
Had straight declined, drooped, took it deeply,
Fastened and fixed the shame on't in himself,
Threw off his spirit, appetite, and sleep,
And downright languished.
B 2
6
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
She swoons away with grief, and her supposed
death concludes the third act. The two last acts
are occupied with the adventures of her daughter
Perdita; and with the restoration of Perdita to the
arms of her mother, and the reconciliation of Her-
mione and Leontes, the piece concludes.
Such, in few words, is the dramatic situation.
The character of Hermione exhibits what is never
found in the other sex, but rarely in our own-yet
sometimes ;-dignity without pride, love without
passion, and tenderness without weakness. To
conceive a character in which there enters so much
of the negative, required perhaps no rare and
astonishing effort of genius, such as created a
Juliet, a Miranda, or a lady Macbeth; but to de-
lineate such a character in the poetical form, to
develope it through the medium of action and dia-
logue, without the aid of description: to preserve
its tranquil, mild and serious beauty, its unim-
passioned dignity, and at the same time keep the
strongest hold upon our sympathy and our ima-
gination; and out of this exterior calm, produce
the most profound pathos, the most vivid impres-
HERMIONE.
7
sion of life and internal power :-it is this which
renders the character of Hermione one of Shak-
speare's masterpieces.
Hermione is a queen, a matron, and a mother;
she is good and beautiful, and royally descended.
A majestic sweetness, a grand and gracious sim-
plicity, an easy, unforced, yet dignified self-pos-
session, are in all her deportment, and in every
word she utters. She is one of those characters, of
whom it has been said proverbially, that "still
waters run deep." Her passions are not vehement,
but in her settled mind the sources of pain or
pleasure, love or resentment, are like the springs
that feed the mountain lakes, impenetrable, un-
fathomable, and inexhaustible.
Shakspeare has conveyed (as is his custom) a
part of the character of Hermione in scattered
touches, and through the impressions which she
produces on all around her. Her surpassing
beauty is alluded to in few but strong terms:-
This jealousy
Is for a precious creature; as she is rare
Must it be great.
00
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
Praise her but for this her out-door form,
(Which, on my faith, deserves high speech-)
If one by one you wedded all the world,
Or from the all that are, took something good
To make a perfect woman; she you killed
Would be unparalleled.
I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes,
Have taken treasure from her lips-
and left them
More rich for what they yielded.
The expressions "most sacred lady," "dread
mistress," "sovereign," with which she is ad-
dressed or alluded to, the boundless devotion and
respect of those around her, and their confidence
in her goodness and innocence, are so many addi-
tional strokes in the portrait.
For her, my lord,
I dare my life lay down, and will do't, sir,
Please you t'accept it, that the queen is spotless
I' the eyes of heaven, and to you.
Every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false,
If she be so.
HERMIONE.
9
I would not be a stander-by to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
My present vengeance taken !
The mixture of playful courtesy, queenly dig-
nity and lady-like sweetness, with which she pre-
vails on Polixenes to prolong his visit, is charm-
ing.
HERMIONE.
You'll stay?
POLIXENES.
No, madam.
HERMIONE
Nay, but you will.
POLIXENES.
I may not, verily.
HERMIONE.
Verily !
You put me off with limber vows; but I,
Tho' you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,
Should still say, "Sir, no going!" Verily,
You shall not go! A lady's verily is
As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
Not like a guest?
10
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
And though the situation of Hermione admits
but of few general reflections, one little speech,
inimitably beautiful and characteristic, has become
almost proverbial from its truth. She says,
One good deed, dying tongueless,
Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages; you may ride us
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we beat an acre.
She receives the first intimation of her hus-
band's jealous suspicions with incredulous asto-
nishment. It is not that, like Desdemona, she
does not, or cannot understand; but she will not.
When he accuses her more plainly, she replies with
a calm dignity—
Should a villain say so-
The most replenished villain in the world-
He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
Do but mistake.
This characteristic composure of temper never
forsakes her; and yet it is so delineated that the
impression is that of grandeur, and never borders
HERMIONE.
]]
upon pride or coldness: it is the fortitude of a
gentle but a strong mind, conscious of its own in-
nocence. Nothing can be more affecting than her
calm reply to Leontes, who, in his jealous rage,
heaps insult upon insult, and accuses her before
her own attendants, as no better "than one of
those to whom the vulgar give bold titles."
How will this grieve you,
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You have thus published me! Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me thoroughly then, to say
You did mistake.
Her mild dignity and saint-like patience, com-
bined as they are with the strongest sense of the
cruel injustice of her husband, thrill us with ad-
miration as well as pity; and we cannot but see
and feel, that for Hermione to give way to tears
and feminine complaints under such a blow, would
be quite incompatible with the character. Thus
she says of herself, as she is led to prison:
There's some ill planet reigns:
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
12
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here, that burns
Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities.
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
The king's will be performed.
When she is brought to trial for supposed
crimes, called on to defend herself, "standing to
prate and talk for life and honour, before who
please to come and hear," the sense of her igno-
minious situation-all its shame and all its horror
press upon her, and would apparently crush even
her magnanimous spirit, but for the consciousness
of her own worth and innocence, and the necessity
that exists for asserting and defending both.
If powers divine
Behold our human actions, (as they do,)
1 doubt not, then, but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny
Tremble at patience.
HERMIONE.
13
For life, I prize it
As I weigh grief, which I would spare. For honour
'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for.
Her earnest, eloquent justification of herself,
and her lofty sense of female honour, are rendered
more affecting and impressive by that chilling de-
spair, that contempt for a life which has been
made bitter to her through unkindness, which is
betrayed in every word of her speech, though so
calmly characteristic. When she enumerates
the unmerited insults which have been heaped
upon her, it is without asperity or reproach,
yet in a tone which shows how completely the iron
has entered her
her soul. Thus, when Leontes
threatens her with death:
Sir, spare your threats :
The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
To me can life be no commodity ;
The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,
But know not how it went. My second joy,
The first-fruits of my body, from his presence
14
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
I am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort—
Starr'd most unluckily !-is from my breast,
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,
Haled out to murder. Myself on every post
Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred,
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
To women of all fashion. Lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i' the open air, before
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die. Therefore, proceed,
But yet hear this; mistake me not. No! life,
I prize it not a straw :-but for mine honour,
(Which I would free,) if I shall be condemned
Upon surmises; all proof sleeping else,
But what your jealousies awake; I tell you,
'Tis rigour and not law.
The character of Hermione is considered open
to criticism on one point. I have heard it re-
marked that when she secludes herself from the
world for sixteen years, during which time she is
mourned as dead by her repentant husband, and
is not won to relent from her resolve by his sor-
row, his remorse, his constancy to her memory;
such conduct, argues the critic, is unfeeling as it
HERMIONE.
15
is inconceivable in a tender and virtuous woman.
Would Imogen have done so, who is so gene-
rously ready to grant a pardon before it be asked?
or Desdemona, who does not forgive because she
cannot even resent? No, assuredly; but this is
only another proof of the wonderful delicacy and
consistency with which Shakspeare has discrimi-
nated the characters of all three. The incident
of Hermione's supposed death and concealment
for sixteen years, is not indeed very probable in
itself, nor very likely to occur in every-day life.
But besides all the probability necessary for the
purposes of poetry, it has all the likelihood it can
derive from the peculiar character of Hermione,
who is precisely the woman who could and would
have acted in this manner. In such a mind as
hers, the sense of a cruel injury, inflicted by one
she had loved and trusted, without awakening any
violent anger or any desire of vengeance, would
sink deep-almost incurably and lastingly deep.
So far she is most unlike either Imogen or Desde-
mona, who are portrayed as much more flexible
in temper; but then the circumstances under
16
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
which she is wronged are very different, and far
more unpardonable. The self-created, frantic jea-
lousy of Leontes is very distinct from that of
Othello, writhing under the arts of Iago: or that
of Posthumus, whose understanding has been
cheated by the most damning evidence of his wife's
infidelity. The jealousy which in Othello and
Posthumus is an error of judgment, in Leontes is a
vice of the blood; he suspects without cause, con-
demns without proof; he is without excuse-unless
the mixture of pride, passion, and imagination, and
the predisposition to jealousy with which Shakspeare
has portrayed him, be considered as an excuse.
Hermione has been openly insulted: he to whom
she gave herself, her heart, her soul, has stooped
to the weakness and baseness of suspicion; has
doubted her truth, has wronged her love, has
sunk in her esteem and forfeited her confidence.
She has been branded with vile names; her son,
her eldest hope, is dead-dead through the false
accusation which has stuck infamy on his mother's
name; and her innocent babe, stained with ille-
gitimacy, disowned and rejected, has been exposed
HERMIONE.
17
to a cruel death. Can we believe that the mere
tardy acknowledgment of her innocence could.
make amends for wrongs and agonies such as
these? or heal a heart which must have bled in-
wardly, consumed by that untold grief, "which
burns worse than tears drown?" Keeping in view
the peculiar character of Hermione, such as she is
delineated, is she one either to forgive hastily or
forget quickly? and though she might, in her
solitude, mourn over her repentant husband, would
his repentance suffice to restore him at once to his
place in her heart: to efface from her strong and
reflecting mind the recollection of his miserable
weakness? or can we fancy this high-souled woman
-left childless through the injury which has been
inflicted on her, widowed in heart by the unwor-
thiness of him she loved, a spectacle of grief to
all-to her husband a continual reproach and hu-
miliation-walking through the parade of royalty
in the court which had witnessed her anguish, her
shame, her degradation, and her despair? Me-
thinks that the want of feeling, nature, delicacy,
and consistency, would lie in such an exhibition as
18
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
this. In a mind like Hermione's, where the
strength of feeling is founded in the power of
thought, and where there is little of impulse or
imagination,—“ the depth, but not the tumult of
the soul,”*—there are but two influences which
predominate over the will,-time and religion.
And what then remained, but that, wounded in
heart and spirit, she should retire from the world?
-not to brood over her wrongs, but to study for-
giveness, and wait the fulfilment of the oracle
which had promised the termination of her sor-
rows. Thus a premature reconciliation would not
only have been painfully inconsistent with the
character; it would also have deprived us of that
most beautiful scene, in which Hermione is disco-
vered to her husband as the statue or image of
herself. And here we have another instance of
The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult of the soul.
WORDSWORTII.
Il pouvait y avoir des vagues majestueuses et non de
l'orage dans son cœur," was finely observed of Madame de
Staël in ber maturer years; it would have been true of Hermione
at any period of her life.
HERMIONE.
19
that admirable art, with which the dramatic cha-
racter is fitted to the circumstances in which it is
:
placed that perfect command over her own feel-
ings, that complete self-possession necessary to this
extraordinary situation, is consistent with all that
we imagine of Hermione: in any other woman it
would be so incredible as to shock all our ideas
of probability.
This scene, then, is not only one of the most
picturesque and striking instances of stage effect
to be found in the ancient or modern drama, but
by the skilful manner in which it is prepared,
it has, wonderful as it appears, all the merit of
consistency and truth.
The grief, the love, the
remorse and impatience of Leontes, are finely
contrasted with the astonishment and admiration
of Perdita, who, gazing on the figure of her
mother like one entranced, looks as if she were
also turned to marble. There is here one little
instance of tender remembrance in Leontes, which
adds to the charming impression of Hermione's
character.
Chide me, dear stone! that I
may say indeed
Thou art Hermione; or rather thou art she
VOL. II.
C
20
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
In thy not chiding, for she was as tender
As infancy and grace.
Thus she stood,
Even with such life of majesty-warm life-
As now it coldly stands-when first I woo'd her!
The effect produced on the different persons of
the drama by this living statue-an effect which
at the same moment is, and is not illusion—the
manner in which the feelings of the spectators be-
come entangled between the conviction of death
and the impression of life, the idea of a deception
and the feeling of a reality; and the exquisite
colouring of poetry and touches of natural feeling
with which the whole is wrought up, till wonder,
expectation, and intense pleasure, hold our pulse
and breath suspended on the event,—are quite ini-
mitable.
The expressions used here by Leontes,
Thus she stood,
Even with such life of majesty-warm life.
The fixture of her eye has motion in't.
And we are mock'd by art!
And by Polixenes,
The very life seems warm upon her lip,
HERMIONE.
21
appear strangely applied to a statue, such as we
usually imagine it-of the cold colourless marble;
but it is evident that in this scene Hermione per-
sonates one of those images or effigies, such as we
may see in the old gothic cathedrals, in which the
stone, or marble, was coloured after nature. I
remember coming suddenly upon one of these
effigies, either at Basle or at Fribourg, which made
me start the figure was large as life; the dra-
pery of crimson, powdered with stars of gold ;
the face, and eyes, and hair, tinted after nature,
though faded by time: it stood in a gothic niche,
over a tomb, as I think, and in a kind of dim
uncertain light. It would have been very easy
for a living person to represent such an effigy,
particularly if it had been painted by that "rare
Italian master, Julio Romano,"* who, as we are
informed, was the reputed author of this wonder-
ful statue.
The moment when Hermione descends from
her pedestal to the sound of soft music, and
throws herself without speaking into her hus-
* Winter's Tale, act. v. scene 11.
c 2
22
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
i
band's arms, is one of inexpressible interest.
It
appears to me that her silence during the whole
of this scene (except where she invokes a bless-
ing on her daughter's head) is in the finest taste
as a poetical beauty, besides being an admirable
trait of character. The misfortunes of Hermione,
her long religious seclusion, the wonderful and
almost supernatural part she has just enacted,
have invested her with such a sacred and awful
charm, that any words put into her mouth, must,
I think, have injured the solemn and profound
pathos of the situation.
There are several among Shakspeare's charac-
ters which exercise a far stronger power over our
feelings, our fancy, our understanding, than that
of Hermione; but not one,-unless perhaps Cor-
delia,—constructed upon so high and pure a prin-
ciple. It is the union of gentleness with power
which constitutes the perfection of mental grace.
Thus among the ancients, with whom the graces
were also the charities, (to show, perhaps, that
while form alone may constitute beauty, sentiment
is necessary to grace,) one and the same word
HERMIONE.
23
signified equally strength and virtue. This feel-
ing, carried into the fine arts, was the secret of
the antique grace-the grace of repose. The same
eternal nature-the same sense of immutable truth
and beauty, which revealed this sublime principle
of art to the ancient Greeks, revealed it to the
genius of Shakspeare; and the character of Her-
mione, in which we have the same largeness of
conception and delicacy of execution,-the same
effect of suffering without passion, and grandeur
without effort, is an instance, I think, that he felt
within himself, and by intuition, what we study
all our lives in the remains of ancient art. The
calm, regular, classical beauty of Hermione's cha-
racter is the more impressive from the wild and
gothic accompaniments of her story, and the
beautiful relief afforded by the pastoral and ro-
mantic grace which is thrown around her daughter
Perdita.
The character of Paulina, in the Winter's
Tale, though it has obtained but little notice,
and no critical remark, (that I have seen,) is yet.
one of the striking beauties of the play and it
24
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
has its moral too. As we see running through the
whole universe that principle of contrast which
may be called the life of nature, so we behold it
every where illustrated in Shakspeare: upon this
principle he has placed Emilia beside Desdemona,
the nurse beside Juliet; the clowns and dairy-
maids, and the merry pedlar thief Autolycus
round Florizel and Perdita;-and made Paulina
the friend of Hermione.
Paulina does not fill any ostensible office near
the person of the queen, but is a lady of high rank
in the court the wife of the Lord Antigones.
She is a character strongly drawn from real and
common life—a clever, generous, strong-minded,
warm-hearted woman, fearless in asserting the
truth, firm in her sense of right, enthusiastic in
all her affections; quick in thought, resolute in
word, and energetic in action; but heedless, hot-
tempered, impatient, loud, bold, voluble, and
turbulent of tongue; regardless of the feelings of
those for whom she would sacrifice her life, and
injuring from excess of zeal those whom she most
wishes to serve. How many such are there in the
HERMIONE.
25
world! But Paulina, though a very termagant,
is yet a poetical termagant in her way; and the
manner in which all the evil and dangerous ten-
dencies of such a temper are placed before us,
even while the individual character preserves the
strongest hold upon our respect and admiration,
forms an impressive lesson, as well as a natural
and delightful portrait.
In the scene, for instance, where she brings
the infant before Leontes with the hope of soft-
ening him to a sense of his injustice-" an office
which," as she observes, "becomes a woman best"
-her want of self-government, her bitter, incon-
siderate reproaches, only add, as we might easily
suppose, to his fury.
Paulina.
I say I come
From your good queen!
Good queen!
LEONTES.
PAULINA.
Good queen, my lord, good queen: I say good queen ;
26
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
And would by combat make her good, so were I
A man, the worst about you.
LEONTES.
Force her hence.
PAULINA.
Let him that makes but trifles of bis eyes,
First hand me on mine own accord I'll off;
But first I'll do mine errand. The good queen
(For she is good) bath brought you forth a daughter-
Here 'tis ; commends it to your blessing.
LEONTES.
Traitors!
Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.
PAULINA.
For ever
Unvenerable be thy bands, if thou
Tak'st up the princess by that forced baseness
Which he has put upon't!
He dreads his wife,
LEONTES.
PAULINA.
So, I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt
You'd call your children your's.
HERMIONE.
27
ļ
LEONTES.
A callat,
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
And now baits me!--this brat is none of mine.
PAULINA.
It is yours,
And might we lay the old proverb to your charge,
So like you, 'tis the worse.
*
LEONTES.
A gross bag!
And lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd,
That wilt not stay her tongue.
ANTIGONES.
Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
Hardly one subject.
LEONTES.
Once more, take her hence.
PAULINA.
A most unworthy and unnatural lord
Can do no more.
LEONTES.
I'll have thee burn'd.
28
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
PAULINA.
I care not:
It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in 't.
Here, while we honour her courage and her
affection, we cannot help regretting her violence.
We see, too, in Paulina, what we so often see in
real life, that it is not those who are most suscepti-
ble in their own temper and feelings who are
most delicate and forbearing towards the feelings
of others. She does not comprehend, or will not
allow for the sensitive weakness of a mind less
firmly tempered than her own. There is a reply
of Leontes to one of her cutting speeches which
is full of feeling, and a lesson to those, who with
the best intentions in the world, force the pain-
ful truth, like a knife, into the already lacerated
heart.
PAULINA.
If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
Or, from the all that are took something good
she you
kill'd
To make a perfect woman, she
Would be unparallel'd.
HERMIONE.
29
LEONTES.
I think so.
Kill'd!
She I kill'd? I did so: but thou strik'st me
Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter
Upon thy tongue, as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.
CLEOMENES.
Not at all, good lady :
You might have spoken a thousand things that would
Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
Your kindness better.
We can only excuse Paulina by recollecting
that it is a part of her purpose to keep alive
in the heart of Leontes the remembrance of his
queen's perfections, and of his own cruel injustice.
It is admirable, too, that Hermione and Paulina,
while sufficiently approximated to afford all the
pleasure of contrast, are never brought too nearly
in contact on the scene or in the dialogue ;* for
* Only in the last scene, when, with solemnity befitting the
occasion, Paulina invokes the majestic figure to "descend, and be
stone no more," and where she presents her daughter to her,
"Turn, good lady! our Perdita is found."
23
30
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
this would have been a fault in taste, and have
necessarily weakened the effect of both characters:
—either the serene grandeur of Hermione would
have subdued and overawed the fiery spirit of
Paulina, or the impetuous temper of the latter
must have disturbed in some respect our impres-
sion of the calm, majestic, and somewhat melan-
choly beauty of Hermione.


DESDEMONA.
THE character of Hermione is addressed more to
the imagination;—that of Desdemona to the feelings.
All that can render sorrow majestic is gathered
round Hermione; all that can render misery
heart-breaking is assembled round Desdemona.
24
32
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
The wronged but self-sustained virtue of Her-
mione commands our veneration; the injured and
defenceless innocence of Desdemona so wrings the
soul, "that all for pity we could die."
Desdemona, as a character, comes nearest to
Miranda, both in herself as a woman, and in the
perfect simplicity and unity of the delineation;
the figures are differently draped-the proportions
are the same. There is the same modesty, tender-
ness, and grace; the same artless devotion in the
affections, the same predisposition to wonder, to
pity, to admire; the same almost ethereal refine-
ment and delicacy; but all is pure poetic na-
ture within Miranda and around her: Desdemona
is more associated with the palpable realities of
every-day existence, and we see the forms and
habits of society tinting her language and deport-
ment; no two beings can be more alike in cha-
racter-nor more distinct as individuals.
The love of Desdemona for Othello appears at
first such a violation of all probabilities, that
her father at once imputes it to magic, "to spells
and mixtures powerful o'er the blood.”
DESDEMONA.
33
She, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
To fall in love with what she feared to look on!
And the devilish malignity of Iago, whose coarse
mind cannot conceive an affection founded purely
in sentiment, derives from her love itself a strong
argument against her.
Ay, there's the point, as to be bold with you,
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends,* &c.
Notwithstanding this disparity of age, character
country, complexion, we, who are admitted into
the secret, see her love rise naturally and necessa-
rily out of the leading propensities of her nature.
At the period of the story a spirit of wild ad-
venture had seized all Europe. The discovery
of both Indies was yet recent; over the shores
of the western hemisphere still fable and mys-
tery hung, with all their dim enchantments,
visionary terrors, and golden promises! perilous
* Act iii, scene 3.
34
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
expeditions and distant voyages were every day
undertaken from hope of plunder, or mere love
of enterprise; and from these the adventurers re-
turned with tales of "Antres vast and desarts wild
-of cannibals that did each other eat-of An-
thropophagi, and men whose heads did grow be-
neath their shoulders." With just such stories did
Raleigh and Clifford, and their followers return
from the New World: and thus by their splen-
did or fearful exaggerations, which the imperfect
knowledge of those times could not refute, was
the passion for the romantic and marvellous
nourished at home, particularly among the women.
A cavalier of those days had no nearer, no surer
way to his mistress's heart, than by entertaining
her with these wondrous narratives. What was
a general feature of his time, Shakspeare seized
and adapted to his purpose with the most exqui-
site felicity of effect. Desdemona, leaving her
household cares in haste, to hang breathless on
Othello's tales, was doubtless a picture from the
life; and her inexperience and her quick imagi-
nation lend it an added propriety: then her com-
DESDEMONA.
35
passionate disposition is interested by all the dis
astrous chances, hair-breadth 'scapes, and moving
accidents by flood and field, of which he has to
tell; and her exceeding gentleness and timidity,
and her domestic turn of mind, render her more
easily captivated by the military renown, the va-
lour, and lofty bearing of the noble Moor-
And to his honours and his valiant parts.
Does she her soul and fortunes consecrate.
The confession and the excuse for her love is
well placed in the mouth of Desdemona, while
the history of the rise of that love, and of his
course of wooing, is, with the most graceful
propriety, as far as she is concerned, spoken by
Othello, and in her absence. The last two lines
summing up the whole-
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them
comprise whole volumes of sentiment and meta-
physics.
Desdemona displays at times a transient energy,
36
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
arising from the power of affection, but gentle-
ness gives the prevailing tone to the character-
gentleness in its excess-gentleness verging on
passiveness-gentleness, which not only cannot
resent, but cannot resist.
OTHELLO.
Then of so gentle a condition!
IAGO.
Ay ! too gentle.
OTHELLO.
Nay, that's certain.
Here the exceeding softness of Desdemona's
temper is turned against her by Iago, so that it
suddenly strikes Othello in a new point of view, as
the inability to resist temptation; but to us who
perceive the character as a whole, this extreme
gentleness of nature is yet delineated with such
exceeding refinement, that the effect never ap-
proaches to feebleness. It is true that once her
extreme timidity leads her in a moment of con-
fusion and terror to prevaricate about the fatal
handkerchief. This handkerchief, in the original
story of Cinthio, is merely one of those embroi-
DESDEMONA.
37
dered handkerchiefs which were as fashionable in
Shakspeare's time as in our own; but the minute.
description of it as "lavorato alla morisco sotti-
lissimamente," suggested to the poetical fancy of
Shakspeare one of the most exquisite and charac-
teristic passages in the whole play. Othello makes
poor Desdemona believe that the handkerchief was
a talisman.
There's magic in the web of it.
A sybil, that had numbered in the world
The sun to make two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew'd the work:
The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk,
And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful
Conserv'd of maidens' hearts.
DESDEMONA.
Indeed! is't true?
OTHELLO.
Most veritable, therefore look to't well.
DESDEMONA.
Then would to heaven that I had never seen it!
* Which being interpreted into modern English, means, I be-
lieve, nothing more than that the pattern was what we now call
arabesque.
38
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
Ha! wherefore!
OTHELLO.
DESDEMONA.
Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
OTHELLO.
Is't lost,-Is't gone? Speak, is it out of the way?
Heavens bless us !
Say you?
DESDEMONA.
OTHELLO.
DESDEMONA.
It is not lost-but what an' if it were?
Ha!
I say it is not lost.
OTHELLO.
DESDEMONA.
Fetch it, let me see it.
OTHELLO.
DESDEMONA.
Why so I can, sir, but I will not now, &c.
Desdemona, whose soft credulity, whose turn for
the marvellous, whose susceptible imagination had
first directed her thoughts and affections to Othello,
DESDEMONA.
39
is precisely the woman to be frightened out of her
senses by such a tale as this, and betrayed by her
fears into a momentary tergiversation. It is most
natural in such a being, and shows us that even in
the sweetest natures there can be no completeness
and consistency without moral energy.*
With the most perfect artlessness, she has
something of the instinctive, unconscious address
of her sex; as when she appeals to her father-
So much duty as my mother show'd
To you, preferring you before her father,
*There is an incident in the original tale, "Il Moro di Ve-
nezia," which could not well be transferred to the drama, but
which is very effective, and adds, I think, to the circumstantial
horrors of the story. Desdemona does not accidentally drop the
handkerchief; it is stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant
of three years old, whom he trains or bribes to the theft. The
love of Desdemona for this child, her little play fellow-the pretty
description of her taking it in her arms and caressing it, while it
profits by its situation to steal the handkerchief from her bosom,
are well imagined, and beautifully told; and the circumstance of
Iago employing his own innocent child as the instrument of his
infernal villany, adds a deeper, and, in truth, an unnecessary
touch of the fiend, to his fiendish character.
VOL. II.
D
40
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
So much I challenge, that I may profess
Due to the Moor, my lord.
And when she is pleading for Cassio—
What! Michael Cassio!
That came a wooing with you; and many a time,
When I have spoken of you disparagingly,
Hath ta'en your part ?
In persons who unite great sensibility and lively
fancy, I have often observed this particular species
of address, which is always unconscious of itself,
and consists in the power of placing ourselves in
the position of another, and imagining, rather than
perceiving, what is in their hearts. We women
have this address (if so it can be called) naturally,
but I have seldom met with it in men. It is not
inconsistent with extreme simplicity of character,
and quite distinct from that kind of art which is
the result of natural acuteness and habits of ob-
servation-quick to perceive the foibles of others,
and as quick to turn them to its own purposes;
which is always conscious of itself, and if united
DESDEMONA.
41
with strong intellect, seldom perceptible to others.
In the mention of her mother, and the appeal to
Othello's self-love, Desdemona has no design
formed on conclusions previously drawn; but her
intuitive quickness of feeling, added to her imagina-
tion, lead her more safely to the same results, and
the distinction is as truly as it is delicately drawn.
When Othello first outrages her in a manner
which appears inexplicable, she seeks and finds
excuses for him. She is so innocent that not
only she cannot believe herself suspected, but she
cannot conceive the existence of guilt in others.
Something, sure, of state,
Either from Venice, or some unbatch'd practice
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
Hath puddled his clear spirit.
'Tis even so—
Nay, we must think, men are not gods.
Nor of them look for such observances
As fit the bridal.
And when the direct accusation of crime is flung
on her in the vilest terms, it does not anger but
stun her, as if it transfixed her whole being; she
D 2
42
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
attempts no reply, no defence; and reproach or
resistance never enters her thought.
Good friend, go to him-for by this light of heaven
I know not how I lost him here I kneel:
:
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed;
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did,
And ever will, though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me ! Unkindness may do much,
defeat my life,
And his unkindness may
But never taint my love.
And there is one stroke of consummate deli-
cacy, surprising, when we remember the latitude of
expression prevailing in Shakspeare's time, and
which he allowed to his other women generally :
she says, on recovering from her stupefaction-
Am I that name, Iago?
IAGO.
What name, sweet lady?
DESDEMONA.
That, which she says my lord did say I was.
DESDEMONA.
43
So completely did Shakspeare enter into the
angelic refinement of the character.
Endued with that temper which is the origin of
superstition in love as in religion,—which, in fact,
makes love itself a religion, she not only does
not utter an upbraiding, but nothing that Othello
does or says, no outrage, no injustice, can tear
away the charm with which her imagination had
invested him, or impair her faith in his honour;
"Would you had never seen him!" exclaims
Emilia.
DESDEMONA.
So would not I!-my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his checks and frowns
Have grace and favour in them.
There is another peculiarity, which, in reading
the play of Othello, we rather feel than perceive :
through the whole of the dialogue appropriated
to Desdemona, there is not one general observa-
tion. Words are with her the vehicle of sen-
timent, and never of reflection; so that I cannot
find throughout a sentence of general application.
44
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
The same remark applies to Miranda: and to no
other female character of any importance or inte-
rest; not even to Ophelia.
The rest of what I wished to say of Desdemona,
has been anticipated by an anonymous critic, and
so beautifully, so justly, so eloquently expressed,
that I with pleasure erase my own page, to make
room for his.
"Othello," observes this writer, "is no love
story; all that is below tragedy in the passion
of love, is taken away at once, by the awful cha-
racter of Othello; for such he seems to us to be
designed to be. He appears never as a lover,
but at once as a husband; and the relation of
his love made dignified, as it is a husband's jus-
tification of his marriage, is also dignified, as it
is a soldier's relation of his stern and perilous
life. His love itself, as long as it is happy, is
perfectly calm and serene—the protecting tender-
ness of a husband. It is not till it is disordered,
that it appears as a passion: then is shown
a power in contention with itself—a mighty
being struck with death, and bringing up from
DESDEMONA.
45
all the depths of life convulsions and agonies.
It is no exhibition of the power of the passion
of love, but of the passion of life, vitally wounded,
and self over-mastering. If Desdemona had been
really guilty, the greatness would have been de-
stroyed, because his love would have been un-
worthy, false. But she is good, and his love is
most perfect, just, and good. That a man should
place his perfect love on a wretched thing, is
miserably debasing, and shocking to thought; but
that loving perfectly and well, he should by
hellish human circumvention be brought to dis-
trust and dread, and abjure his own perfect love,
is most mournful indeed-it is the infirmity of
our good nature wrestling in vain with the strong
powers of evil.
Moreover, he would, had Des-
demona been false, have been the mere victim of
fate; whereas he is now in a manner his own
victim. His happy love was heroic tenderness;
his injured love is terrible passion; and disordered
power, engendered within itself to its own destruc-
tion is the height of all tragedy.
"The character of Othello is perhaps the most
46
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
greatly drawn, the most heroic of any of Shak-
speare's actors; but it is, perhaps, that one also
of which his reader last acquires the intelligence.
The intellectual and warlike energy of his mind
his tenderness of affection-his loftiness of spirit
-his frank, generous magnanimity-impetuosity
like a thunderbolt-and that dark, fierce flood
of boiling passion, polluting even his imagination,
-compose a character entirely original, most diffi-
cult to delineate, but perfectly delineated.”
Emilia in this play is a perfect portrait from
common life, a masterpiece in the Flemish style:
and though not necessary as a contrast, it cannot
be but that the thorough vulgarity, the loose prin-
ciples of this plebeian woman, united to a high de-
gree of spirit, energetic feeling, strong sense and
low cunning, serve to place in brighter relief the
exquisite refinement, the moral grace, the unble-
mished truth, and the soft submission of Desdemona.
On the other perfections of this tragedy, con-
sidered as a production of genius-on the wonder-
ful characters of Othello and Iago-on the skill
with which the plot is conducted, and its sim-
1
DESDEMONA.
47
plicity which a word unravels,* and on the over-
powering horror of the catastrophe-eloquence
and analytical criticism have been exhausted; I
will only add, that the source of the pathos
throughout of that pathos which at once softens
and deepens the tragic effect--lies in the character
of Desdemona. No woman differently consti-
tuted could have excited the same intense and
painful compassion, without losing something of
that exalted charm, which invests her from begin-
ning to end, which we are apt to impute to the
interest of the situation, and to the poetical colour-
ing, but which lies, in fact, in the very essence of
the character. Desdemona, with all her timid flexi-
bility and soft acquiescence, is not weak; for the
negative alone is weak; and the mere presence
of goodness and affection implies in itself a species
of power; power without consciousness, power
Consequences are so linked together, that the exclamation.
of Emilia,
O thou dull Moor!-That handkerchief thou speakest of
I found by fortune, and did give my husband!-
is sufficient to reveal to Othello the whole history of his ruin.
48
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
without effort, power with repose-that soul of
grace!
I know a Desdemona in real life, one in whom
the absence of intellectual power is never felt as a
deficiency, nor the absence of energy of will as im-
pairing the dignity, nor the most imperturbable
serenity, as a want of feeling: one in whom
thoughts appear mere instincts, the sentiment of
rectitude supplies the principle, and virtue itself
seems rather a necessary state of being, than an
imposed law. No shade of sin or vanity has yet
stolen over that bright innocence. No discord with-
in has marred the loveliness without-no strife of
the factitious world without has disturbed the har-
mony within.
The comprehension of evil appears
for ever shut out, as if goodness had converted all
things to itself; and all to the pure in heart must
necessarily be pure. The impression produced is
exactly that of the character of Desdemona; genius
is a rare thing, but abstract goodness is rarer. In
Desdemona we cannot but feel that the slightest ma-
nifestation of intellectual power or active will would
have injured the dramatic effect. She is a victim
1
DESDEMONA.
49
consecrated from the first," an offering without
blemish," alone worthy of the grand final sacrifice;
all harmony, all grace, all purity, all tenderness,
all truth! But, alas! to see her fluttering like a
cherub, in the talons of a fiend !—to see her
poor Desdemona !

25

}
//
་
Enna
IMOGEN.
WE come now to Imogen. Others of Shakspeare's
characters are, as dramatic and poetical concep-
tions, more striking, more brilliant, more power-
ful; but of all his women, considered as indivi-
duals rather than as heroines, Imogen is the most
IMOGEN.
51
}
perfect. Portia and Juliet are pictured to the
fancy with more force of contrast, more depth
of light and shade; Viola and Miranda, with
more aërial delicacy of outline; but there is no
female portrait that can be compared to Imogen
as a woman-none in which so great a variety of
tints are mingled together into such perfect har-
mony. In her we have all the fervour of youthful
tenderness, all the romance of youthful fancy, all
the enchantment of ideal grace, the bloom of
beauty, the brightness of intellect, and the dignity
of rank, taking a peculiar hue from the conjugal
character which is shed over all, like a consecra-
tion and a holy charm. In Othello and the
Winter's Tale, the interest excited for Desde-
mona and Hermione is divided with others: but in
Cymbeline, Imogen is the angel of light, whose
lovely presence pervades and animates the whole
piece. The character altogether may be pro-
nounced finer, more complex in its elements, and
more fully developed in all its parts, than those
of Hermione and Desdemona; but the position
in which she is placed is not, I think, so
52
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
fine-at least, not so effective, as a tragic situa-
tion.
Shakspeare has borrowed the chief circum-
stances of Imogen's story from one of Boccaccio's
tales.*
as-
A company of Italian merchants who are
sembled in a tavern at Paris, are represented as
conversing on the subject of their wives: all of
them express themselves with levity, or scepti-
cism, or scorn, on the virtue of women, except a
young Genoese merchant named Bernabo, who
maintains, that by the especial favour of Heaven
he possesses a wife no less chaste than beautiful.
Heated by the wine, and excited by the arguments
and the coarse raillery of another young merchant,
Ambrogiolo, Bernabo proceeds to enumerate the
various perfections and accomplishments of his
Zinevra. He praises her loveliness, her submission,
and her discretion- her skill in embroidery, her
graceful service, in which the best trained page of
the court could not exceed her; and he adds, as
rarer accomplishments, that she could mount a
Decamerone. Novella, 9mo. Giornata, 2do.
IMOGEN.
53
horse, fly a hawk, write and read, and cast up
accounts, as well as any merchant of them all.
His enthusiasm only excites the laughter and
mockery of his companions, particularly of Am-
brogiolo, who, by the most artful mixture of
contradiction and argument, rouses the anger of
Bernabo, and he at length exclaims, that he
would willingly stake his life, his head, on the
virtue of his wife. This leads to the wager
which forms so important an incident in the
drama. Ambrogiolo bets one thousand florins of
gold against five thousand, that Zinevra, like
the rest of her sex, is accessible to temptation-
that in less than three months he will undermine
her virtue, and bring her husband the most un-
deniable proofs of her falsehood. He sets off for
Genoa, in order to accomplish his purpose; but
on his arrival, all that he learns, and all that he
beholds with his own eyes, of the discreet and
noble character of the lady, make him despair
of success by fair means; he therefore has re-
course to the basest treachery. By bribing an
old woman in the service of Zinevra, he is con-
54
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
veyed to her sleeping apartment, concealed in a
trunk, from which he issues in the dead of the
night; he takes note of the furniture of the
chamber, makes himself master of her purse, her
morning robe, or cymar, and her girdle, and of a
certain mark on her person. He repeats these
observations for two nights, and, furnished with
these evidences of Zinevra's guilt, he returns to
Paris, and lays them before the wretched hus-
band. Bernabo rejects every proof of his wife's
infidelity, except that which finally convinces
Posthumus. When Ambrogiolo mentions the
"mole, cinque-spotted," he stands like one who
has received a poniard in his heart; without
further dispute he pays down the forfeit, and
filled with rage and despair both at the loss of
his money and the falsehood of his wife, he re-
turns towards Genoa; he retires to his country
house, and sends a messenger to the city with
letters to Zinevra, desiring that she would come
and meet him, but with secret orders to the man to
dispatch her by the way. The servant prepares to
execute his master's command, but overcome by
IMOGEN.
55
her entreaties for mercy, and his own remorse,
he spares her life, on condition that she will
fly from the country for ever. He then disguises
her in his own cloak and cap, and brings
back to her husband the assurance that she is
killed, and that her body has been devoured
by the wolves. In the disguise of a mariner,
Zinevra then embarks on board a vessel bound to
the Levant, and on arriving at Alexandria,
she is taken into the service of the Sultan of
Egypt, under the name of Sicurano; she gains
the confidence of her master, who, not suspect-
ing her sex, sends her as captain of the guard
which was appointed for the protection of the mer-
chants at the fair of Acre. Here she accidentally
meets Ambrogiolo, and sees in his possession the
purse and girdle, which she immediately recognises
as her own. In reply to her inquiries, he relates
with fiendish exultation the manner in which he
had obtained possession of them, and she per-
suades him to go back with her to Alexandria.
She then sends a messenger to Genoa in the name
of the Sultan, and induces her husband to come
56
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
and settle in Alexandria. At a proper opportu
nity, she summons both to the presence of the
Sultan, obliges Ambrogiolo to make a full confes-
sion of his treachery, and wrings from her husband
the avowal of his supposed murder of herself :
then falling at the feet of the Sultan discovers
her real name and sex, to the great amazement of
all. Bernabo is pardoned at the prayer of his
wife, and Ambrogiolo is condemned to be fastened
to a stake, smeared with honey, and left to be de-
voured by the flies and locusts. This horrible
sentence is executed; while Zinevra, enriched by
the presents of the Sultan, and the forfeit wealth of
Ambrogiolo, returns with her husband to Genoa,
where she lives in great honour and happiness, and
maintains her reputation for virtue to the end of
her life.
These are the materials from which Shakspeare
has drawn the dramatic situation of Imogen. He
has also endowed her with several of the qualities.
which are attributed to Zinevra; but for the
essential truth and beauty of the individual cha-
racter, for the sweet colouring of pathos, and sen-
IMOGEN.
57
!
timent, and poetry interfused through the whole,
he is indebted only to nature and himself.
It would be a waste of words to refute certain
critics who have accused Shakspeare of a want of
judgment in the adoption of the story; of having
transferred the manners of a set of intoxicated
merchants and a merchant's wife to heroes and
princesses, and of having entirely destroyed the
interest of the catastrophe.* The truth is, that
Shakspeare has wrought out the materials before
him with the most luxuriant fancy and the most
wonderful skill. As for the various anachronisms,
and the confusion of names, dates, and manners,
over which Dr. Johnson exults in no measured
terms, the confusion is no where but in his own
heavy obtuseness of sentiment and perception, and
his want of poetical faith. Look into the old
Italian poets, whom we read continually with still
increasing pleasure; does any one think of sitting
down to disprove the existence of Ariodante, king
of Scotland? or to prove that the mention of Pro-
teus and Pluto, baptism and the Virgin Mary, in
* Vide Dr. Johnson, and Dunlop's History of Fiction.
VOL. II.
E
58
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
a breath, amounts to an anachronism? Shak-
speare, by throwing his story far back into a re-
mote and uncertain age, has blended, by his " Own
omnipotent will," the marvellous, the heroic, the
ideal, and the classical,—the extreme of refinement
and the extreme of simplicity,-into one of the
loveliest fictions of romantic poetry; and, to use
Schlegel's expression," has made the social man-
ners of the latest times harmonise with heroic
deeds, and even with the appearances of the gods.*
But, admirable as is the conduct of the whole
play, rich in variety of character and in picturesque
incident, its chief beauty and interest is derived
from Imogen.
When Ferdinand tells Miranda that she was
"created of every creature's best," he speaks like a
lover, or refers only to her personal charms: the
same expression might be applied critically to the
character of Imogen; for, as the portrait of Miranda
is produced by resolving the female character into
its original elements, so that of Imogen unites the
* See Hazlitt and Schlegel on the catastrophe of Cymbeline.
1
IMOGEN.
59
greatest number of those qualities which we imagine
to constitute excellence in woman.
Imogen, like Juliet, conveys to our mind the
impression of extreme simplicity in the midst of the
most wonderful complexity. To conceive her
aright, we must take some peculiar tint from many
characters, and so mingle them, that, like the com-
bination of hues in a sunbeam, the effect shall be
as one to the eye. We must imagine something of
the romantic enthusiasm of Juliet, of the truth and
constancy of Helen, of the dignified purity of
Isabel, of the tender sweetness of Viola, of the self-
possession and intellect of Portia-combined toge-
ther so equally and so harmoniously, that we can
scarcely say that one quality predominates over the
other. But Imogen is less imaginative than Juliet,
less spirited and intellectual than Portia, less se-
rious than Helen and Isabel; her dignity is not so
imposing as that of Hermione, it stands more on
the defensive; her submission, though unbounded,
is not so passive as that of Desdemona ;—and thus,
while she resembles each of these characters indi-
vidually, she stands wholly distinct from all.
E 2
60
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
It is true that the conjugal tenderness of Imogen
is at once the chief subject of the drama, and the
pervading charm of her character; but it is not
true, I think, that she is merely interesting
from her tenderness and constancy to her hus-
band. We are so completely let into the essence
of Imogen's nature, that we feel as if we had
known and loved her before she was married to
Posthumus, and that her conjugal virtues are a
charm superadded, like the colour laid upon a
beautiful groundwork. Neither does it appear to
me, that Posthumus is unworthy of Imogen, or
only interesting on Imogen's account. His cha-
racter, like those of all the other persons of the
drama, is kept subordinate to hers: but this
could not be otherwise, for she is the proper sub-
ject—the heroine of the poem. Every thing is
done to ennoble Posthumus, and justify her love
for him; and though we certainly approve him
more for her sake than for his own, we are early
prepared to view him with Imogen's eyes; and
not only excuse, but sympathize in her admiration
of one
IMOGEN.
61
Who sat 'mongst men like a descended god.
Who lived in court, which it is rare to do,
Most praised, most loved :
A sample to the youngest; to the more mature,
A glass that feated them.
And with what beauty and delicacy is her con-
jugal and matronly character discriminated! Her
love for her husband is as deep as Juliet's for her
lover, but without any of that headlong vehemence,
that fluttering amid hope, fear, and transport-—
that giddy intoxication of heart and sense, which
belongs to the novelty of passion, which we feel
once, and but once, in our lives. We see her love
for Posthumus acting upon her mind with the force
of an habitual feeling, heightened by enthusiastic
passion, and hallowed by the sense of duty. She
asserts and justifies her affection with energy
deed, but with a calm and wife-like dignity-
CYMBELINE.
Thou took'st a beggar, would'st have made my throne
A seat for baseness.
IMOGEN.
No, I rather added a lustre to it.
in-
62
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
CYMBELINE.
O thou vile one!
IMOGEN.
Sir,
It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus;
You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
A man worth any woman; overbuys me,
Almost the sum he pays.
Compare also, as examples of the most delicate
discrimination of character and feeling, the parting
scene between Imogen and Posthumus, that be-
tween Romeo and Juliet, and that between Troi-
lus and Cressida: compare the confiding matronly
tenderness, the deep but resigned sorrow of Imo-
gen, with the despairing agony of Juliet, and the
petulant grief of Cressida.
When Posthumus is driven into exile, he comes
to take a last farewell of his wife :
IMOGEN.
My dearest husband,
I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing
(Always reserved my holy duty) what
His rage can do on me. You must be gone,
And I shall here abide the hourly shot
L
1
IMOGEN.
63
Of angry eyes: not comforted to live,
But that there is this jewel in the world
That I may see again.
POSTHUMUS.
My queen! my mistress!
O, lady, weep no more! lest I give cause
To be suspected of more tenderness
Than doth become a man. I will remain
The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth
Should we be taking leave
As long a term as yet we have to live,
The loathness to depart would grow-Adieu !
Nay, stay a little :
IMOGEN.
Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
Such parting were too petty. Look here, love,
This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart ;
But keep it till you woo another wife,
When Imogen is dead!
Imogen, in whose tenderness there is nothing
jealous or fantastic, does not seriously apprehend
that her husband will woo another wife when she
is dead. It is one of those fond fancies which
women are apt to express in moments of feeling,
64
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
merely for the pleasure of hearing a protestation
to the contrary. When Posthumus leaves her,
she does not burst forth in eloquent lamentation;
but that silent, stunning, overwhelming sorrow,
which renders the mind insensible to all things
else, is represented with equal force and simplicity.
IMOGEN.
There cannot be a pinch in death
More sharp than this is.
CYMBELINE.
O disloyal thing,
That should'st repair my youth; thou heapest
A year's age on me!
IMOGEN.
1 beseech you, sir,
Harm not yourself with your vexation; I
Am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare*
Subdues all pangs, all fears.
CYMBELINE.
?
Past grace obedience?
IMOGEN.
Past hope, and in despair-that way past grace.
In the same circumstances, the impetuous ex-
* More rare-i.. more exquisitely poignant,
IMOGEN,
65
cited feelings of Juliet, and her vivid imagination,
lend something far more wildly agitated, more in-
tensely poetical and passionate to her grief.
JULIET.
Art thou gone so? My love, my lord, my friend!
I must hear from thee every day i' the hour,
For in a minute there are many days-
() by this count I shall be much in years,
Ere I again behold my Romeo!
ROMEO.
Farewell! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
JULIET.
O! think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO.
I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul :
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb :
Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'st pale.
We have no sympathy with the pouting disap-
pointment of Cressida, which is just like that of
66
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
a spoilt child which has lost its sugar-plum,
without tenderness, passion, or poetry: and, in
short, perfectly characteristic of that vain, fickle,
dissolute, heartless woman," unstable as water.”
CRESSIDA.
And is it true that I must go from Troy?
TROILUS.
A hateful truth.
CRESSIDA.
What, and from Troilus too?
TROILUS.
From Troy and Troilus.
CRESSIDA.
And suddenly.
Is it possible?
TROILUS.
CRESSIDA.
I must then to the Greeks?
TROILUS.
No remedy.
CRESSIDA.
A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks!
When shall we see again?
IMOGEN.
67
TROILUS.
Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart
CRESSIDA.
I true! How now? what wicked deem is this?
TROILUS.
Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
For it is parting from us;
I speak not, be thou true, as fearing thee;
For I will throw my glove to Death himself,
That there's no maculation in thy heart:
But be thou true, say I, to fashion in
My sequent protestation. Be thou true,
And I will see thee.
CRESSIDA.
O heavens! be true again-
O heavens! you love me not.
TROILUS.
Die I a villain, then!
In this I do not call your faith in question,
So mainly as my merit--
Do you think I will?
**
*
But be not tempted.
CRESSIDA.
*
In the eagerness of Imogen to meet her hus-
68
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
band there is all a wife's fondness, mixed up with
the breathless hurry arising from a sudden and
joyful surprise; but nothing of the picturesque
eloquence, the ardent, exuberant, Italian imagina-
tion of Juliet, who, to gratify her impatience,
would have her heralds thoughts;-press into her
service the nimble-pinioned doves, and wind-swift
Cupids,―change the course of nature, and lash the
steeds of Phoebus to the west. Imogen only
thinks "one score of miles, 'twixt sun and sun,"
slow travelling for a lover, and wishes for a horse
with wings-
O for a horse with wings!
He is at Milford Haven.
Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
Read, and tell me.
How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs
May plod it in a week, why may not I
Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,
(Who long'st like me, to see thy lord-who long'st-
O let me bate, but not like me—yet long'st,
But in a fainter kind-O not like me,
For mine's beyond beyond,) say, and speak thick-
(Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing
To the smothering of the sense)—how far is it
To this same blessed Milford? And by the way,
IMOGEN.
69
Tell me how Wales was made so happy, as
To inherit such a haven. But, first of all,
How we may steal from hence; and for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hence going
And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence:
Why should excuse be born, or e'er begot?
We'll talk of that hereafter. Pr'ythee speak,
How many score of miles may we well ride
'Twixt hour and hour?
PISANIO.
One score, 'twixt sun and suu.
Madam, 's enough for you; and too much too.
IMOGEN.
Why, one that rode to his execution, man,
Could never go so slow!
There are two or three other passages bearing
on the conjugal tenderness of Imogen, which must
be noticed for the extreme intensity of the feeling,
and the unadorned elegance of
of the expres-
sion,
I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven
And question'dst every sail: if he should write,
And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost
70
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
As offer'd mercy is. What was the last
That he spake to thee?
PISANIO.
'Twas, His queen! his queen!
IMOGEN.
Then way'd his handkerchief?
PISANIO.
And kiss'd it, madam.
IMOGEN.
Senseless linen! happier therein than I!-
And that was all?
PISANIO.
No, madam; for so long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
How swift bis ship.
IMOGEN.
Thou should'st have made him
As little as a crow, or less, ere left
To after-eye him.
PISANIO.
Madam, so I did.
IMOGEN.
71
IMOGEN.
I would have broke my eye-strings; cracked them, but
To look upon him; till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turn'd mine eye and wept.

26
72
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
Two little incidents, which are introduced with
the most unobtrusive simplicity, convey the
strongest impression of her tenderness for her hus-
band, and with that perfect unconsciousness on her
part, which adds to the effect. Thus, when she
has lost her bracelet-
Go, bid my woman
Search for a jewel, that too casually,
Hath left my arm. It was thy master's: 'shrew me,
If I would lose it for a revenue
Of any king in Europe. I do think
I saw't this morning; confident I am,
Last night 'twas on mine arm-I kiss'd it.
I hope it has not gone to tell my lord
That I kiss aught but he.
It has been well observed, that our consciousness
that the bracelet is really gone to bear false witness.
against her, adds an inexpressibly touching effect
to the simplicity and tenderness of the senti-
ment.
And again, when she opens her bosom to meet
the death to which her husband has doomed her,
she finds his letters preserved next her heart.
IMOGEN.
73
What's here?
The letters of the loyal Leonatus ?—
Soft, we'll no defence.
The scene in which Posthumus stakes his ring
on the virtue of his wife, and gives Iachimo per-
mission to tempt her, is taken from the story.
The baseness and folly of such conduct have been
justly censured; but Shakspeare, feeling that Post-
humus needed every excuse, has managed the quar-
relling scene between him and Iachimo with the
most admirable skill. The manner in which his
high spirit is gradually worked up by the taunts
of this Italian fiend, is contrived with far more
probability, and much less coarseness, than in the
original tale. In the end he is not the challenger,
but the challenged; and could hardly (except on
a moral principle, much too refined for those rude
times) have declined the wager without compro-
mising his own courage, and his faith in the honour
of Imogen.
Ілснимо.
I durst attempt it against any lady in the world.
74
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
POSTHUMUS.
You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion; and I
doubt not you sustain what you're worthy of, by your attempt.
IACHIMO.
What's that?
POSTHUMUS.
A repulse though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more--a
punishment too.
PHILARIO.
Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly; let it
die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted.
LACHIMO.
Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's on the approba-
tion of what I have said!
POSTHUMUS.
What lady would you choose to assail?
IACHIMO.
Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe.
In the interview between Imogen and Iachimo, he
does not begin his attack on her virtue by a direct
accusation against Posthumus; but by dark hints
and half-uttered insinuations, such as Iago uses to
madden Othello, he intimates that her husband, in
his absence from her, has betrayed her love and
truth, and forgotten her in the arms of another.
IMOGEN.
75
All that Imogen says in this scene is comprised in
a few lines-a brief question, or a more brief re-
mark. The proud and delicate reserve with which
she veils the anguish she suffers, is inimitably
beautiful. The strongest expression of reproach
he can draw from her, is only, "My lord, I fear,
has forgot Britain.” When he continues in the
same strain, she exclaims in an agony, "Let me
hear no more." When he urges her to revenge,
she asks, with all the simplicity of virtue, "How
should I be revenged?" And when he explains
to her how she is to be avenged, her sudden burst.
of indignation, and her immediate perception of
his treachery, and the motive for it, are power-
fully fine: it is not only the anger of a woman
whose delicacy has been shocked, but the spirit of
a princess insulted in her court.
Away! I do condemn mine ears, that have
So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,
Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue, not
For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange.
Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far
From thy report as thou from honour; and
Solicit'st here a lady that disdains
Thee and the devil alike.
VOL. IL
F
76
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
It has been remarked that "her readiness to
pardon Iachimo's false imputation, and his designs
against herself, is a good lesson to prudes, and
may show that where there is a real attachment to
virtue, there is no need of an outrageous antipathy
to vice."*
This is true; but can we fail to perceive that
the instant and ready forgiveness of Imogen is
accounted for, and rendered more graceful and
characteristic by the very means which Iachimo
employs to win it? He pours forth the most en-
thusiastic praises of her husband, professes that he
merely made this trial of her out of his exceeding
love for Posthumus, and she is pacified at once;
but, with exceeding delicacy of feeling, she is repre-
sented as maintaining her dignified reserve and her
brevity of speech to the end of the scene.†
We must also observe how beautifully the cha-
racter of Imogen is distinguished from those of
Desdemona and Hermione. When she is made
acquainted with her husband's cruel suspicions,
we see in her deportment neither the meek sub-
* Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.
+ Vide act. i. scene 7.
IMOGEN.
77
mission of the former, nor the calm resolute dig-
nity of the latter. The first effect produced on
her by her husband's letter is conveyed to the
fancy by the exclamation of Pisanio, who is gazing
on her as she reads:
sword? The
The paper
What shall I need to draw my sword?
Has cut her throat already! No, 'tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword!
And in her first exclamations we trace, besides as-
tonishment and anguish, and the acute sense of
the injustice inflicted on her, a flash of indignant
spirit, which we do not find in Desdemona or Her-
mione.
False to his bed !-What is it to be false ?
To lie in watch there, and to think of him?
To weep 'twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,
To break it with a fearful dream of him,
And cry myself awake?-that's false to his bed,
Is it?
This is followed by that affecting lamentation
over the falsehood and injustice of her husband,
in which she betrays no atom of jealousy or
wounded self-love, but observes in the extremity
F 2
78
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
of her anguish, that after his lapse from truth,
"all good seeming would be discredited," and she
then resigns herself to his will with the most entire
submission.
In the original story, Zinevra prevails on the
servant to spare her, by her exclamations and
entreaties for mercy. "The lady, seeing the
poniard, and hearing those words, exclaimed in ter-
ror, Alas! have pity on me for the love of hea-
ven! do not become the slayer of one who never
offended thee, only to pleasure another.
who knows all things, knows that I have never
done that which could merit such a reward from
my husband's hand.'
"""
God,
Now let us turn to Shakspeare. Imogen says,
Come, fellow, be thou honest;
Do thou thy master's bidding when thou seest him,
:
A little witness my obedience. Look!
I draw the sword myself; take it, and bit
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.
Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief:
Thy master is not there, who was, indeed,
The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike!
IMOGEN.
79
The devoted attachment of Pisanio to his royal
mistress, all through the piece, is one of those side
touches by which Shakspeare knew how to give
additional effect to his characters.
Cloten is odious;* but we must not overlook the
peculiar fitness and propriety of his character, in
connexion with that of Imogen. He is precisely
the kind of man who would be most intolerable to
such a woman. He is a fool, so is Slender, and
Sir Andrew Aguecheek: but the folly of Cloten
is not only ridiculous, but hateful; it arises not so
* The character of Cloten has been pronounced by some un-
natural, by others inconsistent, and by others obsolete. The fol-
lowing passage occurs in one of Miss Seward's letters, vol. iii.
p. 246" It is curious that Shakspeare should, in so singular a
character as Cloten, have given the exact prototype of a being
whom I once knew. The unmeaning frown of countenance, the
shuffling gait, the burst of voice, the bustling insignificance, the
fever and ague fits of valour, the froward tetchiness, the unprin-
cipled malice, and, what is more curious, those occasional gleams
of good sense amidst the floating clouds of folly which generally
darkened and confused the man's brain, and which, in the cha-
racter of Cloten, we are apt to impute to a violation of unity in
character; but in the some-time Captain C——, I saw that the
portrait of Cloten was not out of nature.”
80
CHARACTERS OF THE AEFECTIONS.
much from a want of understanding as a total
want of heart; it is the perversion of sentiment,
rather than the deficiency of intellect; he has occa-
sional gleams of sense, but never a touch of feeling.
Imogen describes herself not only as "sprighted
with a fool," but as "frighted and anger'd
worse." No other fool but Cloten-a compound
of the booby and the villain-could excite in such
a mind as Imogen's the same mixture of terror,
contempt, and abhorrence. The stupid, obstinate
malignity of Cloten, and the wicked machinations
of the queen-
A father cruel, and a step-dame false,
A foolish suitor to a wedded lady—
justify whatever might need excuse in the con-
duct of Imogen-as her concealed marriage and
her flight from her father's court-and serve to
call out several of the most beautiful and striking
parts of her character: particularly that decision
and vivacity of temper, which in her harmonize
so beautifully with exceeding delicacy, sweetness,
and submission.
In the scene with her detested suitor, there is a
IMOGEN.
81
first a careless majesty of disdain, which is admi-
rable.
I am much sorry, sir,
You put me to forget a lady's manners,
By being so verbal;* and learn now, for all,
That I, which know my heart, do bere pronounce,
By the very truth of it, I care not for you,
And am so near the lack of charity,
(T' accuse myself,) I hate you; which I had rather
You felt, than make 't my boast.
But when he dares to provoke her, by reviling
the absent Posthumus, her indignation heightens
her scorn, and her scorn sets a keener edge on her
indignation.
CLOTEN.
For the contract you pretend with that base wretch,
One bred of alms, and fostered with cold dishes,
With scraps o' the court: it is no contract, none.
IMOGEN.
Profane fellow!
Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more,
But what thou art, besides, thou wert too base
To be his groom; thou wert dignified enough,
Even to the point of envy, if 't were made
* i. e. full of words.
82
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
Comparative for your virtues, to be styl'd
The under hangman of his kingdom; and hated
For being preferr'd so well.
He never can meet more mischance than come
To be but nam'd of thee. His meanest garment
That ever hath but clipp'd his body, is dearer
In my respect, than all the hairs above thee,
Were they all made such men.
One thing more must be particularly remarked,
because it serves to individualise the character,
from the beginning to the end of the poem. We
are constantly sensible that Imogen, besides being
a tender and devoted woman, is a princess and a
beauty, at the same time that she is ever supe-
rior to her position and her external charms.
There is, for instance, a certain airy majesty
of deportment--a spirit of accustomed command
breaking out every now and then—the dignity,
without the assumption of rank and royal birth,
which is apparent in the scene with Cloten and
elsewhere and we have not only a general impres-
sion that Imogen, like other heroines, is beautiful,
but the peculiar style and character of her
IMOGEN.
83
beauty is placed before us: we have an image of
the most luxuriant loveliness, combined with ex-
ceeding delicacy, and even fragility of person: of
the most refined elegance, and the most exquisite
modesty, set forth in one or two passages of de-
scription; as when Iachimo is contemplating her
asleep :
Cytherea,
How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets.
'Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper
Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids
To see the enclos'd lights, now canopied
Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd
With blue of heaven's own tinct!
The preservation of her feminine character
under her masculine attire; her delicacy, her mo-
desty, and her timidity, are managed with the
same perfect consistency and unconscious grace as
in Viola. And we must not forget that her “neat
cookery," which is so prettily eulogised by Gui-
derius-
84
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
He cuts out roots in characters,
And sauc'd our broths, as Juno had been sick,
And he her dieter,
formed part of the education of a princess in those
remote times.
Few reflections of a general nature are put into
the mouth of Imogen; and what she says is
more remarkable for sense, truth, and tender
feeling, than for wit, or wisdom, or power of ima-
gination.
The following little touch of poetry
reminds us of Juliet:
Ere I could
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Between two charming words, comes in my father;
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.
Her exclamation on opening her husband's
letter, reminds us of the profound and thoughtful
tenderness of Helen :
O learned indeed were that astronomer
That knew the stars, as I his characters!
He'd lay the future open
IMOGEN.
85
The following are more in the manner of Isabel-
Most miserable
Is the desire that's glorious: bless'd be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
That seasons comfort.
Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine
That cravens my weak hand.
Thus may poor fools
Believe false teachers; though those that are betray'd
Do feel the reason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.
Are we not brothers?
So man and man should be;
But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike.
Will poor folks lie
That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis
A punishment or trial? Yes no wonder,
When rich ones scarce tell true: to lapse in fulness
Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood
Is worse in kings than beggars.
The sentence which follows, and which I be-
lieve has become proverbial, has much of the
86
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
manner of Portia, both in the thought and the ex-
pression :-
Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it;
In a great pool, a swan's nest; pr'ythee, think
There's livers out of Britain.
The catastrophe of this play has been much
admired for the peculiar skill with which all the
various threads of interest are gathered together
at last, and entwined with the destiny of Imogen.
It may be added, that one of its chief beauties is
the manner in which the character of Imogen is
not only preserved, but rises upon us to the con-
clusion with added grace: her instantaneous for-
giveness of her husband before he even asks it,
when she flings herself at once into his arms,
Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
and her magnanimous reply to her father, when
he tells her, that by the discovery of her two bro-
thers she has lost a kingdom-
No- I have gain'd two worlds by it-
IMOGEN.
87
clothing a noble sentiment in a noble image, give
the finishing touches of excellence to this most
enchanting portrait.
On the whole, Imogen is a lovely compound of
goodness, truth, and affection, with just so much
of passion and intellect and poetry, as serve to
lend to the picture that power and glowing rich-
ness of effect which it, would otherwise have
wanted; and of her it might be said, if we could
condescend to quote from any other poet with
Shakspeare open before us, that "her person was
a paradise, and her soul the cherub to guard it.”*
Dryden.

1

27

CORDELIA.
THERE is in the beauty of Cordelia's character an
effect too sacred for words, and almost too deep
for tears; within her heart is a fathomless well of
purest affection, but its waters sleep in silence
and obscurity,-never failing in their depth and
M
CORDELIA.
89
never overflowing in their fulness. Every thing
in her seems to lie beyond our view, and affects us
in a manner which we feel rather than perceive.
The character appears to have no surface, no sa-
lient points upon which the fancy can readily seize :
there is little external developement of intellect,
less of passion, and still less of imagination. It is
completely made out in the course of a few scenes,
and we are surprised to find that in those few
scenes there is matter for a life of reflection, and
materials enough for twenty heroines. If Lear be
the grandest of Shakspeare's tragedies, Cordelia in
herself, as a human being, governed by the purest
and holiest impulses and motives, the most refined
from all dross of selfishness and passion, approaches
near to perfection; and in her adaptation, as a dra-
matic personage, to a determinate plan of action,
may be pronounced altogether perfect. The charac-
ter, to speak of it critically as a poetical conception,
is not, however, to be comprehended at once, or
easily; and in the same manner Cordelia, as a
woman, is one whom we must have loved before we
90
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
could have known her, and known her long before
we could have known her truly.
Most people, I believe, have heard the story of
the young German artist Müller, who, while em-
ployed in copying and engraving Raffaelle's Ma-
donna del Sisto, was so penetrated by its celestial
beauty, so distrusted his own power to do justice
to it, that between admiration and despair he fell
into a sadness; thence through the usual gradations,
into a melancholy, thence into madness; and died
just as he had put the finishing stroke to his own
matchless work, which had occupied him for eight
years. With some slight tinge of this concentrated
kind of enthusiasm I have learned to contemplate
the character of Cordelia; I have looked into it
till the revelation of its hidden beauty, and an
intense feeling of the wonderful genius which
created it, have filled me at once with delight and
despair. Like poor Müller, but with more reason,
I do despair of ever conveying, through a different
and inferior medium, the impression made on my
own mind to the mind of another.
Schlegel, the most eloquent of critics, concludes
CORDELIA.
91
his remarks on King Lear with these words: "Of
the heavenly beauty of soul of Cordelia, I will not
venture to speak." Now if I attempt what Schle-
gel and others have left undone, it is because I
feel that this general acknowledgment of her excel-
lence can neither satisfy those who have studied
the character, nor convey a just conception of it to
the mere reader. Amid the awful, the over-
powering interest of the story, amid the terrible
convulsions of passion and suffering, and pictures
of moral and physical wretchedness which harrow
up the soul, the tender influence of Cordelia, like
that of a celestial visitant, is felt and acknowledged
without being quite understood. Like a soft star
that shines for a moment from behind a stormy
cloud, and the next is swallowed up in tempest and
darkness, the impression it leaves is beautiful and
deep,—but vague. Speak of Cordelia to a critic
or to a general reader, all agree in the beauty
of the portrait, for all must feel it: but when we
come to details, I have heard more various and
opposite opinions relative to her than any other
of Shakspeare's characters-a proof of what I
92
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
have advanced in the first instance, that from the
simplicity with which the character is dramatically
treated, and the small space it occupies, few are
aware of its internal power, or its wonderful depth
of purpose.
It appears to me that the whole character rests
upon the two sublimest principles of human
action, the love of truth and the sense of duty;
but these, when they stand alone, (as in the Anti-
gone,) are apt to strike us as severe and cold.
Shakspeare has, therefore, wreathed them round
with the dearest attributes of our feminine nature,
the power of feeling and inspiring affection. The
first part of the play shows us how Cordelia is
loved, the second part how she can love. To her
father she is the object of a secret preference; his
agony at her supposed unkindness draws from him
the confession, that he had loved her most, and
66
thought to set his rest on her kind nursery.”
Till then she had been "his best object, the argu-
ment of his praise, balm of his age, most best,
most dearest!" The faithful and worthy Kent is
ready to brave death and exile in her defence: and
CORDELIA.
93
afterwards a farther impression of her benign
sweetness is conveyed in a simple and beautiful
manner, when we are told that "since the lady
Cordelia went to France, her father's poor fool
had much pined away." We have her sensibility
"when patience and sorrow strove which should
express her goodliest and all her filial tenderness
when she commits her poor father to the care of
the physician, when she hangs over him as he is
sleeping, and kisses him as she contemplates the
wreck of grief and majesty.
:
O my dear father! restoration hang
Its medicine on my lips and let this kiss
:
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them! Was this a face
To be exposed against the warring winds,
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder,
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch, (poor perdu !)
With thin helm? mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire.
VOL. II.
Ꮐ
94
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
Her mild magnanimity shines out in her fare-
well to her sisters, of whose real character she is
perfectly aware :
Ye jewels of our father! with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you! I know ye what ye are,
And like a sister, am most loath to call
Your faults as they are nam'd. Use well our father,
To your professed bosoms I commit him.
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would commend him to a better place;
So farewell to you both.
GONERIL.
Prescribe not us our duties!
The modest pride with which she replies to the
Duke of Burgundy is admirable; this whole pas-
sage is too illustrative of the peculiar character of
Cordelia, as well as too exquisite to be mutilated.
I yet beseech your majesty,
(If, for I want that glib and oily heart,
To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend
I'll do't before I speak,) that you make known,
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action, or dishonoured step
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;
CORDELIA.
95
But even for want of that, for which I am richer ;
A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue
I am glad I have not, tho' not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.
LEAR.
Better thou
Hadst not been born, than not to have pleased me better
FRANCE.
Is it but this? a tardiness of nature,
That often leaves the history unspoke
Which it intends to do?-My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? love is not love
When it is mingled with respects that stand
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
BURGUNDY.
Royal Lear,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand
Duchess of Burgundy.
LEAR.
Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.
BURGUNDY.
I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.
G 2
96
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
CORDELIA.
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
FRANCE.
Fairest Cordelia! thou art more rich, being poor,
Most choice, forsaken, and most lov'd, despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.
She takes up armis,
dear father's right." In her speech after her de-
feat, we have a calm fortitude and elevation of
soul, arising from the consciousness of duty, and
lifting her above all consideration of self. She ob-
"not for ambition, but a
serves.
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst!
She thinks and fears only for her father.
For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself would else out-frown false fortune's frown.
To complete the picture, her very voice is cha-
racteristic," ever soft, gentle, and low; an excel-
lent thing in woman.”
CORDELIA.
97
But it will be said that the qualities here exem-
plified-as sensibility, gentleness, magnanimity,
fortitude, generous affection-are qualities which
belong, in their perfection, to others of Shak-
speare's characters-to Imogen for instance, who
unites them all; and yet Imogen and Cordelia
are wholly unlike each other. Even though we
should reverse their situations, and give to Imogen
the filial devotion of Cordelia, and to Cordelia the
conjugal virtues of Imogen, still they would re-
main perfectly distinct as women. What is it,
then, which lends to Cordelia that peculiar and
individual truth of character which distinguishes
her from every other human being?
It is a natural reserve, a tardiness of disposi-
tion, "which often leaves the history unspoke
which it intends to do;" a subdued quietness
of deportment and expression, a veiled shyness
thrown over all her emotions, her language and
her manner; making the outward demonstration
invariably fall short of what we know to be the
feeling within. Not only is the portrait singularly
beautiful and interesting in itself, but the conduct
98
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
of Cordelia, and the part which she bears in the
beginning of the story, is rendered consistent and
natural by the wonderful truth and delicacy with
which this peculiar disposition is sustained through-
out the play.
In early youth, and more particularly if we are
gifted with a lively imagination, such a character
as that of Cordelia is calculated above every other
to impress and captivate us.
Any thing like
mystery, any thing withheld or withdrawn from
our notice, seizes on our fancy by awakening our
curiosity. Then we are won more by
won more by what we
half perceive and half create, than by what is
openly expressed and freely bestowed. But this
feeling is a part of our young life: when time
and years have chilled us, when we can no longer
afford to send our souls abroad, nor from our own
superfluity of life and sensibility spare the ma-
terials out of which we build a shrine for our idol
-then do we seek, we ask, we thirst for that
warmth of frank, confiding tenderness, which
revives in us the withered affections and feelings,
buried but not dead. Then the excess of love
CORDELIA.
99
is welcomed, not repelled: it is gracious to us as
the sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk,
with its few green leaves. Lear is old" four-
score and upward"--but we see what he has been
in former days: the ardent passions of youth have
turned to rashness and wilfulness: he is long
passed that age when we are more blessed in what
we bestow than in what we receive. When he
says to his daughters, "I gave ye all!" we feel
that he requires all in return, with a jealous, rest-
less, exacting affection which defeats its own
wishes. How many such are there in the world!
How many to sympathize with the fiery, fond old
man, when he shrinks as if petrified from Corde-
lia's quiet calm reply!
LEAR.
Now our joy,
Although the last not least-
What can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters'? Speak!
Nothing, my lord.
CORDELIA.
Nothing!
LEAR
100
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
CORDELIA.
Nothing.
LEAR.
Nothing can come of nothing: speak again!
CORDELIA.
Unhappy that I am! I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more, nor less.
Now this is perfectly natural. Cordelia has
penetrated the vile characters of her sisters. Is
it not obvious that in proportion as her own mind
is pure and guileless, she must be disgusted with
their gross hypocrisy and exaggeration, their
empty protestations, their "plaited cunning;" and
would retire from all competition with what she
so disdains and abhors,-even into the opposite
extreme? In such a case, as she says herself-
What should Cordelia do ?-love and be silent?
For the very expressions of Lear—
What can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters'?
are enough to strike dumb for ever a generous,
CORDELIA.
101
delicate, but shy disposition such as is Cordelia's,
by holding out a bribe for professions.
If Cordelia were not thus portrayed, this de-
liberate coolness would strike us as verging on
harshness or obstinacy; but it is beautifully re-
presented as a certain modification of character,
the necesary result of feelings habitually, if not
naturally, repressed: and through the whole play
we trace the same peculiar and individual dispo-
sition-the same absence of all display-the same
sobriety of speech veiling the most profound
affections—the same quiet steadiness of purpose—
the same shrinking from all exhibition of emotion.
"Tous les sentimens naturels ont leur pudeur,"
was a viva voce observation of Madame de Staël,
when disgusted by the sentimental affectation of
her imitators. This "pudeur," carried to an ex-
cess, appears to me the peculiar characteristic of
Cordelia. Thus, in the description of her de-
portment when she receives the letter of the Earl
of Kent, informing her of the cruelty of her sisters
and the wretched condition of Lear, we seem to
have her before us:
102
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
KENT.
Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of
grief?
GENTLEMAN.
Ay, sir, she took them, and read them in my presence ;
And now and then an ample tear stole down
Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king over her.
KENT.
O then it moved her!
GENTLEMAN.
Not to a rage.
Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of father
Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart,
Cried, Sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! Sisters !
What, i' the storm? i' the night?
Let pity not be believed! Then she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes;
*
Then away she started,
To deal with grief alone.
Here the last line-the image brought before us
of Cordelia starting away from observation, "to
deal with grief alone," is as exquisitely beautiful
as it is characteristic.
But all the passages hitherto quoted must yield
CORDELIA.
103
in beauty and power to that scene, in which her
poor father recognises her, and in the intervals of
distraction, asks forgiveness of his wronged child.
The subdued pathos and simplicity of Cordelia's
character, her quiet but intense feeling, the misery
and humiliation of the bewildered old man, are
brought before us in so few words, and at the same
time sustained with such a deep intuitive know-
ledge of the innermost workings of the human
heart, that as there is nothing surpassing this scene
in Shakspeare himself, so there is nothing that
can be compared to it in any other writer.
CORDELIA.
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty ?
LEAR.
You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
CORDELIA.
Sir, do you know me?
LEAR.
You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?
104
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
CORDELIA.
Still, still far wide!
PHYSICIAN.
He's scarce awake: let him alone awhile.
Where have I been?
I am mightily abused.
LEAR.
Where am I? Fair daylight!
I should even die with pity
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these
I feel this pin prick.
Of my condition.
are my hands: Let's see ;
Would I were assured
CORDELIA.
O look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o'er me :-
No, sir, you must not kneel.
LEAR.
Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upwards; and to deal plainly with you,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man,
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me ;
For as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
CORDELIA.
105
CORDELIA.
And so I am, I am.
LEAR.
Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I
I pray you weep not.
If you have poison for me I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.
No cause, no cause!
CORDFLIA.
As we do not estimate Cordelia's affection for her
father by the coldness of her language, so neither
should we measure her indignation against her
sisters by the mildness of her expressions. What
in fact, can be more eloquently significant, and at
the same time more characteristic of Cordelia,
than the single line when she and her father are
conveyed to their prison :
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters ?
The irony here is so bitter and intense, and at the
same time so quiet, so feminine, so dignified in
the expression, that who but Cordelia would
have uttered it in the same manner, or would
106
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
have condensed such ample meaning into so few
and simple words?
We lose sight of Cordelia during the whole of
the second and third, and great part of the fourth
act; but towards the conclusion she reappears.
Just as our sense of human misery and wicked-
ness, being carried to its extreme height, becomes
nearly intolerable, "like an engine wrenching our
frame of nature from its fixed place," then,
like a redeeming angel, she descends to mingle
in the scene, “loosening the springs of pity in
our eyes," and relieving the impressions of pain
and terror by those of admiration and a tender
pleasure. For the catastrophe, it is indeed terri-
ble! wondrous terrible! When Lear enters with
Cordelia dead in his arms, compassion and awe so
seize on all our faculties, that we are left only to
silence and to tears. But if I might judge from
my own sensations, the catastrophe of Lear is not
so overwhelming as the catastrophe of Othello.
We do not turn away with the same feeling of
absolute unmitigated despair. Cordelia is a saint.
ready prepared for heaven-our earth is not good
CORDELIA.
107
enough for her and Lear!-O who, after suffer-
ings and tortures such as his, would wish to see
his life prolonged? What! replace a sceptre in
that shaking hand?--a crown upon that old grey
head, on which the tempest had poured in its
wrath ?-on which the deep dread-bolted thunders
and the winged lightnings had spent their fury?
O never, never!
Let him pass! he hates him
That would upon the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out longer.
In the story of King Lear and his three daughters,
as it is related in the " delectable and mellifluous”
romance of Perceforest, and in the Chronicle of
Geoffrey of Monmouth, the conclusion is fortunate.
Cordelia defeats her sisters, and replaces her
father on his throne.
the story, has followed these authorities. Shaks-
peare has preferred the catastrophe of the old
ballad, founded apparently on some lost tradi-
tion. I suppose it is by way of amending his
errors, and bringing back this daring innovator
to sober history, that it has been thought fit to
Spenser, in his version of
108
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
alter the play of Lear for the stage, as they have
altered Romeo and Juliet: they have converted
the seraph-like Cordelia into a puling love heroine,
and sent her off victorious at the end of the play—
exit with drums and colours flying-to be married
to Edgar. Now any thing more absurd, more
discordant with all our previous impressions,
and with the characters as unfolded to us, can
66
hardly be imagined. "I cannot conceive," says
Schlegel,
"what ideas of art and dramatic con-.
nexion those persons have, who suppose we can
at pleasure tack a double conclusion to a tragedy
-a melancholy one for hard-hearted spectators,
and a merry one for those of softer mould."
fierce manners depicted in this play, the extremes
of virtue and vice in the persons, belong to the
*
The
remote period of the story. There is no attempt
at character in the old narratives; Regan and
Goneril are monsters of ingratitude, and Cordelia
* King Lear may be supposed to have lived about one thousand
years before the Christian era, being the fourth or fifth in descent
from King Brut, the great-grandson of Æneas, and the fabulous
founder of the kingdom of Britain.
CORDELIA.
109
merely distinguished by her filial piety; whereas,
in Shakspeare, this filial piety is an affection quite
distinct from the qualities which serve to indivi-
dualise the human being; we have a perception of
innate character apart from all accidental circum-
stance: we see that if Cordelia had never known
her father, had never been rejected from his love,
had never been a born princess or a crowned queen,
she would not have been less Cordelia; less dis-
tinctly herself; that is, a woman of a steady mind,
of calm but deep affections, of inflexible truth, of
few words, and of reserved deportment.
As to Regan and Goneril-"tigers, not daugh-
ters" we might wish to regard them as mere
hateful chimeras, impossible as they are detestable ;
but unfortunately there was once a Tullia. I
know not where to look for the prototype of
Cordelia: there was a Julia Alpinula, the young
priestess of Aventicum,* who, unable to save her
father's life by the sacrifice of her own, died with
him--“ infelix patris, infelix proles,”—but this is
* She is commemorated by Lord Byron. Vide Childe Harold,
Canto iii.
VOL. IL
]]
110
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS,
all we know of her. There was the Roman
daughter, too. I remember seeing at Genoa,
Guido's "Pieta Romana," in which the expression
of the female bending over the aged parent, who
feeds from her bosom, is perfect,-but it is not a
Cordelia: only Raffaelle could have painted Cor-
delia.
But the character which at once suggests itself
in comparison with Cordelia, as the heroine of
filial tenderness and piety, is certainly the Antigone
of Sophocles. As poetical conceptions, they rest
on the same basis: they are both pure abstractions
of truth, piety, and natural affection; and in
both, love, as a passion, is kept entirely out of
sight for though the womanly character is sus-
tained, by making them the objects of devoted
attachment, yet to have portrayed them as in-
fluenced by passion, would have destroyed that
unity of purpose and feeling which is one source
of
:
power; and, besides, have disturbed that serene
purity and grandeur of soul, which equally dis-
tinguishes both heroines. The spirit, however, in
which the two characters are conceived, is as dif-
CORDELIA.
111
ferent as possible; and we must not fail to remark,
that Antigone, who plays a principal part in two
fine tragedies, and is distinctly and completely
made out, is considered as a masterpiece, the very
triumph of the ancient classical drama; whereas,
there are many among Shakspeare's characters
which are equal to Cordelia as dramatic concep-
tions, and superior to her in finishing of outline, as
well as in the richness of the poetical colouring.
When dipus, pursued by the vengeance of the
gods, deprived of sight by his own mad act, and
driven from Thebes by his subjects and his
sons, wanders forth, abject and forlorn, he is sup-
ported by his daughter Antigone; who leads him
from city to city, begs for him, and pleads for him
against the harsh, rude men, who, struck more by
his guilt than his misery, would drive him from
his last asylum. In the opening of the "Edipus
Coloneus," where the wretched old man appears
leaning on his child, and seats himself in the con-
secrated Grove of the Furies, the picture presented
to us is wonderfully solemn and beautiful, The
patient, duteous tenderness of Antigone; the scene
II 2
112
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
in which she pleads for her brother Polynices, and
supplicates her father to receive his offending son ;
her remonstrance to Polynices, when she intreats
him not to carry the threatened war into his na-
tive country, are finely and powerfully delineated ;
and in her lamentation over Edipus, when he
perishes in the mysterious grove, there is a pathetic
beauty, apparent even through the stiffness of the
translation.
Alas! I only wished I might have died
With my poor father; wherefore should I ask
For longer life?
O I was fond of misery with him;
E'en what was most unlovely grew beloved
When he was with me. O my dearest father,
Beneath the earth now in deep darkness hid,
Worn as thou wert with age, to me thou still
Wert dear, and shalt be ever.
Even as he wished he died,
In a strange land-for such was his desire—
A shady turf covered his lifeless limbs,
Nor unlamented fell! for O these eyes,
My father, still shall weep for thee, nor time
E'er blot thee from my memory.
The filial piety of Antigone is the most affecting
CORDELIA.
113
part of the tragedy of " Edipus Coloneus:" her
sisterly affection, and her heroic self-devotion to a
religious duty, form the plot of the tragedy
called by her name. When her two brothers,
Eteocles and Polynices, had slain each other before
the walls of Thebes, Creon issued an edict forbid-
ding the rites of sepulture to Polynices, (as the
invader of his country,) and awarding instant
death to those who should dare to bury him.
We know the importance which the ancients at-
tached to the funeral obsequies, as alone securing
their admission into the Elysian fields. Antig one,
upon hearing the law of Creon, which thus carried
vengeance beyond the grave, enters in the first
scene, announcing her fixed resolution to brave.
the threatened punishment: her sister Ismene
shrinks from sharing the peril of such an under-
taking, and endeavours to dissuade her from it, on
which Antigone replies—
Wert thou to proffer what I do not ask-
Thy poor assistance-I would scorn it now;
Act as thou wilt, I'll bury him myself:
Let me perform but that, and death is welcome.
114
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
I'll do the pious deed, and lay me down
By my dear brotber; loving and beloved,
We'll rest together.
She proceeds to execute her generous purpose;
she covers with earth the mangled corse of Poly-
nices, pours over it the accustomed libations, is
detected in her pious office, and after nobly defend-
ing her conduct, is led to death by command of
the tyrant her sister Ismene, struck with shame
and remorse, now comes forward to accuse herself
as a partaker in the offence, and share her sister's
punishment; but Antigone sternly and scornfully
rejects her; and after pouring forth a beautiful
lamentation on the misery of perishing "without
the nuptial song—a virgin and a slave," she dies à
l'antique—she strangles herself to avoid a lingering
death.
Hemon, the son of Creon, unable to save her
life, kills himself upon her grave: but throughout
the whole tragedy we are left in doubt whether
Antigone does or does not return the affection of
this devoted lover.
Thus it will be seen that in the Antigone there
is a great deal of what may be called the effect
CORDELIA.
115
of situation, as well as a great deal of poetry
and character: she says the most beautiful things
in the world, performs the most heroic actions,
and all her words and actions are so placed before
us as to command our admiration. According to
the classical ideas of virtue and heroism, the
character is sublime, and in the delineation there
is a severe simplicity mingled with its Grecian
grace, a unity, a grandeur, an elegance, which
appeal to our taste and our understanding, while
they fill and exalt the imagination: but in Cor-
delia it is not the external colouring or form, it
is not what she says or does, but what she is in
herself, what she feels, thinks, and suffers, which
continually awaken our sympathy and interest.
The heroism of Cordelia is more passive and
tender-it melts into our heart; and in the veiled
loveliness and unostentatious delicacy of her cha-
racter, there is an effect more profound and artless,
if it be less striking and less elaborate than in the
Grecian heroine. To Antigone we give our admi-
ration, to Cordelia our tears. Antigone stands
before us in her austere and statue-like beauty,
28
116
CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
like one of the marbles of the Parthenon. If
Cordelia remind us of anything on earth, it is of
one of the Madonnas in the old Italian pictures,
"with downcast eyes beneath th' almighty dove;"
and as that heavenly form is connected with our
human sympathies only by the expression of
maternal tenderness or maternal sorrow, even so
Cordelia would be almost too angelic, were she not
limited to our earthly feelings, bound to our very
hearts, by her filial love, her wrongs, her sufferings,
and her tears.

HISTORICAL
CHARACTERS
CLEOPATRA
I CANNOT agree with one of the most philosophical
of Shakspeare's critics, who has asserted "that the
actual truth of particular events, in proportion as
we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the plea-
sure as well as the dignity of tragedy." If this ob-
2

29
118
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
servation applies at all, it is equally just with regard
to characters: and in either case can we admit it?
The reverence and the simpleness of heart with
which Shakspeare has treated the received and ad-
mitted truths of history-I mean according to the
imperfect knowledge of his time—is admirable; his
inaccuracies are few : his general accuracy, allowing
for the distinction between the narrative and the
dramatic form, is acknowledged to be wonderful.
He did not steal the precious material from the
treasury of history, to debase its purity,-new-
stamp it arbitrarily with effigies and legends of his
own devising, and then attempt to pass it current,
like Dryden, Racine, and the rest of those poetical
coiners he only rubbed off the rust, purified and
brightened it, so that history herself has been
known to receive it back as sterling.
:
Truth, wherever manifested, should be sacred:
so Shakspeare deemed, and laid no profane hand
upon her altars. But tragedy-majestic tragedy,
is worthy to stand before the sanctuary of Truth
and to be the priestess of her oracles. "What-
ever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue
CLEOPATRA.
119
amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or ad-
miration in all the changes of that which is called
fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and
refluxes of man's thought from within ;"*-what-
ever is pitiful in the weakness, sublime in the
strength, or terrible in the perversion of human
intellect, these are the domain of Tragedy. Sybil
and Muse at once, she holds aloft the book of hu-
man fate, and is the interpreter of its mysteries.
It is not, then, making a mock of the serious sor-
rows of real life, nor of those human beings who
lived, suffered and acted upon this earth, to array
them in her rich and stately robes, and present them
before us as powers evoked from dust and dark-
ness, to awaken the generous sympathies, the terror
or the pity of mankind. It does not add to the
pain, as far as tragedy is a source of emotion, that
the wrongs and sufferings represented, the guilt of
Lady Macbeth, the despair of Constance, the arts
of Cleopatra, and the distresses of Katherine, had
a real existence; but it adds infinitely to the moral
*Milton.
120
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
effect, as a subject of contemplation and a lesson
of conduct.*
I shall be able to illustrate these observations
more fully in the course of this section, in which
we will consider those characters which are drawn
from history; and first, Cleopatra.
If we
Of all Shakspeare's female characters, Miranda
and Cleopatra appear to me the most wonderful.
The first, unequalled as a poetic conception;
the latter, miraculous as a work of art.
could make a regular classification of his charac-
ters, these would form the two extremes of simpli-
city and complexity; and all his other characters
would be found to fill up some shade or gradation
between these two.
Great crimes, springing from high passions,
*That the treachery of King John, the death of Arthur,
and the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens
the sense of pain, while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and
the imagination. Something whispers us that we have no right
to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of
things into the puppet and plaything of our fancies."-See Cha-
racters of Shakspeare's Plays.-To consider thus is not to consider
too deeply, but not deeply enough.
CLEOPATRA.
121
grafted on high qualities, are the legitimate source
of tragic poetry. But to make the extreme of
littleness produce an effect like grandeur-to make
the excess of frailty produce an effect like power
-to heap up together all that is most unsub-
stantial, frivolous, vain, contemptible, and variable,
till the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude, and a
sense of the sublime spring from the very elements
of littleness, —to do this, belonged only to Shaks-
peare, that worker of miracles. Cleopatra is a
brilliant antithesis, a compound of contradictions,
of all that we most hate, with what we most admire.
The whole character is the triumph of the ex-
ternal over the innate; and yet like one of her
country's hieroglyphics, though she present at
first view a splendid and perplexing anomaly,
there is deep meaning and wondrous skill in the
apparent enigma, when we come to analyze and
decipher it. But how are we to arrive at the
solution of this glorious riddle, whose dazzling
complexity continually mocks and eludes us? What
is most astonishing in the character of Cleopatra is
its antithetical construction-its consistent incon-
122
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
sistency, if I may use such an expression-which
renders it quite impossible to reduce it to any
elementary principles. It will, perhaps be found
on the whole, that vanity and the love of power
predominate; but I dare not say it is so, for these
qualities and a hundred others mingle into each
other, and shift, and change, and glance away, like
the colours in a peacock's train.
In some others of Shakspeare's female charac-
ters, also remarkable for their complexity, (Portia
and Juliet, for instance,) we are struck with the
delightful sense of harmony in the midst of con-
trast, so that the idea of unity and simplicity of
effect is produced in the midst of variety; but
in Cleopatra it is the absence of unity and simpli-
city which strikes us; the impression is that of
perpetual and irreconcilable contrast. The con-
tinual approximation of whatever is most opposite
in character, in situation, in sentiment, would
be fatiguing, were it not so perfectly natural:
the woman herself would be distracting, if she
were not so enchanting.
I have not the slightest doubt that Shaks-
Į
CLEOPATRA.
123
peare's Cleopatra is the real historical Cleopatra
the "Rare Egyptian" individualised and
placed before us. Her mental accomplishments,
her unequall'd grace, her woman's wit and wo-
man's wiles, her irresistible allurements, her starts
of irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovern-
able temper, her vivacity of imagination, her
petulant caprice, her fickleness and her false-
hood, her tenderness and her truth, her childish
susceptibility to flattery, her magnificent spirit,
her royal pride, the gorgeous eastern colouring
of the character; all these contradictory elements
has Shakspeare seized, mingled them in their ex-
tremes, and fused them into one brilliant imper-
sonation of classical elegance, Oriental voluptuous-
ness, and gipsy sorcery.
What better proof can we have of the indivi-
dual truth of the character than the admission
that Shakspeare's Cleopatra produces exactly the
same effect upon us that is recorded of the real
Cleopatra? She dazzles our faculties, perplexes
our judgment, bewilders and bewitches our fancy;
from the beginning to the end of the drama, we
30
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L
are conscious of a kind of fascination against
which our moral sense rebels, but from which there
is no escape. The epithets applied to her
perpetually by Antony and others confirm this
impression : "enchanting queen!"-"witch"
>>
---" spell "-"great fairy "cockatrice
CC
ser-
pent of old Nile"- "thou grave charm!"*—are
Grave, in the sense of mighty or potent.
CLEOPATRA.
125
only a few of them; and who does not know by
heart the famous quotations in which this Egyptian
Circe is described with all her infinite seductions?
Fie! wrangling queen !
Whom every thing becomes-to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:
For vilest things
Become themselves in her.
And the pungent irony of Enobarbus has well
exposed her feminine arts, when he says, on the
occasion of Antony's intended departure,
Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly :
I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment.
ANTONY.
She is cunning past man's thought.
ENOBARBUS.
Alack, sir, no! her passions are made of nothing but the finest
part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs
126
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacks
can report this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a
shower of rain as well as Jove.
The whole secret of her absolute dominion over
the facile Antony may be found in one little speech:
See where he is-who's with him-what he does-
(I did not send you.) If you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick! Quick! and return.
CHARMIAN.
Madam, methinks if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.
CLEOPATRA.
What should I do, I do not?
CHARMIAN.
In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.
CLEOPATRA.
Thou teachest like a fool the way to lose him.
CHARMAN.
Tempt him not too far.
But Cleopatra is a mistress of her art, and knows
better: and what a picture of her triumphant pe-
CLEOPATRA.
127
tulance, her imperious and imperial coquetry, is
given in her own words!
That time-0 times!
I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night
I laughed him into patience and next morn,
Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;
Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst
I wore his sword, Philippan.
When Antony enters full of some serious pur-
pose which he is about to impart, the woman's
perverseness, and the tyrannical waywardness with
which she taunts him and plays upon his temper,
are admirably depicted.
I know, by that same eye, there's some good news.
What says the married woman ?*
You may go;
Would she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say, 'tis I that keep you here ;
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
The gods best know
ANTONY,
CLEOPATRA,
O, never was there queen
So mightily betray'd! Yet at the first,
I saw the treasons planted.
*Fulvia, the first wife of Antony.
128
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
ANTONY.
Cleopatra !
CLEOPATRA.
Why should I think you can be mine, and true,
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
Which break themselves in swearing!
ANTONY,
Most sweet queen!
CLEOPATRA.
Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going,
But bid farewell, and go.
She recovers her dignity for a moment at the
news of Fulvia's death, as if roused by a blow:
Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?
And then follows the artful mockery with which
she tempts and provokes him, in order to discover
whether he regrets his wife.
O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water?
Now I see, I see
In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be.
CLEOPATRA.
129
ANTONY.
Quarrel no more; but be prepared to know
The purposes I bear: which are, or cease,
As you shall give th' advice. Now, by the fire
That quickens Nilus' shrine, I go from hence
Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war,
As thou affectest.
CLEOPATRA.
Cut my lace, Charmian, come---
But let it be. I am quickly ill, and well,
So Antony loves.
ANTONY.
My precious queen, forbear:
And give true evidence to his love which stands
An honourable trial.
CLEOPATRA.
So Fulvia told me.
I pr'ythee turn aside, and weep for her;
Then bid adieu to me, and say, the tears
Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene
Of excellent dissembling; and let it look
Like perfect honour.
ANTONY.
You'll heat
my
blood-no more!
CLEOPATRA.
You can do better yet; but this is meetly.
130
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
ANTONY.
Now, by my sword-
CLEOPATRA.
And target-still he mends:
But this is not the best. Look, pr'ythee, Charmian,
How this Herculeau Roman does become
The carriage of bis chafe !
This is, indeed, most "excellent dissembling;'
but when she has fooled and chafed the Herculean
Roman to the verge of danger, then comes that re-
turn of tenderness which secures the power she has
tried to the utmost, and we have all the elegant,
the poetical Cleopatra in her beautiful farewell.
Forgive me!
Since my becomings kill me when they do not
Eye well to you. Your honour calls
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,
you hence,
And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword
Sit laurell'd victory; and smooth success
Be strew'd before your feet!
Finer still are the workings of her variable
mind and lively imagination, after Antony's de-
parture; her fond repining at his absence, her
CLEOPATRA.
131
violent spirit, her right royal wilfulness and im-
patience, as if it were a wrong to her majesty,
an insult to her sceptre, that there should exist
in her despite such things as space and time; and
high treason to her sovereign power, to dare to
remember what she chooses to forget.
Give me to drink mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.
O Charmian!
Where think'st thou he is now?
Stands he, or sits be,
Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st ?
The demi-Atlas of this earth-the arm
And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile ?
For so he calls me.
Met'st thou my posts?
ALEXAS.
Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?
CLEOPATRA.
Who's born that day
When I forget to send to Antony,
VOL. II.
132
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS,
Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Cæsar so?
CHARMIAN.
O that brave Cæsar!
CLEOPATRA.
Be chok'd with such another emphasis !
Say, the brave Antony.
CHARMIAN.
The valiant Cæsar!
CLEOPATRA.
By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
If thou with Cæsar paragon again
My man of men!
I sing but after you.
CHARMIAN.
By your most gracious pardon,
CLEOPATRA.
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then. But, come away—
Get me some ink and paper: he shall have every day
A several greeting, or I'll unpeople Egypt.
We learn from Plutarch, that it was a favourite
CLEOPATRA.
133
amusement with Antony and Cleopatra to ramble.
through the streets at night, and bandy ribald
jests with the populace of Alexandria. From
the same authority, we know that they were ac-
customed to live on the most familiar terms with
their attendants and the companions of their
revels. To these traits we must add, that with
all her violence, perverseness, egotism, and caprice,
Cleopatra mingled a capability for warm affec-
tions and kindly feeling, or rather what we should
call in these days, a constitutional good-nature;
and was lavishly generous to her favourites and
dependants. These characteristics we find scat-
tered through the play; they are not only faith-
fully rendered by Shakspeare, but he has made
the finest use of them in his delineation of man-
ners. Hence the occasional freedom of her women
and her attendants, in the midst of their fears
and flatteries, becomes most natural and con-
sistent: hence, too, their devoted attachment and
fidelity, proved even in death. But as illustrative
of Cleopatra's disposition, perhaps the finest and
most characteristic scene in the whole play, is that
I 2
L
134
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
in which the messenger arrives from Rome with
the tidings of Antony's marriage with Octavia.
She perceives at once with quickness that all is
not well, and she hastens to anticipate the worst,
that she may have the pleasure of being disap-
pointed. Her impatience to know what she fears
to learn, the vivacity with which she gradually
works herself up into a state of excitement, and
at length into fury, is wrought out with a force of
truth which makes us recoil.
CLEOPATRA.
Antony's dead
If thou say so, villain, thou kill'st thy mistress.
But well and free,
If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
My bluest veins to kiss: a hand that kings
Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.
MESSENGER.
First, madam, he is well.
CLEOPATRA.
Why, there's more gold. But, sirrah, mark! we use
To say, the dead are well: bring it to that,
The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour
Down thy ill-uttering throat.
{
3
f
1
CLEOPATRA.
135
MESSENGER.
Good madam, hear me.
CLEOPATRA.
Well, go to, I will.
But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony
Be free and healthful, why so tart a favour
To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,
Thou should'st come like a fury crown'd with snakes.
MESSENGER.
Will't please you hear me?
CLEOPATRA.
I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st
Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
Or friends with Cæsar, or not captive to him,
I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
Rich pearls upon thee.
MESSENGER.
Madam, he's well.
CLEOPATRA
Well said.
MESSENGER.
And friends with Cæsar.
CLEOPATRA.
Thou art an honest man.
136
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
MESSENGER.
Cæsar and he are greater friends than ever.
CLEOPATRA.
Make thee a fortune from me.
MESSENGER.
But yet, madam-
CLEOPATRA.
I do not like but yet-it does allay
The good precedence. Fie upon but yet:
But yet is as a gaoler to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor. Pr'ythee, friend,
Pour out thy pack of matter to mine ear,
The good and bad together, He's friends with Cæsar;
In state of health, thou say'st; and thou say'st free.
MESSENGER.
Free, madam! No: I made no such report
He's bound unto Octavia.
CLEOPATRA.
For what good turn?
MESSENGER.
Madam, he's married to Octavia.
CLEOPATRA.
The most infectious pestilence upon thee! [Strikes him down.
Good madam, patience.
MESSENGER.
:
CLEOPATRA.
137
CLEOPATRA.
What say you?
[Strikes him again.
Hence horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me-I'll unhair thine head-
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in brine,
Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
MESSENGER.
Gracious madam!
I, that do bring the news, made not the match.
CLEOPATRA.
Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
And make thy fortunes proud the blow thou hadst
:
Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
And I will boot thee with what gift beside
Thy modesty can beg.
MESSENGER.
He's married, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
Rogue, thou hast lived too long.
[Draws a dagger.
MESSENGER.
Nay then I'll run.
What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.
CHARMIAN.
Good madam, keep yourself within yourself;
The man is innocent.
[Exit.
138
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CLEOPATRA.
Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again;
Though I am mad, I will not bite him-Call!
CHARMIAN.
He is afraid to come.
CLEOPATRA.
I will not hurt him.
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself.
CLEOPATRA.
*
In praising Antony, I have dispraised Cæsar.
Many times, madam.
CHARMIAN.
CLEOPATRA.
I am paid for 't now-
Lead me from hence.
I faint. O Iras, Charmian-'tis no matter:
Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
Report the features of Octavia, her years,
Her inclination-let him not leave out
The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly. [Exit Alex.
Let him for ever go-let him not--Charmian,
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
T'other way he's a Mars,
Bid you Alexas
[To Mardian.
CLEOPATRA.
139
Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian.
But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.
I have given this scene entire because I know
nothing comparable to it. The pride and arro-
gance of the Egyptian queen, the blandishment
of the woman, the unexpected but natural transi-
tions of temper and feeling, the contest of various
passions, and at length-when the wild hurricane
has spent its fury-the melting into tears, faint-
ness, and languishment, are portrayed with the
most astonishing power, and truth, and skill in
feminine nature. More wonderful still is the splen-
dour and force of colouring which is shed over
this extraordinary scene. The mere idea of an
angry woman beating her menial, presents some-
thing ridiculous or disgusting to the mind; in
a queen or a tragedy heroine it is still more inde-
corous; yet this scene is as far as possible from
the vulgar or the comic. Cleopatra seems privi-
*
* The well known violence and coarseness of Queen Elizabeth's
manners, in which she was imitated by the women about her, may
in Shakspeare's time have rendered the image of a royal virago
less offensive and less extraordinary.
140
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
leged to "touch the brink of all we hate " with
impunity. This imperial termagant, this "wrang-
ling queen, whom every thing becomes," becomes
even her fury. We know not by what strange
power it is, that in the midst of all these unruly
passions and childish caprices, the poetry of the
character, and the fanciful and sparkling grace of
the delineation are sustained and still rule in the
imagination; but we feel that it is so.
I need hardly observe, that we have historical
authority for the excessive violence of Cleopatra's
temper. Witness the story of her boxing the ears
of her treasurer, in presence of Octavius, as re-
lated by Plutarch. Shakspeare has made a fine
use of this anecdote also towards the conclusion of
the drama, but it is not equal in power to this
scene with the messenger.
The man is afterwards brought back, almost by
force, to satisfy Cleopatra's jealous anxiety, by a
description of Octavia :-but this time, made wise
by experience, he takes care to adapt his informa-
tion to the humours of his imperious mistress, and
gives her a satirical picture of her rival. The
CLEOPATRA.
141
scene which follows, in which Cleopatra--artful,
acute, and penetrating as she is becomes the
dupe of her feminine spite and jealousy, nay, as-
sists in duping herself; and after having cuffed
the messenger for telling her truths which are
offensive, rewards him for the falsehood which
flatters her weakness-is not only an admirable ex-
hibition of character, but a fine moral lesson.
She concludes, after dismissing the messenger
with gold and thanks,
I repent me much
That I so harry'd him. Why, methinks by him
This creature's no such thing?
CHARMIAN.
O nothing, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
The man hath seen some majesty, and should know!
Do we not fancy Cleopatra drawing herself up
with all the vain consciousness of rank and
beauty as she pronounces this last line? and is
not this the very woman who celebrated her own
apotheosis, who arrayed herself in the robe and
diadem of the goddess Isis, and could find no
142
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
titles magnificent enough for her children but those
of the Sun and the Moon?
The despotism and insolence of her temper are
touched in some other places most admirably.
Thus, when she is told that the Romans libel and
abuse her, she exclaims,
Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
That speak against us!
And when one of her attendants observes, that
"Herod of Jewry dared not look upon her but
when she were well pleased," she immediately re-
plies, "That Herod's head I'll have.” *
When Proculeius surprises her in her monu-
ment, and snatches her poniard from her, terror,
and fury, pride, passion and disdain, swell in her
haughty soul, and seem to shake her very being.
CLEOPATRA.
Where art thou, death?
Come hither, come! come, come and take a queen
Worth many babes and beggars!
*She was as good as her word. See the life of Antony in
Plutarch.
CLEOPATRA.
143
PROCULEIUS.
O temperance, lady?
CLEOPATRA.
Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir:
If idle talk will once be necessary,
I'll not sleep neither; this mortal house I'll ruin,
Do Cæsar what he can! Know, sir, that I
Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
Nor once be chastis'd with the sober
eye
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave to me!
Rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
My country's high pyramids my gibbet,
And hang me up in chains!
In the same spirit of royal bravado, but finer
still, and worked up with a truly Oriental exu-
berance of fancy and imagery, is her famous de--
scription of Antony, addressed to Dolabella :
Most noble empress, you have heard of me?
I cannot tell.
CLEOPATRA.
DOLABELLA.
Assuredly, you know me.
144
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CLEOPATRA.
No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
You laugh when boys, or women, tell their dreams ;
Is't not your trick?
DOLABELLA.
I understand not, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
I dream'd there was an emperor Antony ;
O such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!
DOLABELLA.
If it might please you—-
CLEOPATRA.
His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
A sun and moon; which kept their course, and lighted
The little O, the earth.
DOLABELLA.
Most sovereign creature-
CLEOPATRA.
His legs bestrid the ocean: his reared arm
Crested the world; his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail or shake the orb
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas,
That grew the more by reaping. His delights
Were dolphin like; they show'd his back above
CLEOPATRA.
145
The element they liv'd in. In his livery*
Walk'd crowns and coronets; realms and islands were
As plates + dropp'd from his pocket.
Cleopatra !
DOLABELLA.
CLEOPATRA.
Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dream'd of?
DOLABELLA.
Gentle madam, no.
:
CLEOPATRA.
You lie,-up to the hearing of the gods!
There was no room left in this amazing picture
for the display of that passionate maternal ten-
derness, which was a strong and redeeming fea-
ture in Cleopatra's historical character; but it is
not left untouched; for when she is imprecating
mischiefs on herself, she wishes, as the last and
worst of possible evils, that "thunder may smite
Cæsarion!"
In representing the mutual passion of Antony
and Cleopatra as real and fervent, Shakspeare has
* i. e. retinue.
ti. e. silver coins, from the Spanish plata.
146
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
adhered to the truth of history as well as to ge-
neral nature. On Antony's side it is a species of
infatuation, a single and engrossing feeling: it is,
in short, the love of a man declined in years for a
woman very much younger than himself, and who
has subjected him to every species of female en-
chantment. In Cleopatra the passion is of a mixt
nature, made up of real attachment, combined with
the love of pleasure, the love of power, and the
love of self. Not only is the character most com-
plicated, but no one sentiment could have existed
pure and unvarying in such a mind as hers; her
passion in itself is true, fixed to one centre ; but
like the pennon streaming from the mast, it flut-
ters and veers with every breath of her variable
temper: yet in the midst of all her caprices, fol-
lies, and even vices, womanly feeling is still pre-
dominant in Cleopatra: and the change which
takes place in her deportment towards Antony,
when their evil fortune darkens round them, is as
beautiful and interesting in itself as it is striking
and natural. Instead of the airy caprice and pro-
voking petulance she displays in the first scenes,
CLEOPATRA.
147
we have a mixture of tenderness, and artifice, and
fear, and submissive blandishment. Her behaviour,
for instance, after the battle of Actium, when she
quails before the noble and tender rebuke of her
lover, is partly female subtlety and partly natural
feeling.
CLEOPATRA.
O my lord, my lord,
Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
You would have follow'd.
ANTONY.
Egypt, thou know'st too well
My heart was to the rudder tied by the strings,
And thou should'st tow me after. O'er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou know'st; and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.
O, my pardon?
CLEOPATRA.
ANTONY.
Now I must
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleas'd,
31
148
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Making and marring fortunes.
You did know
How much you were my conqueror; and that
My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.
CLEOPATRA.
O pardon, pardon !
ANTONY.
Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss;
Even this repays me.

૩૨૨૨૧૧૧૧
AAAN
CLEOPATRA.
149
It is perfectly in keeping with the individual
character, that Cleopatra, alike destitute of moral
strength and physical courage, should cower ter-
rified and subdued before the masculine spirit of
her lover, when once she has fairly roused it. Thus
Tasso's Armida, half syren, half sorceress, in the
moment of strong feeling, forgets her incantations,
and has recourse to persuasion, to prayers, and to
tears.
Lascia gl' incanti, e vuol provar se vaga
E supplice beltà sia miglior maga.
Though the poet afterwards gives us to under-
stand that even in this relinquishment of art there
was a more refined artifice.
Nella doglia amara
Già tutte non oblia l' arti e le frodi.
And something like this inspires the conduct of
Cleopatra towards Antony in his fallen fortunes.
The reader should refer to that fine scene, where
Antony surprises Thyreus kissing her hand, "that
kingly seal and plighter of high hearts," and rages
like a thousand hurricanes.
VOL. II,
K
150
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
The character of Mark Antony, as delineated
by Shakspeare, reminds me of the Farnese Her-
cules. There is an ostentatious display of power,
an exaggerated grandeur, a colossal effect in the
whole conception, sustained throughout in the
pomp of the language, which seems, as it flows
along, to resound with the clang of arms and the
music of the revel. The coarseness and violence
of the historic portrait are a little kept down; but
every word which Antony utters is characteristic of
the arrogant but magnanimous Roman, who "with
half the bulk o' the world played as he pleased,"
and was himself the sport of a host of mad (and
bad) passions, and the slave of a woman.
History is followed closely in all the details of
the catastrophe, and there is something wonderfully
grand in the hurried march of events towards the
conclusion. As disasters hem her round, Cleopatra
gathers up her faculties to meet them, not with the
calm fortitude of a great soul, but the haughty,
tameless spirit of a wilful woman, unused to re-
verse or contradiction.
Her speech, after Antony has expired in her
CLEOPATRA.
151
arms, I have always regarded as one of the most
wonderful in Shakspeare. Cleopatra is not a
woman to grieve silently. The contrast between
the violence of her passions and the weakness of
her sex, between her regal grandeur and her
excess of misery, her impetuous, unavailing
struggles with the fearful destiny which has com-
passed her, and the mixture of wild impatience
and pathos in her agony, are really magnificent.
She faints on the body of Antony, and is recalled
to life by the cries of her women—
IRAS.
Royal Egypt-empress!
CLEOPATRA.
No more, but e'en a woman!* and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks,
And does the meanest chares.-It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
To tell them that our world did equal theirs
Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but nought;
Patience is sottish, and impatience does
Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin
* Cleopatra replies to the first word she hears on recovering
her senses,
No more an empress, but a mere woman!"
K 2
152
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
To rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
What, what? good cheer! why how now, Charmian ?
My noble girls!-ah, women, women! look
Our lamp is spent, is out.
We'll bury him, and then what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us.
But although Cleopatra talks of dying "after
the high Roman fashion," she fears what she most
desires, and cannot perform with simplicity what
costs her such an effort. That extreme physical
cowardice, which was so strong a trait in her his-
torical character, which led to the defeat of
Actium, which made her delay the execution of a
fatal resolve, till she had "tried conclusions infinite
of easy ways to die," Shakspeare has rendered
with the finest possible effect, and in a manner
which heightens instead of diminishing our respect
and interest. Timid by nature, she is courageous
by the mere force of will, and she lashes herself
up with high-sounding words into a kind of false
daring. Her lively imagination suggests every
incentive which can spur her on to the deed she
CLEOPATRA.
153
has resolved, yet trembles to contemplate. She
pictures to herself all the degradations which must
attend her captivity; and let it be observed, that
those which she anticipates are precisely such as a
vain, luxurious, and haughty woman would espe
cially dread, and which only true virtue and mag-
nanimity could despise. Cleopatra could have
endured the loss of freedom; but to be led in tri-
umph through the streets of Rome is insufferable.
She could stoop to Cæsar with dissembling courtesy,
and meet duplicity with superior art; but " to be
chastised" by the scornful or upbraiding glance of
the injured Octavia—“ rather a ditch in Egypt!'
If knife, drugs, serpents, have
Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe.
Your wife, Octavia, with her modest eyes,
*
And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
Demuring upon me.
Now Iras, what think'st thou ?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves,
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view. In their thick breaths,
* i. e. sedate determination.-JOHNSON.
""
154
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
And forc'd to drink their vapour.
IRAS.
The gods forbid !
CLEOPATRA.
Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors
Will catch at us like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune. The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels. Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth; and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.
She then calls for her diadem, her robes of
state, and attires herself as if "again for Cydnus,
to meet Mark Antony." Coquette to the last, she
must make Death proud to take her, and die,
phoenix like," as she had lived, with all the
pomp of preparation-luxurious in her despair.
66
The death of Lucretia, of Portia, of Arria,
and others who died "after the high Roman fa-
shion," is sublime according to the Pagan ideas of
virtue, and yet none of them so powerfully affect
the imagination as the catastrophe of Cleopatra.
The idea of this frail, timid, wayward woman,
CLEOPATRA.
155
dying with heroism from the mere force of pas-
sion and will, takes us by surprise. The Attic
elegance of her mind, her poetical imagination,
the pride of beauty and royalty predominating
to the last, and the sumptuous and picturesque
accompaniments with which she surrounds herself
in death, carry to its extreme height that effect.
of contrast which prevails through her life and
character. No arts, no invention could add to the
real circumstances of Cleopatra's closing scene.
Shakspeare has shown profound judgment and
feeling in adhering closely to the classical autho-
rities; and to say that the language and sen-
timents worthily fill up the outline, is the most
magnificent praise that can be given. The magical
play of fancy and the overpowering fascination of
the character are kept up to the last: and when
Cleopatra, on applying the asp, silences the la-
mentations of her women
Peace! peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse to sleep?—
These few words-the contrast between the ten-
der beauty of the image and the horror of the
156
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
situation-produce an effect more intensely mourn-
ful than all the ranting in the world. The gene-
rous devotion of her women adds the moral charm
which alone was wanting: and when Octavius
hurries in too late to save his victim, and exclaims
when gazing on her-
She looks like sleep-
As she would catch another Antony
In her strong toil of grace,
the image of her beauty and her irresistible arts,
triumphant even in death, is at once brought before
us, and one masterly and comprehensive stroke
consummates this most wonderful, most dazzling
delineation.
I am not here the apologist of Cleopatra's his-
torical character, nor of such women as resemble
her: I am considering her merely as a dramatic por-
trait of astonishing beauty, spirit, and originality.
She has furnished the subject of two Latin, sixteen
French, six English, and at least, four Italian, tra-
gedies;* yet Shakspeare alone has availed himself
*The Cleopatra of Jodelle was the first regular French tra-
gedy: the last French tragedy on the same subject was the Cléo
CLEOPATRA.
157
of all the interest of the story, without falsifying
the character. He alone has dared to exhibit the
Egyptian queen with all her greatness and all her
littleness-all her frailties of temper-all her
paltry arts and dissolute passions-yet preserved
the dramatic propriety and poetical colouring of
the character, and awakened our pity for fallen
grandeur, without once beguiling us into sympathy
with guilt and error.
Corneille has represented
Cleopatra as a model of chaste propriety, mag-
nanimity, constancy, and every female virtue ;
and the effect is almost ludicrous. In our own
language, we have two very fine tragedies on
the story of Cleopatra: in that of Dryden, which
is in truth a noble poem, and which he himself
considered his master-piece, Cleopatra is a mere
patre of Marmontel. For the representation of this tragedy,
Vaucanson, the celebrated French mechanist, invented an auto-
maton asp, which crawled and hissed to the life,—to the great
delight of the Parisians. But it appears that neither Vaucanson's
asp, nor Clairon, could save Cléopatre from a deserved fate. Of
the English tragedies, one was written by the Countess of Pem-
broke, the sister of Sir Philip Sydney; and is, I believe, the first
instance in our language of original dramatic writing, by a female.
¿
158
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
common-place "all-for-love" heroine, full of con-
stancy and fine sentiments. For instance:-
My love's so true,
That I can neither hide it where it is,
Nor show it where it is not. Nature meant me
A wife-a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit.
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wild world, unfurnished
Of falsehood to be happy.
Is this Antony's Cleopatra-the Circe of the Nile
-the Venus of the Cydnus? She never uttered
any thing half so mawkish in her life.
In Fletcher's "False One," Cleopatra is repre-
sented at an earlier period of her history and to
give an idea of the aspect under which the cha-
racter is exhibited, (and it does not vary throughout
the play,) I shall give one scene: if it be considered
out of place, its extreme beauty will form its best
apology.
Ptolomy and his council having exhibited to
Cæsar all the royal treasures in Egypt, he is so
astonished and dazzled at the view of the accumu-
lated wealth, that he forgets the presence of Cleo-
CLEOPATRA.
159
patra, and treats her with negligence.
The fol-
lowing scene between her and her sister Arsinoe
occurs immediately afterwards.
ARSINOE.
You're so impatient!
CLEOPATRA.
Have I not cause?
Women of common beauties and low births,
When they are slighted, are allowed their angers-
Why should not I, a princess, make him know
The baseness of his usage?
ARSINOE.
Yes, 'tis fit:
But then again you know what man
CLEOPATRA.
He's no man!
The shadow of a greatness hangs upon him,
And not the virtue ; he is no conqueror,
Has suffered under the base dross of nature;
Poorly deliver'd up his power to wealth.
The god of bed-rid men taught his eyes treason:
Against the truth of love he has rais'd rebellion-
Defied his holy flames.
And satisfy your grace,
EROS.
He will fall back again,
160
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CLEOPATRA.
Had I been old,
Or blasted in my bud, he might have shew'd
Some shadow of dislike: but to prefer
The lustre of a little trash, Arsinoe,
And the poor glow-worm light of some faint jewels
Before the light of love, and soul of beauty-
O how it vexes me! He is no soldier:
All honourable soldiers are Love's servants.
He is a merchant, a mere wandering merchant,
Servile to gain; he trades for poor commodities,
And makes his conquests, thefts! Some fortunate captains
That quarter with him, and are truly valiant,
Have flung the name of "Happy Cæsar" on him;
Himself ne'er won it. He's so base and covetous,
He'll sell his sword for gold.
ARSINOE.
This is too bitter.
CLEOPATRA.
O I could curse myself, that was so foolish,
So fondly childish, to believe his tongue-
His promising tongue-ere I could catch his temper.
I'd trash enough to have cloy'd his eyes withal,
(His covetous eyes,) such as I scorn to tread on,
Richer than e'er he saw yet, and more tempting;
Had I known he'd stoop'd at that, I'd sav'd mine honour-
I had been happy still! But let him take it.
And let him brag how poorly I'm rewarded;
CLEOPATRA.
161
Let him go conquer still weak wretched ladies;
Love has his angry quiver too, his deadly,
And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest-
I am a fool to fret thus for a fool,-
An old blind fool too! I lose my health; I will not,
I will not cry; I will not honour him
With tears diviner than the gods he worships;
I will not take the pains to curse a poor thing.
EROS.
Do not; you shall not need.
CLEOPATRA.
Would I were prisoner
To one I hate, that I might anger him!
I will love any man to break the heart of him!
Any that has the heart and will to kill him!
Take some fair truce.
ARSINOE.
CLEOPATRA.
I will go study mischief,
And put a look on, arm'd with all my cunnings,
Shall meet him like a basilisk, and strike him.
Love! put destroying flame into mine eyes,
Into my smiles deceits, that I may torture him-
That I may make him love to death, and laugh at him!
Enter APOLLODORUS.
APOLLODORus.
Cæsar commends his service to your grace.
162
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CLEOPATRA.
His service? What's his service?
EROS.
Pray you be patient;
The noble Cæsar loves still.
CLEOPATRA.
What's his will?
APOLLODOrus.
He craves access unto your highness.
CLEOPATRA.
No ;-
Say no; I will have none to trouble me.
Good sister!-
ARSINOE.
CLEOPATRA.
None, I say; I will be private.
Would thou hadst flung me into Nilus, keeper,
When first thou gav'st consent to bring my body
To this unthankful Cæsar!
APOLLODORUS.
'Twas your will, madam.
Nay more, your charge upon me, as I honour'd you.
You know what danger I endur'd.
CLEOPATRA.
Take this, (giving a jewel.)
And carry it to that lordly Cæsar sent thee;
There's a new love, a handsome one, a rich one,—
One that will hug his mind: bid him make love to it;
Tell the ambitious broker this will suffer-
CLEOPATRA.
163
He enters.
How!
Enter CESAR.
APOLLODORus.
CLEOPATRA.
CÆSAR.
I do not use to wait, lady;
Where I am, all the doors are free and open.
CLEOPATRA.
I guess so by your rudeness.
CÆSAR.
You're not angry?
Things of your tender mould should be most gentle.
Why should you frown? Good gods, what a set anger
Have you forc'd into your face! Come, I must temper you.
What a coy smile was there, and a disdainful !
How like an ominous flash it broke out from you!
Defend me, love!
Sweet, who has anger'd you
CLEOPATRA,
Show him a glass! That false face has betray'd me-
That base heart wrong'd me!
CÆSAR.
Be more sweetly angry.
I wrong'd you, fair?
CLEOPATRA.
Away with your foul flatteries;
They are too gross! But that I dare be angry,
164
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
And with as great a god as Cæsar is,
To show how poorly I respect his memory,
I would not speak to you.
CÆSAR.
Pray you, undo this riddle,
And tell me how I've vex'd you.
CLEOPATRA.
Let me think first,
Whether I may put on a patience
That will with honour suffer me.
Know I hate you;
Let that begin the story. Now I'll tell you.
CESAR.
But do it mildly: in a noble lady,
Softness of spirit, and a sober nature,
That moves like summer winds, cool, and blows sweetness,
Shows blessed, like herself.
CLEOPATRA.
And that great blessedness
You first reap'd of me; till you taught my nature,
Like a rude storm, to talk aloud and thunder,
Sleep was not gentler than my soul, and stiller.
You had the spring of my affections,
And my fair fruits I gave you leave to taste of ;
You must expect the winter of mine anger
You flung me off-before the court disgraced me-
When in the pride I appear'd of all my beauty-
CLEOPATRA.
165
Appear'd your mistress; took unto your eyes
The common strumpet, love of hated lucre,-
Courted with covetous heart the slave of nature,-
Gave all your thoughts to gold, that men of glory,
And minds adorn'd with noble love, would kick at!
Soldiers of royal mark scorn such base purchase;
Beauty and honour are the marks they shoot at.
I spake to you then, I courted you, and woo'd you,
Called you dear Cæsar, hung about you tenderly,
Was proud to appear your friend-
CÆSAR.
You have mistaken me.
CLEOPATRA.
But neither eye, nor favour, not a smile
Was I blessed back withal, but shook off rudely;
And as you had been sold to sordid infamy,
You fell before the images of treasure,
And in your soul you worshipp'd. I stood slighted,
Forgotten, and contemn'd; my soft embraces,
And those sweet kisses which you call'd Elysium,
As letters writ in sand, no more remember'd;
The name and glory of your Cleopatra
Laugh'd at, and made a story to your captains!
Shall I endure?
CÆSAR.
You are deceived in all this;
Upon my life you are; 'tis your much tenderness.
VOL. II.
L
166
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CLEOPATRA.
No, no; I love not that way; you are cozen'd;
I love with as much ambition as a conqueror,
And where I love will triumph!
CÆSAR.
So you shall:
My heart shall be the chariot that shall bear you:
All I have won shall wait upon you. By the gods,
The bravery of this woman's mind has fir'd me!
Dear mistress, shall I but this once————
CLEOPATRA.
How! Cæsar!
Have I let slip a second vanity
That gives thee hope?
CÆSAR.
You shall be absolute,
And reign alone as queen; you shall be any thing.
CLEOPATRA.
Farewell, unthankful!
CÆSAR.
Stay!
CLEOPATRA.
I will not.
CÆSAR.
I command.
CLEOPATRA.
167
CLEOPATRA.
Command, and go without, sir,
I do command thee be my slave for ever,
And vex, while I laugh at thee!
CESAR.
Thus low, beauty-
CLEOPATRA.
[He kneels.
It is too late; when I have found thee absolute,
The man that fame reports thee, and to me,
May be I shall think better. Farewell, conqueror !
(Erit.)
Now this is magnificent poetry, but this is
not Cleopatra, this is not "the gipsy queen."
The sentiment here is too profound, the majesty
too real, and too lofty. Cleopatra could be great
by fits and starts, but never sustained her dignity
upon so high a tone for ten minutes together. The
Cleopatra of Fletcher reminds us of the an-
tique colossal statue of her in the Vatican, all
grandeur and grace. Cleopatra in Dryden's
tragedy is like Guido's dying Cleopatra in the
Pitti palace, tenderly beautiful. Shakspeare's
Cleopatra is like one of those graceful and fan-
32
168
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
tastic pieces of antique Arabesque, in which
all anomalous shapes and
combinations of form are
impossible and wild
woven together in
regular confusion and most harmonious discord:
and such, we have reason to believe, was the
living woman herself, when she existed upon this
earth.

"
CLEOPATRA.
169
I do not understand the observation of a late
critic, that in this play "Octavia is only a dull foil
to Cleopatra." Cleopatra requires no foil, and
Octavia is not dull, though in a moment of jea-
lous spleen, her accomplished rival gives her that
epithet.* It is possible that her beautiful cha-
racter, if brought more forward and coloured up
to the historic portrait, would still be eclipsed
by the dazzling splendour of Cleopatra's; for so
I have seen a flight of fireworks blot out for a
while the silver moon and ever burning stars.
But here the subject of the drama being the love
of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavia is very properly
kept in the back ground, and far from any com-
petition with her rival: the interest would other-
wise have been unpleasantly divided, or rather
Cleopatra herself must have served but as a foil
to the tender, virtuous, dignified, and generous
Octavia, the very beau idéal of a noble Roman
lady-
Admired Octavia, whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men ;
"The sober eye of dull Octavia."-Act v. scene 2.
L 2
170
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
That which none else can utter.
Dryden has committed a great mistake in bring-
ing Octavia and her children on the scene, and
in immediate contact with Cleopatra. To have
thus violated the truth of history* might have
been excusable, but to sacrifice the truth of nature
and dramatic propriety, to produce a mere stage
effect, was unpardonable. In order to preserve
the unity of interest, he has falsified the character
of Octavia as well as that of Cleopatra:+ he has
* Octavia was never in Egypt.
+ "The Octavia of Dryden is a much more important personage
than in the Antony and Cleopatra of Shakspeare. She is, however,
more cold and unamiable, for in the very short scenes in which the
Octavia of Shakspeare is introduced, she is placed in rather an in-
teresting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed us
that he was apprehensive that the justice of a wife's claim would
draw the audience to her side, and lessen their interest in the lover
and the mistress. He seems accordingly to have studiously
lowered the character of the injured Octavia, who, in her conduct
to her husband, shows much duty and little love." Sir W. Scott
(in the same fine piece of criticism prefixed to Dryden's All for
Love,) gives the preference to Shakspeare's Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA.
171
presented us with a regular scolding match be-
tween the rivals, in which they come sweeping up
to each other from opposite sides of the stage, with
their respective trains, like two pea-hens in a pas-
sion. Shakspeare would no more have brought his
captivating, brilliant, but meretricious Cleopatra
into immediate comparison with the noble and
chaste simplicity of Octavia, than a connoisseur in
art would have placed Canova's Dansatrice, beauti-
ful as it is, beside the Athenian Melpomene, or
the Vestal of the Capitol.
The character of Octavia is merely indicated in
a few touches, but every stroke tells. We see her
with "downcast eyes sedate and sweet, and looks
demure,”—with her modest tenderness and digni-
fied submission-the very antipodes of her rival!
Nor should we forget that she has furnished one of
the most graceful similes in the whole compass of
poetry, where her soft equanimity in the midst of
grief is compared to
The swan's down feather
That stands upon the swell at flood of tide,
And neither way inclines.
172
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
The fear which seems to haunt the mind of
Cleopatra, lest she should be "chastised by the
sober eye" of Octavia, is exceedingly characteristic
of the two women: it betrays the jealous pride of
her, who was conscious that she had forfeited all
real claim to respect; and it places Octavia before
us in all the majesty of that virtue which could
strike a kind of envying and remorseful awe even
into the bosom of Cleopatra. What would she
have thought and felt, had some soothsayer fore-
told to her the fate of her own children, whom
she so tenderly loved? Captives, and exposed to
the rage of the Roman populace, they owed their
existence to the generous, admirable Octavia, in
whose mind there entered no particle of littleness.
She received into her house the children of An-
tony and Cleopatra, educated them with her own,
treated them with truly maternal tenderness, and
married them nobly.
Lastly, to complete the contrast, the death of
Octavia should be put in comparison with that of
Cleopatra.
After spending several years in dignified retire-
OCTAVIA.
173
ment, respected as the sister of Augustus, but
more for her own virtues, Octavia lost her eldest
son Marcellus, who was expressively called the
Hope of Rome." Her fortitude gave way under
this blow, and she fell into a deep melancholy, which
gradually wasted her health. While she was thus
declining into death, occurred that beautiful scene
which has never yet, I believe, been made the
subject of a picture, but should certainly be
added to my gallery, (if I had one,) and I would
hang it opposite to the dying Cleopatra. Virgil
was commanded by Augustus to read aloud to his
sister, that book of the Eneid in which he had
commemorated the virtues and early death of the
young Marcellus. When he came to the lines—
This youth, the blissful vision of a day,
Shall just be shown on earth, then snatch'd away, &c.
the mother covered her face, and burst into tears.
But when Virgil mentioned her son by name,
("Tu Marcellus eris,") which he had artfully de-
ferred till the concluding lines, Octavia, unable to
control her agitation, fainted away. She after-
33
174
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
wards, with a magnificent spirit, ordered the poet
a gratuity of ten thousand sesterces for each line
of the panegyric.* It is probable that the agi-
tation she suffered on this occasion hastened the
effects of her disorder; for she died soon after,
(of grief, says the historian,) having survived An-
tony about twenty years.
* In all, about two thousand pounds.

11
VOLUMNIA.
175
Octavia, however, is only a beautiful sketch,
while in Volumnia, Shakspeare has given us the
portrait of a Roman matron, conceived in the
true antique spirit, and finished in every part.
Although Coriolanus is the hero of the play, yet
much of the interest of the action and the final
catastrophe turn upon the character of his mother,
Volumnia, and the power she exercised over his
mind, by which, according to the story,
" she
saved Rome and lost her son." Her lofty pa-
triotism, her patrician haughtiness, her maternal
pride, her eloquence, and her towering spirit, are
exhibited with the utmost power of effect; yet the
truth of female nature is beautifully preserved,
and the portrait, with all its vigour, is without
harshness.
I shall begin by illustrating the relative position
and feelings of the mother and son; as these are of
the greatest importance in the action of the drama,
and consequently most prominent in the charac-
ters. Though Volumnia is a Roman matron, and
though her country owes its salvation to her, it is
clear that her maternal pride and affection are
176
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
stronger even than her patriotism. Thus when
her son is exiled, she bursts into an imprecation
against Rome and its citizens:
Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish!
Here we have the impulses of individual
and feminine nature, overpowering all national
and habitual influences. Volumnia would never
have exclaimed like the Spartan mother, of her
dead son, "Sparta has many others as brave as
he;" but in a far different spirit she says to the
Romans,
Ere you go, hear this;
As far as doth the Capitol exceed
The meanest house in Rome, so far my son,
Whom you have banished, does exceed you all.
In the very first scenc, and before the introduc-
tion of the principal personages, one citizen ob-
serves to another that the military exploits of
Marcius were performed, not so much for his
country's sake "as to please his mother." By
VOLUMNIA.
177
this admirable stroke of art, introduced with such
simplicity of effect, our attention is aroused, and
we are prepared in the very outset of the piece for
the important part assigned to Volumnia, and for
her share in producing the catastrophe.
In the first act we have a very graceful scene,
in which the two Roman ladies, the wife and mo-
ther of Coriolanus, are discovered at their needle-
work, conversing on his absence and danger, and
are visited by Valeria-
The noble sister of Publicola,
The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle,
That's curded by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple!
Over this little scene Shakspeare, without any
display of learning, has breathed the very spirit
of classical antiquity. The haughty temper of
Volumnia, her admiration of the valour and high
bearing of her son, and her proud but unselfish
love for him, are finely contrasted with the modest
sweetness, the conjugal tenderness, and the fond
solicitude of his wife Virgilia.
178
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
VOLUMNIA.
When yet he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my
womb; when youth with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way;
when, for a day of kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him
an hour from her beholding; I,-considering how honour would
become such a person; that it was no better than picture-like to
hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir,--was pleased to let
him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war
I sent him, from whence he returned, his brows bound with oak.
I tell thee, daughter-I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he
was a man-child, than now in first seeing he had proved himself
a man.
VIRGILIA.
But had he died in the business, madam? how then?
VOLUMNIA.
Then his good report should have been my son; I therein would
have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely had I a dozen
sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my
good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country,
than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.
Enter a GENTLEWOMAN.
Madam, the lady Valeria is come to visit you.
VIRGILIA.
Beseech you, give me leave to retire myself.
Indeed you shall not.
VOLUMNIA.
VOLUMNIA.
179
Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum :
See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair;
As children from a bear, the Volces shunning him;
Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus-
"Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear,
Though you were born in Rome." His bloody brow
With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes;
Like to a harvest-man, that's task'd to mow
Or all, or lose his hire.
VIRGILIA.
His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!
VOLUMNIA.
Away, you fool! it more becomes a man
Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier
Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood
At Grecian swords contending. Tell Valeria
We are fit to bid her welcome.
VIRGILIA.
Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!
VOLUMNIA.
He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee,
And tread upon his neck.
[Exit Gent.
This distinction between the two females is as
interesting and beautiful as it is well sustained.
180
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Thus when the victory of Coriolanus is proclaimed,
Menenius asks, "Is he wounded?"
VIRGILIA.
O no, no, no!
VOLUMNIA.
Yes, be is wounded-I thank the gods for it!
And when he returns victorious from the wars, his
high-spirited mother receives him with blessings
and applause—his gentle wife with "gracious si-
lence" and with tears.
The resemblance of temper in the mother and
the son, modified as it is by the difference of sex,
and by her greater age and experience, is exhi-
bited with admirable truth. Volumnia, with all
her pride and spirit, has some prudence and self-
command; in her language and deportment all is
matured and matronly. The dignified tone of
authority she assumes towards her son, when
checking his headlong impetuosity, her respect
and admiration for his noble qualities, and her
strong sympathy even with the feelings she com-
bats, are all displayed in the scene in which
VOLUMNIA.
181
she prevails on him to soothe the incensed ple-
beians.
VOLUMNIA.
Pray be counsell'd:
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.
MENENIUS.
Well said, noble woman:
Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that
The violent fit o' the time craves it as physic
For the whole state, I wo ld put mine armour on,
Which I can scarcely bear.
CORIOLANUS.
What must I do?
MENENIUS.
Return to the tribunes.
CORIOLANUS.
Well,
What then? what then?
Menenius.
Repent what you have spoke.
CORIOLANUS.
For them? I cannot do it to the gods:
Must I then do't to them?
182
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
VOLUMNIA.
You are too absolute;
Though therein you can never be too noble,
But when extremities speak.
I pr'ythee now, my son,
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;
And thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them,)
Thy knee bussing the stones, (for in such business
Action is eloquent, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears,) waving thy head,
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble, as the ripest mulberry,
That will not hold the handling. Or, say to them,
Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
As thou hast power and person.
MENENIUS.
This but done,
Even as she speaks, why all their hearts were yours;
For they have pardons, being asked, as free
As words to little purpose.
VOLUMNIA.
Pr'ythee now,
VOLUMNIA.
183
Go, and be rul'd: although I know thou hadst rather
ollow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
Than flatter him in a bower.
MENENIUS,
Only fair speech.
COMINIUS.
I think 'twill serve, if he
Can thereto frame his spirit.
VOLUMNIA.
He must, and will :
Pr'ythee, now say you will, and go about it.
CORIOLANUS.
Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must I
With my base tongue give to my noble heart
A lie, that it must bear? Well, I will do 't?
Yet were there but this single plot to lose,
This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,
And throw it against the wind. To the market-place!
You have put me now to such a part, which never
I shall discharge to the life.
VOLUMNIA.
I pr'ythee now, sweet son, as thou hast said,
My praises made thee first a soldier, so
To have my praise for this, perform a part
Thou hast not done before.
184
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CORIOLANUS.
Well, I must do 't
;
Away, my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot's spirit!
I will not do 't
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
And, by my body's action, teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.
VOLUMNIA.
At thy choice, then :
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour,
Thau thou of them. Come all to ruin: let
Thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fear
Thy dangerous stoutness: for I mock at death
With as big beart as thou. Do as thou list—
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me ;
But owe thy pride thyself.
CORIOLANUS.
Pray be content;
Mother, I am going to the market-place—
Chide me no more.
When the spirit of the mother and the son are
brought into immediate collision, he yields be-
fore her the warrior who stemmed alone the whole
VOLUMNIA.
185
city of Corioli, who was ready to face "the steep
Tarpeian death, or at wild horses' heels,-vaga-
bond exile-flaying," rather than abate one jot of
his proud will-shrinks at her rebuke. The
haughty, fiery, overbearing temperament of Co-
riolanus, is drawn in such forcible and striking
colours, that nothing can more impress us with
the real grandeur and power of Volumnia's cha-
racter, than his boundless submission to her will-
his more than filial tenderness and respect.
You gods! I prate,
And the most noble mother of the world
Leave unsaluted. Sink my knee i' the earth-
Of thy deep duty more impression show
Than that of common sons!
When his mother appears before him as a sup-
pliant, he exclaims,
My mother bows;
As if Olympus to a molehill should
In supplication nod.
Here the expression of reverence, and the magni-
ficent image in which it is clothed, are equally
characteristic both of the mother and the son.
VOL. II.
M
186
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Her aristocratic haughtiness is a strong trait in
Volumnia's manner and character, and her supreme
contempt for the plebeians, whether they are to be
defied or cajoled, is very like what I have heard
expressed by some high-born and high-bred wo-
men of our own day.
I muse my mother
Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vassals; things created
To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads
In congregations; to yawn, be still, and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.
And Volumnia reproaching the tribunes,
'Twas you incensed the rabble-
Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth,
As I can of those mysteries which Heaven
Will not have earth to know.
There is all the Roman spirit in her exultation
when the trumpets sound the return of Coriolanus.
Hark! the trumpets!
These are the ushers of Marcius: before him
He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.
VOLUMNIA.
187
And in her speech to the gentle Virgilia, who is
weeping her husband's banishment—
Leave this faint puling! and lament as I do,
In anger-Juno-like !
But the triumph of Volumnia's character, the full
display of all her grandeur of soul, her patriotism,
her strong affections, and her sublime eloquence,
are reserved for her last scene, in which she pleads
for the safety of Rome, and wins from her angry
son that peace which all the swords of Italy and
her confederate arms could not have purchased.
The strict and even literal adherence to the truth
of history is an additional beauty.
"Should we be
Her famous speech, beginning
silent and not speak," is nearly word for word from
Plutarch, with some additional graces of expression,
and the charm of metre superadded. I shall give
the last lines of this address, as illustrating that
noble and irresistible eloquence which was the
crowning ornament of the character. One exquisite
touch of nature, which is distinguished by italics,
was beyond the rhetorician and historian, and
belongs only to the poet.
M 2
188
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Speak to me, son;
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,
To imitate the graces of the gods;
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,
And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man
Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you :
He cares not for your weeping.
Speak thou, boy;
Perhaps thy childishness may move him more
Than can our reasons. There is no man in the world
More bound to his mother; yet here he lets me prate
Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy ;
When she, (poor hen!) fond of no second brood,
Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home,
Laden with honour. Say my request's unjust,
And spurn me back; but, if it be not so,
Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee
That thou restrain'st from me the duty which
To a mother's part belongs. He turns away:
Down, ladies: let us shame him with our knees.
To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride,
Than pity to our prayers; down, and-end;
This is the last; so will we home to Rome,
And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold us;
This boy, that cannot tell what he would have,
VOLUMNIA.
189
But kneels, and holds up hands, for fellowship
Does reason our petition with more strength
Than thou hast to deny❜t.*
It is an instance of Shakspeare's fine judgment,
that after this magnificent and touching piece of
* The corresponding passage in the old English Plutarch runs
thus:"My son, why dost thou not answer me? Dost thou think
it good altogether to give place unto thy choler and revenge, and
thinkest thou it not honesty for thee to grant thy mother's
request in so weighty a cause? Dost thou take it honourable
for a nobleman to remember the wrongs and injuries done him,
and dost not in like case think it an honest nobleman's part
to be thankful for the goodness that parents do show to their
children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they ought to
bear unto them? No man living is more bound to show himself
thankful in all parts and respects than thyself, who so univer-
sally showest all ingratitude. Moreover, my son, thou hast
sorely taken of thy country, exacting grievous payments upon
them in revenge of the injuries offered thee; besides, thou hast
not hitherto showed thy poor mother any courtesy. And,
therefore, it is not only honest, but due unto me, that without
compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable request of
thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade ye to it, to what
purpose do I defer my last hope?" And with these words, her-
self, his wife, and children, fell down upon their knees before
him.
34
190
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
eloquence, which saved Rome, Volumnia should
speak no more, for she could say nothing that
would not deteriorate from the effect thus left on
the imagination. She is at last dismissed from
our admiring gaze amid the thunder of grateful
acclamations-
Behold our patroness,-the life of Rome.

ROMA ROMA ROMA
NON SEI PILL. QUEECH'UN.TEMPO!
AN

CONSTANCE.
We have seen that in the mother of Coriolanus
the principal qualities are exceeding pride, self-
will, strong maternal affection, great power of
imagination, and energy of temper. Precisely the
same qualities enter into the mind of Constance
of Bretagne: but in her these qualities are so
35
192
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
differently modified by circumstances and educa-
tion, that not even in fancy do we think of insti-
tuting a comparison between the gothic grandeur
of Constance, and the more severe and classical
dignity of the Roman matron.
The scenes and circumstances with which Shak-
speare has surrounded Constance are strictly faith-
ful to the old chronicles, and are as vividly as
they are accurately represented. On the other
hand, the hints on which the character has been
constructed are few and vague; but the portrait
harmonizes so wonderfully with its historic back-
ground, and with all that later researches have dis-
covered relative to the personal adventures of
Constance, that I have not the slightest doubt of
its individual truth. The result of a life of strange
vicissitudes; the picture of a tameless will, and high
passions, for ever struggling in vain against a supe-
rior power: and the real situation of women in
those chivalrous times, are placed before us in a
few noble scenes. The manner in which Shak-
speare has applied the scattered hints of history to
the formation of the character, reminds us of that
CONSTANCE.
193
magician who collected the mangled limbs which
had been dispersed up and down, re-united them
into the human form, and re-animated them with
the breathing and conscious spirit of life.
Constance of Bretagne was the only daughter
and heiress of Conan IV., Duke of Bretagne; her
mother was Margaret of Scotland, the eldest
daughter of Malcolm IV.: but little mention is
made of this princess in the old histories; but she
appears to have inherited some portion of the
talent and spirit of her father, and to have trans-
mitted them to her daughter. The misfortunes
of Constance may be said to have commenced
before her birth, and took their rise in the miscon-
duct of one of her female ancestors. Her great-
grandmother Matilda, the wife of Conan III.,
was distinguished by her beauty and imperious
temper, and not less by her gallantries.
husband, not thinking proper to repudiate her dur-
ing his lifetime, contented himself with disinheriting
her son Hoel, whom he declared illegitimate; and
bequeathed his dukedom to his daughter Bertha,
and her husband Allan the Black, Earl of Rich
Her
194
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
mond, who were proclaimed and acknowledged
Duke and Duchess of Bretagne.
Prince Hoel, so far from acquiescing in his fa-
ther's will, immediately levied an army to maintain
his rights, and a civil war ensued between the
brother and sister, which lasted for twelve or four-
teen years.
Bertha, whose reputation was not
much fairer than that of her mother Matilda, was
succeeded by her son Conan IV.; he was young,
and of a feeble, vacillating temper, and after strug-
gling for a few years against the increasing power
of his uncle Hoel, and his own rebellious barons, he
called in the aid of that politic and ambitious mo-
narch, Henry II. of England. This fatal step de-
cided the fate of his crown and his posterity; from
the moment the English set foot in Bretagne, that
miserable country became a scene of horrors and
crimes-oppression and perfidy on the one hand,
unavailing struggles on the other. Ten years
civil discord ensued, during which the greatest
part of Bretagne was desolated, and nearly a third
of the population carried off by famine and pesti-
lence. In the end, Conan was secured in the pos-
of
CONSTANCE,
195
session of his throne by the assistance of the Eng-
lish king, who, equally subtle and ambitious, con-
trived in the course of this warfare to strip Conan
of most of his provinces by successive treaties;
alienate the Breton nobles from their lawful sove-
reign, and at length render the Duke himself the
mere vassal of his power.
In the midst of these scenes of turbulence and
bloodshed was Constance born, in the year 1164.
The English king consummated his perfidious
scheme of policy, by seizing on the person of the
infant princess, before she was three years old, as
a hostage for her father. Afterwards, by con-
tracting her in marriage to his third son, Geoffrey
Plantagenet, he ensured, as he thought, the pos-
session of the duchy of Bretagne to his own pos-
terity.
From this time, we hear no more of the weak,
unhappy Conan, who, retiring from a fruitless
contest, hid himself in some obscure retreat: even
the date of his death is unknown. Meanwhile
Henry openly claimed the duchy in behalf of
his son Geoffrey and the Lady Constance; and
196
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS,
their claims not being immediately acknowledged
he invaded Bretagne with a large army, laid waste
the country, bribed or forced some of the barons
into submission, murdered or imprisoned others,
and, by the most treacherous and barbarous po-
licy, contrived to keep possession of the country he
had thus seized. However, in order to satisfy the
Bretons, who were attached to the race of their
ancient sovereigns, and to give some colour to his
usurpation, he caused Geoffrey and Constance to
be solemnly crowned at Rennes, as Duke and
Duchess of Bretagne. This was in the year 1169,
when Constance was five, and Prince Geoffrey
about eight years old. His father, Henry, con-
tinued to rule, or rather to ravage and oppress, the
country in their name for about fourteen years,
during which period we do not hear of Constance.
She appears to have been kept in a species of con-
straint as a hostage rather than a sovereign; while
her husband Geoffrey, as he grew up to manhood,
was too much engaged in keeping the Bretons in
order, and disputing his rights with his father, to
think about the completion of his union with
CONSTANCE.
197
Constance, although his sole title to the dukedom
was properly and legally in right of his wife.
At length, in 1182, the nuptials were formally
celebrated, Constance being then in her nineteenth
year. At the same time, she was recognised as
Duchess of Bretagne de son chef, (that is, in her
own right,) by two acts of legislation, which are
still preserved among the records of Bretagne, and
bear her own seal and signature.
Those domestic feuds which embittered the
whole life of Henry II., and at length broke his
heart, are well known. Of all his sons, who were
in continual rebellion against him, Geoffrey was the
most undutiful, and the most formidable: he had
all the pride of the Plantagenets, all the warlike
accomplishments of his two elder brothers, Henry
and Richard; and was the only one who could
compete with his father in talent, eloquence, and
dissimulation. No sooner was he the husband of
Constance, and in possession of the throne of
Bretagne, than he openly opposed his father; in
other words, he maintained the honour and in-
terests, of his wife and her unhappy country
198
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
against the cruelties and oppression of the English
plunderers.* About three years after his mar-
riage, he was invited to Paris for the purpose of
concluding a league, offensive and defensive,
with the French king: in this journey he was
accompanied by the Duchess Constance, and
they were received and entertained with royal
magnificence. Geoffrey, who excelled in all chi-
valrous accomplishments, distinguished himself in
the tournaments which were celebrated on the oc-
casion; but unfortunately, after an encounter
with a French knight, celebrated for his prowess,
he was accidentally flung from his horse, and
trampled to death in the lists before he could be
extricated.
Constance, being now left a widow, returned to
Bretagne, where her barons rallied round her, and
acknowledged her as their sovereign. The Salique
law did not prevail in Bretagne, and it appears
that in those times the power of a female to
possess and transmit the rights of sovereignty had
V. Daru, Histoire de Bretagne.
CONSTANCE.
199
been recognised in several instances; but Con-
stance is the first woman who exercised those
rights in her own person. She had one daughter,
Elinor, born in the second year of her marriage,
and a few months after her husband's death she
gave birth to a son. The states of Bretagne were
filled with exultation; they required that the in-
fant prince should not bear the name of his father,
a name which Constance, in fond remembrance
of her husband, would have bestowed on him-
still less that of his grandfather Henry; but that
of Arthur, the redoubted hero of their country,
whose memory was worshipped by the populace.
Though the Arthur of romantic and fairy legends
-the Arthur of the round table, had been dead for
six centuries, they still looked for his second ap-
pearance among them, according to the prophecy
of Merlin; and now, with fond and short-sighted
enthusiasm, fixed their hopes on the young Arthur
as one destined to redeem the glory and inde-
pendence of their oppressed and miserable country.
But in the very midst of the rejoicings which
succeeded the birth of the prince, his grandfather,
200
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Henry II., demanded to have the possession and
guardianship of his person; and on the spirited
refusal of Constance to yield her son into his
power, he invaded Bretagne with a large army,
plundering, burning, devastating the country as
he advanced, he seized Rennes, the capital: and
having by the basest treachery obtained possession
of the persons both of the young duchess and her
children, he married Constance forcibly to one of
his own favourite adherents, Randal de Blonde-
ville, Earl of Chester, and conferred on him the
duchy of Bretagne, to be held as a fief of the
English crown.
The Earl of Chester, though a brave knight,
and one of the greatest barons of England, had
no pretensions to so high an alliance; nor did he
possess any qualities or personal accomplishments
which might have reconciled Constance to him as
a husband. He was a man of diminutive stature
and mean appearance, but of haughty and fero-
cious manners, and unbounded ambition.*
conference between this Earl of Chester and the
*V. Sir Peter Leycester's Antiquities of Chester.
In a
CONSTANCE.
201
Earl of Perche, in Lincoln cathedral, the latter
taunted Randal with his insignificant person, and
called him contemptuously, "Dwarf."
"Sayst
thou so!" replied Randal; "I vow to God and
our Lady, whose church this is, that ere long I
will seem to thee high as that steeple!" He
was as good as his word, when, on ascending the
throne of Brittany, the Earl of Perche became his
vassal.
We cannot know what measures were used to
force this degradation on the reluctant and high-
spirited Constance; it is only certain that she
never considered her marriage in the light of a
sacred obligation, and that she took the first op-
portunity of legally breaking from a chain
which could scarcely be considered as legally
binding. For about a year she was obliged to
allow this detested husband the title of Duke of
Bretagne, and he administered the government
without the slightest reference to her will, even in
form, till 1189, when Henry II. died, execrating
himself and his undutiful children. Whatever
great and good qualities this monarch may have
202
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
possessed, his conduct in Bretagne was uniformly
detestable. Even the unfilial behaviour of his
sons may be extenuated; for while he spent his
life, and sacrificed his peace, and violated every
principle of honour and humanity to compass their
political aggrandisement, he was guilty of atro-
cious injustice towards them, and set them a bad
example in his own person.
The tidings of Henry's death had no sooner
reached Bretagne than the barons of that country
rose with one accord against his government,
banished or massacred his officers, and, sanctioned
by the Duchess Constance, drove Randal de
Blondeville and his followers from Bretagne: he
retired to his earldom of Chester, there to brood
over his injuries, and meditate vengeance.
In the mean time, Richard I. ascended the
English throne. Soon afterwards he embarked on
his celebrated expedition to the Holy Land, having
previously declared Prince Arthur, the only son of
Constance, heir to all his dominions.*
His absence, and that of many of her own
* By the treaty of Messina, 1190.
CONSTANCE.
203
turbulent barons and encroaching neighbours,
left to Constance and her harassed dominions a
short interval of profound peace. The historians
of that period, occupied by the warlike exploits of
the French and English kings in Palestine, make
but little mention of the domestic events of Europe
during their absence; but it is no slight enco-
mium on the character of Constance, that Bre-
tagne flourished under her government, and began
to recover from the effects of twenty years of deso-
lating war. The seven years during which she
ruled as an independent sovereign, were not
marked by any events of importance; but in the
year 1196 she caused her son Arthur, then nine
years of age, to be acknowledged Duke of Bre-
tagne by the States, and associated him with her-
self in all the acts of government.
There was
more of maternal fondness than
policy in this measure, and it cost her dear.
Richard, that royal firebrand, had now returned
to England: by the intrigues and representations
of Earl Randal, his attention was turned to Bre-
tagne. He expressed extreme indignation that
204
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Constance should have proclaimed her son Duke
of Bretagne, and her partner in power, without
his consent, he being the feudal lord and natural
guardian of the young prince. After some ex-
cuses and representations on the part of Constance,
he affected to be pacified, and a friendly interview
was appointed at Pontorson, on the frontiers of
Normandy.
We can hardly reconcile the cruel and perfi-
dious scenes which follow with those romantic and
chivalrous associations which illustrate the me-
mory of Coeur-de-Lion-the friend of Blondel,
and the antagonist of Saladin. Constance, per-
fectly unsuspicious of the meditated treason, ac-
cepted the invitation of her brother-in-law, and
set out from Rennes with a small but magnificent
retinue to join him at Pontorson. On the road,
and within sight of the town, the Earl of Chester
was posted with a troop of Richard's soldiery, and
while the Duchess prepared to enter the gates,
where she expected to be received with honour
and welcome, he suddenly rushed from his ambus-
cade, fell upon her and her suite, put the latter to
CONSTANCE.
205
She
flight, and carried off Constance to the strong
Castle of St. Jaques de Beuvron, where he detained
her a prisoner for eighteen months. The chro-
nicle does not tell us how Randal treated his un-
fortunate wife during this long imprisonment.
was absolutely in his power; none of her own
people were suffered to approach her, and what-
ever might have been his behaviour towards her,
one thing alone is certain, that so far from soften-
ing her feelings towards him, it seems to have added
tenfold bitterness to her abhorrence and her scorn.
The barons of Bretagne sent the Bishop of
Rennes to complain of this violation of faith and jus-
tice, and to demand the restitution of the Duchess.
Richard meanly evaded and temporized: he en-
gaged to restore Constance to liberty on certain
conditions; but this was merely to gain time.
When the stipulated terms were complied with,
and the hostages delivered, the Bretons sent a he-
rald to the English king, to require him to fulfil
his part of the treaty, and restore their beloved
Constance. Richard replied with insolent defiance,
refused to deliver up either the hostages or Con-
VOL. IN
N
206
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
stance, and marched his army into the heart of the
country.
All that Bretagne had suffered previously was
as nothing compared to this terrible invasion; and
all that the humane and peaceful government of
Constance had effected during seven years was at
once annihilated. The English barons and their
savage and mercenary followers spread themselves
through the country, which they wasted with fire
and sword. The castles of those who ventured to
defend themselves were razed to the ground; the
towns and villages plundered and burnt, and the
wretched inhabitants fled to the caves and forests;
but not even there could they find an asylum: by
the orders, and in the presence of Richard, the
woods were set on fire, and hundreds either perished
in the flames, or were suffocated in the smoke.
Constance, meanwhile, could only weep in her
captivity over the miseries of her country, and
tremble with all a mother's fears for the safety of
her son. She had placed Arthur under the care
of William Desroches, the seneschal of her palace,
a man of mature age, of approved valour, and de-
CONSTANCE.
207
votedly attached to her family. This faithful ser-
vant threw himself, with his young charge, into
the fortress of Brest, where he for some time defied
the power of the English King.
But notwithstanding the brave resistance of the
nobles and people of Bretagne, they were obliged
to submit to the conditions imposed by Richard.
By a treaty concluded in 1198, of which the terms
are not exactly known, Constance was delivered
from her captivity, though not from her husband;
but in the following year, when the death of
Richard had restored her to some degree of inde-
pendence, the first use she made of it was to divorce
herself from Randal. She took this step with her
usual precipitancy, not waiting for the sanction of
the Pope, as was the custom in those days; and
soon afterwards she gave her hand to Guy, Count
de Thouars, a man of courage and integrity, who
for some time maintained the cause of his wife and
her son against the power of England. Arthur
was now fourteen, and the legitimate heir of all the
dominions of his uncle Richard. Constance placed
him under the guardianship of the king of France,
N 2
208
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
who knighted the young prince with his own hand,
and solemnly swore to defend his rights against his
usurping uncle John.
It is at this moment that the play of King John
opens; and history is followed as closely as the
dramatic form would allow, to the death of John.
The real fate of poor Arthur, after he had been
abandoned by the French, and had fallen into the
hands of his uncle, is now ascertained; but ac-
cording to the chronicle from which Shakspeare
drew his materials, he was killed in attempting to
escape from the castle of Falaise. Constance did
not live to witness this consummation of her cala-
mities; within a few months after Arthur was
taken prisoner, in 1201, she died suddenly, before
she had attained her thirty-ninth year; but the
cause of her death is not specified.
Her eldest daughter Elinor, the legitimate
heiress of England, Normandy, and Bretagne, died
in captivity; having been kept a prisoner in Bristol
Castle from the age of fifteen. She was at that
time so beautiful, that she was called proverbially,
"La belle Bretonne," and by the English the
CONSTANCE.
209
"Fair Maid of Brittany." She, like her brother
Arthur, was sacrificed to the ambition of her uncles.
Of the two daughters of Constance by Guy de
Thouars, the eldest, Alice, became Duchess of
Bretagne, and married the Count de Dreux, of
the royal blood of France. The sovereignty of
Bretagne was transmitted through her descendants
in an uninterrupted line, till, by the marriage of the
celebrated Anne de Bretagne with Charles VIII.
of France, her dominions were for ever united with
the French monarchy.

36
210
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
In considering the real history of Constance,
three things must strike us as chiefly remarkable.
First, that she is not accused of any vice, or any
act of injustice or violence; and this praise, though
poor and negative, should have its due weight
considering the scanty records that remain of her
troubled life, and the period at which she lived
-a period in which crimes of the darkest dye
were familiar occurrencès. Her father, Conan,
was considered as a gentle and amiable prince-
“gentle even to feebleness;" yet we are told that
on one occasion he acted over again the tragedy of
Ugolino and Ruggiero, when he shut up the Count
de Dol, with his two sons and his nephew, in a
dungeon, and deliberately starved them to death ;
an event recorded without any particular comment
by the old chroniclers of Bretagne. It also ap-
pears that, during those intervals when Constance
administered the government of her states with
some degree of independence, the country pros-
pered under her sway; and that she possessed at
all times the love of her people and the respect of
her nobles.
CONSTANCE.
211
Secondly, no imputation whatever has been cast
on the honour of Constance as a wife and as a
woman. The old historians, who have treated in
a very unceremonious style the levities of her
great-grandmother Matilda, her grandmother Ber-
tha, her godmother Constance, and her mother-in-
law Elinor, treat the name and memory of our
Lady Constance with uniform respect.
Her third marriage, with Guy de Thouars, has
been censured as impolitic, but has also been de-
fended: it can hardly, considering her age, and
the circumstances in which she was placed, be a
just subject of reproach. During her hated union
with Randal de Blondeville, and the years passed
in a species of widowhood, she conducted herself
with propriety at least I can find no reason to
judge otherwise.
Lastly, we are struck by the fearless, deter-
mined spirit, amounting at times to rashness,
which Constance displayed on several occa-
sions, when left to the free exercise of her own
power and will; yet we see how frequently, with
212
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
all this resolution and pride of temper, she became
a mere instrument in the hands of others, and a
victim to the superior craft or power of her ene-
mies. The inference is unavoidable; there must
have existed in the mind of Constance, with all her
noble and amiable qualities, a deficiency some-
where, a want of firmness, a want of judgment
or wariness, and a total want of self-control.
*
*
*
In the play of King John, the three principal
characters are the King, Falconbridge, and Lady
Constance. The first is drawn forcibly and accu-
rately from history: it reminds us of Titian's por-
trait of Cæsar Borgia, in which the hatefulness of
the subject is redeemed by the masterly skill of
the artist,--the truth, and power, and won-
derful beauty of the execution. Falconbridge
is the spirited creation of the poet.* Con-
* Malone says, that "in expanding the character of the bastard,
Shakspeare seems to have proceeded on the following slight bint
in an old play on the story of King John :
CONSTANCE.
213
stance is certainly an historical personage; but
the form which, when we meet it on the record
of history, appears like a pale indistinct shadow,
half melted into its obscure back-ground, starts be-
fore us into a strange relief and palpable breathing
the page of Shakspeare.
reality upon
Whenever we think of Constance, it is in her
maternal character. All the interest which she
excites in the drama turns upon her situation as
the mother of Arthur. Every circumstance in
which she is placed, every sentiment she utters,
has a reference to him; and she is represented
through the whole of the scenes in which she is
engaged, as alternately pleading for the rights, and
trembling for the existence of her son.
The same may be said of the Merope. In the
four tragedies of which her story forms the sub-
ject,* we see her but in one point of view, namely,
Next them a bastard of the king's deceased-
A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous."
It is easy to say this; yet who but Shakspeare could have ex-
panded the last line into a Falconbridge ?
* The Greek Merope, which was esteemed one of the finest of
214
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
<
as a mere inpersonation of the maternal feeling.
The poetry of the situation is every thing, the
character nothing. Interesting as she is, take
Merope out of the circumstances in which she
is placed, take away her son, for whom she trem-
bles from the first scene to the last, and Merope in
herself is nothing; she melts away into a name, to
which we can fix no other characteristic by which
to distinguish her, We recognise her no longer.
Her position is that of an agonized mother; and we
can no more fancy her under a different aspect,
than we can imagine the statue of Niobe in a dif-
ferent attitude.
But while we contemplate the character of Con-
stance, she assumes before us an individuality
perfectly distinct from the circumstances around
her. The action calls forth her maternal feelings,
and places them in the most prominent point of
view: but with Constance as with a real human
the tragedies of Euripides, is unhappily lost; those of Maffei,
Alfieri, and Voltaire, are well known. There is another Merope
in Italian, which I have not seen the English Merope is merely
a bad translation from Voltaire.
CONSTANCE.
215
being, the maternal affections are a powerful in-
stinct, modified by other faculties, sentiments, and
impulses, making up the individual character.
We think of her as a mother, because, as a mother
distracted for the loss of her son, she is imme-
diately presented before us, and calls forth our
sympathy and our tears; but we infer the rest of
her character from what we see, as certainly and as
completely as if we had known her whole course of
life.
That which strikes us as the principal attribute
of Constance is power-power of imagination, of
will, of passion, of affection, of pride: the moral
energy, that faculty which is principally exer-
cised in self-control, and gives consistency to the
rest, is deficient; or rather, to speak more cor-
rectly, the extraordinary developement of sen-
sibility and imagination, which lends to the
character its rich poetical colouring, leaves
the other qualities comparatively subordinate.
Hence it is that the whole complexion of the
character, notwithstanding its amazing grandeur,
is so exquisitely feminine. The weakness of
216
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
the woman, who by the very consciousness of that.
weakness is worked up to desperation and defi-
ance, the fluctuations of temper and the bursts
of sublime passion, the terrors, the impatience,
and the tears, are all most true to feminine nature.
The energy of Constance not being based upon
strength of character, rises and falls with the tide
of passion. Her haughty spirit swells against
resistance, and is excited into frenzy by sorrow
and disappointment; while neither from her tower-
ing pride, nor her strength of intellect, can she
borrow patience to submit, or fortitude to endure.
It is, therefore, with perfect truth of nature, that
Constance is first introduced as pleading for
peace.
Stay for an answer to your embassy,
Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood:
My Lord Chatillon may from England bring
That right in peace, which here we urge in war;
And then we shall repent each drop of blood,
That hot, rash haste so indirectly shed.
And that the same woman, when all her passions
CONSTANCE.
217
are roused by the sense of injury, should after-
wards exclaim,
War, war! No peace! peace is to me a war!
That she should be ambitious for her son, proud of
his high birth and royal rights, and violent in de-
fending them, is most natural; but I cannot agree
with those who think that in the mind of Con-
stance, ambition-that is, the love of dominion for
its own sake—is either a strong motive or a strong
feeling it could hardly be so where the natural
impulses and the ideal power predominate in so
high a degree. The vehemence with which she as-
serts the just and legal rights of her son is that of
a fond mother and a proud-spirited woman, stung
with the sense of injury, and herself a reigning
sovereign,-by birth and right, if not in fact: yet
when bereaved of her son, grief not only "fills
the room up of her absent child," but seems to ab-
sorb every other faculty and feeling-even pride
and anger. It is true that she exults over him as
one whom nature and fortune had destined to be
218
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
great, but in her distraction for his loss, she thinks.
of him only as her "Pretty Arthur."
O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!
No other feeling can be traced through the
whole of her frantic scene: it is grief only, a mo-
ther's heart-rending, soul-absorbing grief, and no-
thing else. Not even indignation, or the desire of
revenge, interfere with its soleness and intensity.
An ambitious woman would hardly have thus ad-
dressed the cold, wily Cardinal :
+
And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven :
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
CONSTANCE.
219
And so he'll die; and rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never,
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more!
The bewildered pathos and poetry of this ad-
dress could be natural in no woman, who did not
unite, like Constance, the most passionate sensibi-
lity with the most vivid imagination.
It is true that Queen Elinor calls her on one
occasion, “ambitious Constance;" but the epithet
is rather the natural expression of Elinor's own
fear and hatred than really applicable.* Elinor,
in whom age had subdued all passions but ambi-
tion, dreaded the mother of Arthur as her rival
in power, and for that reason only opposed the
claims of the son: but I conceive, that in a
woman yet in the prime of life, and endued with
the peculiar disposition of Constance, the mere
love of power would be too much modified by
fancy and feeling to be called a passion.
* "Queen Elinor saw that if he were king, how his mother
Constance would look to bear the most rule in the realm of
England, till her son should come to a lawful age to govern of
himself."-HOLINSHED.
220
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
In fact, it is not pride, nor temper, nor ambition,
nor even maternal affection, which in Constance
gives the prevailing tone to the whole character: it
is the predominance of imagination. I do not mean
in the conception of the dramatic portrait, but in
the temperament of the woman herself. In the
poetical, fanciful, excitable cast of her mind, in
the excess of the ideal power, tinging all her
affections, exalting all her sentiments and thoughts,
and animating the expression of both, Constance
can only be compared to Juliet.
In the first place, it is through the power of
imagination that, when under the influence of ex-
cited temper, Constance is not a mere incensed
woman; nor does she, in the style of Volumnia,
"lament in anger, Juno-like," but rather like a sybil
in a fury. Her sarcasms come down like thunder-
bolts. In her famous address to Austria-
O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame
That bloody spoil! thou slave! thou wretch! thou coward! &c.
it is as if she had concentrated the burning spirit
of scorn, and dashed it in his face every word
CONSTANCE.
221
seems to blister where it falls. In the scolding
scene between her and queen Elinor, the laconic
insolence of the latter is completely overborne by
the torrent of bitter contumely which bursts from
the lips of Constance, clothed in the most ener-
getic, and often in the most figurative expressions.
ELINOR.
Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
CONSTANCE.
Let me make answer; Thy usurping son.
ELINOR.
Out insolent thy bastard shall be king,
That thou may'st be a queen, and check the world!
CONSTANCE.
My bed was ever to thy son as true,
As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
Liker in feature to his father Geffrey,
Than thou and John in manners being as like
As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
His father never was so true begot ;
It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.
ELINOR.
There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.
222
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CONSTANCE.
There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee
ELINOR.
Come to thy grandam, child.
CONSTANCE.
Do child; go to its grandam, child :
Give grandam kingdom, and its grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig:
There's a good grandam.
ARTHUR.
Good my mother, peace!
I would that I were low laid in my grave;
I am not worth this coil that's made for me.
ELINOR.
His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
CONSTANCE.
Now shame upon you, whe'r she does or no!
His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shame,
Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee:
Ay, with these crystal beads heav'n shall be bribed
To do him justice, and revenge on you.
ELINOR.
Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth !
CONSTANCE.
223
CONSTANCE.
Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!
Call me not slanderer; thou and thine usurp
The dominations, royalties, and rights
Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son's son
Infortunate in nothing but in thee.
ELINOR.
*
Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
A will that bars the title of thy son.
CONSTANCE-
Ay, who doubts that? A will! a wicked will –
A woman's will-a canker'd grandam's will!
KING PHILIP.
Peace, lady pause, or be more moderate.
And in a very opposite mood, when struggling
with the consciousness of her own helpless situa-
tion, the same susceptible and excitable fancy still
predominates:
Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me;
For I am sick, and capable of fears;
Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;
A woman, naturally born to fears ;
VOL. II.
24
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
And though thou now confess thou didst but jest
With my vexed spirits, I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all this day.
What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?
Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?
What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
Fellow, begone! I cannot brook thy sight-
This news hath made thee a most ugly man!
It is the power of imagination which gives so
peculiar a tinge to the maternal tenderness of
Constance; she not only loves her son with the
fond instinct of a mother's affection, but she loves
him with her poetical imagination, exults in his
beauty and his royal birth, hangs over him with
idolatry, and sees his infant brow already encir-
cled with the diadem. Her proud spirit, her
ardent enthusiastic fancy, and her energetic self-
will, all combine with her maternal love to give
it that tone and character which belongs to her
only hence that most beautiful address to her
CONSTANCE.
225
son, which coming from the lips of Constance, is
as full of nature and truth as of pathos and poetry,
and which we could hardly sympathize with in any
other :-
ARTHUR.
I do beseech you, madam, be content.
CONSTANCE.
If thou, that bid'st me he content, wert grim,
Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb,
Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
Patched with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
I would not care-I then would be content;
For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou
Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.
But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great :
Of Nature's gifts thou mayest with lilies boast,
Aud with the half-blown rose: but Fortune, O!
She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;
She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John;
And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France
To tread down fair respect of sovereignty.
It is this exceeding vivacity of imagination which
in the end turns sorrow to frenzy. Constance is
0 2
226
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
not only a bereaved and doating mother, but a
generous woman, betrayed by her own rash con-
fidence; in whose mind the sense of injury ming-
ling with the sense of grief, and her impetuous
temper conflicting with her pride, combine to over-
set her reason; yet she is not mad: and how
admirably, how forcibly she herself draws the
distinction between the frantic violence of uncon-
trolled feeling and actual madness !—
Thou art not holy to belie me so;
I am not mad this hair I tear is mine;
My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad; I would to Heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Not only has Constance words at will, and fast
as the passionate feelings rise in her mind they
are poured forth with vivid, overpowering elo-
quence; but, like Juliet, she may be said to speak
in pictures. For instance-
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum?
Like a proud river peering o'er its bounds.
CONSTANCE.
227
And throughout the whole dialogue there is the
same overflow of eloquence, the same splendour of
diction, the same luxuriance of imagery; yet with
an added grandeur, arising from habits of com-
mand, from the age, the rank, and the matronly
character of Constance. Thus Juliet pours forth
her love like a muse in a rapture: Constance raves
in her sorrow like a Pythoness possessed with the
spirit of pain. The love of Juliet is deep and
infinite as the boundless sea: and the grief of
Constance is so great, that nothing but the round
world itself is able to sustain it.
I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
For grief is proud and makes his owner stout.
To me, and to the state of my great grief
Let kings assemble, for my grief's so great,
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up. Here I and Sorrow sit;
Here is my throne,-bid kings come bow to it!
An image more majestic, more wonderfully sub-
lime, was never presented to the fancy; yet almost
equal as a flight of poetry is her apostrophe to the
heavens ;
WorM
228
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Arm, arm, ye heavens, against these perjured kings,
A widow calls !-be husband to me, heavens !
And again-
O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth,
Then with a passion would I shake the world!
Not only do her thoughts start into images, but her
feelings become persons: grief haunts her as a
living presence:
Grief fills the room up of my absent child;
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
And death is welcomed as a bridegroom; she
"the
sees the visionary monster as Juliet saw
bloody Tybalt festering in his shroud,” and heaps
one ghastly image upon another with all the wild
luxuriance of a distempered fancy :
O amiable, lovely death!
Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
CONSTANCE.
229
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy detestable bones;
And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows;
And ring these fingers with thy household worms ;
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust ;
And be a carrion monster like thyself:
Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,
And buss thee as thy wife! Misery's love,
O come to me !
Constance, who is a
jestic in her very frenzy.
majestic being, is ma-
Majesty is also the cha-
racteristic of Hermione: but what a difference
between her silent, lofty, uncomplaining despair,
and the eloquent grief of Constance, whose wild
lamentations, which come bursting forth clothed
in the grandest, the most poetical imagery, not
only melt, but absolutely electrify us!
On the whole, it may be said that pride and
maternal affection form the basis of the character
of Constance, as it is exhibited to us; but that
these passions, in an equal degree common to many
human beings, assume their peculiar and individual
tinge from an extraordinary developement of intel-
Jor M
230
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
lect and fancy. It is the energy of passion which
lends the character its concentrated power, as it is
the prevalence of imagination throughout which
dilates it into magnificence.
Some of the most splendid poetry to be met
with in Shakspeare, may be found in the parts
of Juliet and Constance; the most splendid,
perhaps, excepting only the parts of Lear and
Othello; and for the same reason,-that Lear and
Othello as men, and Juliet and Constance as
women, are distinguished by the predominance of
the same faculties,-passion and imagination.
The sole deviation from history which may be
considered as essentially interfering with the truth
of the situation, is the entire omission of the
character of Guy de Thouars, so that Constance
is incorrectly represented as in a state of widow-
hood, at a period when, in point of fact, she was
married. It may be observed, that her marriage
took place just at the period of the opening of
the drama; that Guy de Thouars played no
conspicuous part in the affairs of Bretagne till
after the death of Constance, and that the mere pre-
CONSTANCE.
231
sence of this personage, altogether superfluous in
the action, would have completely destroyed the
dramatic interest of the situation;--and what a
situation ! One more magnificent was never
placed before the mind's eye than that of Con-
stance, when, deserted and betrayed, she stands
alone in her despair, amidst her false friends and
her ruthless enemies!* The image of the mother-
eagle, wounded and bleeding to death, yet
stretched over her young in an attitude of de-
fiance, while all the baser birds of prey are
clamouring around her eirie, gives but a faint
idea of the moral sublimity of this scene.
sidered merely as a poetical or dramatic pic-
ture, the grouping is wonderfully fine; on one
side, the vulture ambition of that mean-souled
tyrant, John; on the other, the selfish, calcu-
lating policy of Philip: between them, balancing
their passions in his hand, the cold, subtle, heart-
less Legate; the fiery, reckless, Falconbridge; the
princely Louis; the still unconquered spirit of
Con-
King John, Act iiì. scene 1.
37
232
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
that wrangling queen, old Elinor; the bridal
loveliness and modesty of Blanche; the boyish
grace and innocence of young Arthur; and Con-
stance in the midst of them, in all the state of her
great grief, a grand impersonation of pride and
passion, helpless at once and desperate,-form an
assemblage of figures, each perfect in its kind,
and, taken all together, not surpassed for the
variety, force, and splendour of the dramatic and
picturesque effect.

QUEEN ELINOR.
233
Elinor of Guienne, and Blanche of Castile,
who form part of the group around Constance,
are sketches merely, but they are strictly historical
portraits, and full of truth and spirit.
At the period when Shakspeare has brought
these three women on the scene together, Elinor
of Guienne, (the daughter of the last Duke of
Guienne and Aquitaine, and like Constance, the
heiress of a sovereign duchy,) was near the close
of her long, various, and unquiet life-she was
nearly seventy: and, as in early youth, her violent
passions had overborne both principle and policy,
so in her old age we see the same character,
only modified by time: her strong intellect and
love of power, unbridled by conscience or princi-
ple, surviving when other passions were extin-
guished, and rendered more dangerous by a
degree of subtlety and self-command to which
her youth had been a stranger. Her personal
and avowed hatred for Constance, together with
its motives, are mentioned by the old historians.
Holinshed expressly says, that Queen Elinor was
mightily set against her grandson Arthur, rather
234
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
moved thereto by envy conceived against his mo-
ther, than by any fault of the young prince, for
that she knew and dreaded the high spirit of the
Lady Constance.
Shakspeare has rendered this with equal spirit
and fidelity.
QUEEN ELINOR.
What now, my son! have I not ever said,
How that ambitious Constance would not cease,
Till she had kindled France and all the world
Upon the right and party of her son?
This might have been prevented and made whole
With very easy arguments of love;
Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.
KING JOHN.
Our strong possession and our right for us!
QUEEN ELINOR.
Your strong possession much more than your right;
Or else it must go wrong with you and me.
So much my conscience whispers in your ear-
Which none but Heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.
Queen Elinor preserved to the end of her life
QUEEN ELINOR.
235
her influence over her children, and appears to
have merited their respect. While entrusted with
the government, during the absence of Richard
I., she ruled with a steady hand, and made herself
exceedingly popular; and as long as she lived to
direct the counsels of her son John, his affairs
prospered. For that intemperate jealousy which
converted her into a domestic firebrand, there was
at least much cause, though little excuse. Elinor
had hated and wronged the husband of her
youth, and she had afterwards to endure the
negligence and innumerable infidelities of the
husband whom she passionately loved :+" and
so the whirlygig of time brought in his revenges.'
Elinor died in 1203, a few months after Constance,
and before the murder of Arthur--a crime which,
*
* Louis VII. of France, whom she was accustomed to call, in
contempt, the monk. Elinor's adventures in Syria, whither she
accompanied Louis on the second Crusade, would form a
romance.
+ Henry II. of England. It is scarcely necessary to observe
that the story of Fair Rosamond, as far as Elinor is concerned,
is a mere invention of some ballad-maker of later times.
236
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
had she lived, would probably never have been
consummated; for the nature of Elinor, though
violent, had no tincture of the baseness and
cruelty of her son.
Blanche of Castile was the daughter of Al-
phonso IX. of Castile, and the grand-daughter of
Elinor. At the time that she is introduced into
the drama, she was about fifteen, and her marriage
with Louis VIII., then Dauphin, took place in
the abrupt manner here represented. It is not
often that political marriages have the same
happy result. We are told by the historians of
that time, that from the moment Louis and
Blanche met, they were inspired by a mutual
passion, and that during a union of more than
twenty-six years they were never known to
differ, nor even spent more than a single day
asunder.*
In her exceeding beauty and blameless reputa-
tion; her love for her husband, and strong domestic
affections; her pride of birth and rank; her femi-
*V. Mezerai.
BLANCHE.
237
nine gentleness of deportment; her firmness of
temper; her religious bigotry; her love of abso-
lute power and her upright and conscientious ad-
ministration of it, Blanche greatly resembled
Maria Theresa of Austria. She was, however, of
a more cold and calculating nature; and in pro-
portion as she was less amiable as a woman, did
she rule more happily for herself and others.
There cannot be a greater contrast than between
the acute understanding, the steady temper, and
the cool intriguing policy of Blanche, by which
she succeeded in disuniting and defeating the
powers arrayed against her and her infant son,
and the rash confiding temper and susceptible
imagination of Constance, which rendered herself
and her son easy victims to the fraud or ambition
of others. Blanche, during forty years, held in
her hands the destinies of the greater part of
Europe, and is one of the most celebrated names
recorded in history--but in what does she survive
to us except in a name? Nor history, nor fame,
though "trumpet-tongued," could do for her what
Shakspeare and poetry have done for Con-
4
238
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
stance. The earthly reign of Blanche is over, her
sceptre broken, and her power departed. When
will the reign of Constance cease? when will her
power depart? Not while this world is a world,
and there exists in it human souls to kindle at the
touch of genius, and human hearts to throb with
human sympathies!
*
*
There is no female character of any interest in
the play of Richard II. The Queen (Isabelle of
France) enacts the same passive part in the drama
that she does in history.
The same remark applies to Henry IV. In
this admirable play there is no female character of
any importance; but Lady Percy, the wife of
Hotspur, is a very lively and beautiful sketch:
she is sprightly, feminine, and fond; but without
any thing energetic or profound, in mind or in
feeling. Her gaiety and spirit in the first scenes,
are the result of youth and happiness, and nothing
can be more natural than the utter dejection and
brokenness of heart which follow her husband's
death: she is no heroine for war or tragedy; she
LADY PERCY.
239
has no thought of revenging her loss; and even her
grief has something soft and quiet in its pathos.
Her speech to her father-in-law, Northumberland,
in which she entreats him "not to go to the
wars," and at the same time pronounces the most
beautiful eulogium on her heroic husband, is a per-
fect piece of feminine eloquence, both in the feel-
ing and in the expression.
Almost every one knows by heart Lady Percy's
celebrated address to her husband, beginning,
O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
and that of Portia to Brutus, in Julius Cæsar,
You've ungently, Brutus,
Stol'n from my bed.
The situation is exactly similar, the topics of re-
monstrance are nearly the same; the sentiments and
the style as opposite as are the characters of the
two women. Lady Percy is evidently accustomed
tɔ win more from her fiery lord by caresses than
by reason: he loves her in his rough way, "as
Harry Percy's wife," but she has no real influence
over him he has no confidence in her.
240
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
LADY PERCY.
In faith,
I'll know your business, Harry, that I will;
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir
About his title, and hath sent for you
To line his enterprise, but if you go-
HOTSPUR.
So far afoot, I shall be weary, love!
The whole scene is admirable, but unnecessary
here, because it illustrates no point of character
in her. Lady Percy has no character, properly
so called; whereas, that of Portia is very dis-
tinctly and faithfully drawn from the outline fur-
nished by Plutarch. Lady Percy's fond upbraid-
ings, and her half playful, half pouting entreaties,
scarcely gain her husband's attention.
with true matronly dignity and tenderness, pleads
her right to share her husband's thoughts, and
proves it too.
I grant I am a woman, but withal,
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife :
I grant I am a woman, but withal,
A woman well reputed-Cato's daughter.
Portia,
PORTIA.
241
Think you, I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd and so husbanded?
BRUTUS.
You are my true and honourable wife :
As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops.
That visit my sad heart!
Portia, as Shakspeare has truly felt and repre-
sented the character, is but a softened reflection of
that of her husband Brutus: in him we see an
excess of natural sensibility, an almost womanish
tenderness of heart, repressed by the tenets of his
austere philosophy: a stoic by profession, and in
reality the reverse-acting deeds against his na-
ture by the strong force of principle and will. In
Portia there is the same profound and passionate
feeling, and all her sex's softness and timidity,
held in check by that self-discipline, that stately
dignity, which she thought became a woman " SO
fathered and so husbanded." The fact of her
inflicting on herself a voluntary wound to try her
own fortitude, is perhaps the strongest proof of
this disposition. Plutarch relates, that on the
VOL. II.
P
242
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
day on which Cæsar was assassinated, Portia ap-
peared overcome with terror, and even swooned
away, but did not in her emotion utter a word
which could affect the conspirators. Shakspeare
has rendered this circumstance literally.
PORTIA.
I pr'ythee, boy, run to the senate house,
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone.
Why dost thou stay?
LUCIUS.
To know my errand, madam.
PORTIA.
I would have had thee there and here again,
Ere I can tell thee what thou should'st do there.
O constancy! be strong upon my side:
Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue!
I bave a man's mind, but a woman's might.
Ah me! how weak a thing
The heart of woman is! I grow faint, &c.
There is another beautiful incident related by
Plutarch, which could not well be dramatised.
When Brutus and Portia parted for the last time
in the island of Nisida, she restrained all expres-
sion of grief that she might not shake his forti-
PORTIA.
243
tude; but afterwards, in passing through a chamber
in which there hung a picture of Hector and An-
dromache, she stopped, gazed upon it for a time
with a settled sorrow, and at length burst into a
passion of tears.*
If Portia had been a Christian, and lived in
later times, she might have been another Lady
Russel; but she made a poor stoic. No factitious
or external control was sufficient to restrain
such an exuberance of sensibility and fancy: and
those who praise the philosophy of Portia and
the heroism of her death, certainly mistook the
character altogether. It is evident, from the
manner of her death, that it was not deliberate
self-destruction, "after the high Roman fashion,"
but took place in a paroxysm of madness, caused
by over-wrought and suppressed feeling, grief,
*When at Naples, I have often stood upon the rock at the ex-
treme point of Posilippo, and looked down upon the little Island
of Nisida, and thought of this scene till I forgot the Lazaretto
which now deforms it: deforms it, however, to the fancy only, for
the building itself, as it rises from amid the vines, the cypresses,
and fig-trees which embosom it, looks beautiful at a distance.
P 2
244
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
terror and suspense. Shakspeare has thus repre-
sented it:
BRUTUS.
O Cassius! I am sick of many griefs!
CASSIUS.
Of your philosophy you make no use,
If you give place to accidental evils.
BRUTUS.
No man bears sorrow better: Portia's dead.
CASSIUS.
Ha-Portia ?
BRUTUS.
She is dead.
CASSIUS.
How 'scap'd I killing when I cross'd you so?
O insupportable and touching loss--
Upon what sickness ?
BRUTUS.
Impatient of my absence,
And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony
Had made themselves so strong-(for with her death
These tidings came)-with this she fell distract,
And, her attendants absent, swallowed fire.
So much for woman's philosophy!

MARGARET OF ANJOU.
Malone has written an essay, to prove from
external and internal evidence, that the three parts
of King Henry VI. were not originally written by
Shakspeare, but altered by him from two old
plays,* with considerable improvements and addi-
tions of his own. Burke, Porson, Dr. Warburton,
and Dr. Farmer, pronounced this piece of cri-
ticism convincing and unanswerable; but Dr.
Johnson and Steevens would not be convinced, and
*The contention of the two Houses of York and Lancaster,"
in two parts, supposed by Malone to have been written about
1590.
38
246
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
moreover, have contrived to answer the unanswer-
able. "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"
The only arbiter in such a case is one's own in-
dividual taste and judgment. To me it appears
that the three parts of Henry VI. have less of
poetry and passion, and more of unnecessary ver-
bosity and inflated language, than the rest of
Shakspeare's works; that the continual exhibition
of treachery, bloodshed, and violence, is revolting,
and the want of unity of action, and of a pervading
interest, oppressive and fatiguing; but also that
there are splendid passages in the Second and Third
Parts, such as Shakspeare alone could have writ-
ten and this is not denied by the most sceptical.*
* I abstain from making any remarks on the character of Joan
of Arc, as delineated in the First part of Henry VI.; first, be-
cause I do not in my conscience attribute it to Shakspeare, and
secondly, because in representing her according to the vulgar
English traditions, as half sorceress, half enthusiast, and in the
end, corrupted by pleasure and ambition, the truth of history,
and the truth of nature, justice, and common sense, are equally
violated. Schiller has treated the character nobly; but in making
Joan the slave of passion, and the victim of love, instead of the
victim of patriotism, has committed, I think, a serious error in
MARGARET OF ANJOU.
247
Among the arguments against the authenticity
of these plays, the character of Margaret of
Anjou has not been adduced, and yet to those
who have studied Shakspeare in his own spirit,
it will appear the most conclusive of all. When
we compare her with his other female characters,
we are struck at once by the want of family
likeness; Shakspeare was not always equal, but
he had not two manners, as they say of painters.
I discern his hand in particular parts, but I
cannot recognise his spirit in the conception of
judgment and feeling; and I cannot sympathise with Madame de
Staël's defence of him on this particular point. There was no
occasion for this deviation from the truth of things, and from the
dignity and spotless purity of the character. This young enthu-
siast, with her religious reveries, her simplicity, her heroism, her
melancholy, her sensibility, her fortitude, her perfectly feminine
bearing in all her exploits, (for though she so often led the van of
battle unshrinking, while death was all around her, she never struck
a blow, nor stained her consecrated sword with blood,-another
point in which Schiller has wronged her,) this heroine and martyr,
over whose last moments we shed burning tears of pity and in-
dignation, remains yet to be treated as a dramatic character, and I
know but one person capable of doing this.
248
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
the whole he may have laid on some of the
:
colours, but the original design has a certain
hardness and heaviness, very unlike his usual
style. Margaret of Anjou, as exhibited in these
tragedies, is a dramatic portrait of considerable
truth, and vigour, and consistency-but she is not
one of Shakspeare's women. He who knew so well
in what true greatness of spirit consisted--who
could excite our respect and sympathy even for
a Lady Macbeth, would never have given us a
heroine without a touch of heroism; he would not
have portrayed a high-hearted woman, struggling
unsubdued against the strangest vicissitudes of
fortune, meeting reverses and disasters, such as
would have broken the most masculine spirit,
with unshaken constancy, yet left her without a
single personal quality which would excite our in-
terest in her bravely-endured misfortunes; and
this too in the very face of history. He would
not have given us, in lieu of the magnanimous
queen, the subtle and accomplished French wo-
man, a mere "Amazonian trull," with every
coarser feature of depravity and ferocity; he would
MARGARET OF ANJOU.
249
have redeemed her from unmingled detestation;
he would have breathed into her some of his own
sweet spirit-he would have given the woman a
soul.
The old chronicler Hall informs us, that Queen
Margaret "excelled all other as well in beauty and
favour, as in wit and policy, and was in stomach
and courage more like to a man than to a woman.”
He adds, that after the espousals of Henry and
Margaret, "the king's friends fell from him; the
lords of the realm fell in division among them-
selves; the Commons rebelled against their na-
tural prince; fields were foughten; many thou-
sands slain; and, finally, the king was deposed, and
his son slain, and his queen sent home again with
as much misery and sorrow, as she was received
with pomp and triumph."
This passage seems to have furnished the
groundwork of the character as it is developed in
these plays with no great depth or skill. Mar-
garet is portrayed with all the exterior graces of
her sex; as bold and artful, with spirit to dare, re-
solution to act, and fortitude to endure; but treat
250
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
cherous, haughty, dissembling, vindictive, and
fierce. The bloody struggle for power in which
she was engaged, and the companionship of the
ruthless iron men around her, seem to have left her
nothing of womanhood but the heart of a mother-
that last stronghold of our feminine nature ! So
far the character is consistently drawn: it has some-
thing of the power, but none of the flowing ease
of Shakspeare's manner. There are fine mate-
rials not well applied; there is poetry in some of
the scenes and speeches; the situations are often
exceedingly poetical; but in the character of
Margaret herself, there is not an atom of poetry.
In her artificial dignity, her plausible wit, and
her endless volubility, she would remind us of
some of the most admired heroines of French tra-
gedy, but for that unlucky box on the ear which
she gives the Duchess of Gloster,-a violation of
tragic decorum, which of course destroys all
parallel.
Having said thus much, I shall point out some
of the finest and most characteristic scenes in which
Margaret appears. The speech in which she ex-
QUEEN MARGARET.
251
presses her scorn of her meek husband, and her
impatience of the power exercised by those fierce
overbearing barons, York, Salisbury, Warwick,
Buckingham, is very fine, and conveys as faithful
an idea of those feudal times as of the woman who
speaks. The burst of female spite with which
she concludes, is admirable-
Not all these lords do vex me half so much
As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.
She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.
Strangers in court do take her for the queen:
She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
And in her heart she scorns our poverty.
Shall I not live to be avenged on her?
Contemptuous base-born callet as she is!
She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day,
The very train of her worst wearing gown
Was better worth than all my father's lands,
Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter,
Her intriguing spirit, the facility with which
she enters into the murderous confederacy against
the good Duke Humphrey, the artful plausibility
with which she endeavours to turn suspicion from
252
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
herself-confounding her gentle consort by mere
dint of words—are exceedingly characteristic, but
not the less revolting.
The
Her criminal love for Suffolk, (which is a dra-
matic incident, not an historic fact) gives rise to
the beautiful parting scene in the third act; a
scene which it is impossible to read without a thrill
of emotion, hurried away by that power and
pathos which forces us to sympathise with the
eloquence of grief, yet excites not a momentary
interest either for Margaret or her lover.
ungoverned fury of Margaret in the first instance,
the manner in which she calls on Suffolk to curse
his enemies, and then shrinks back overcome by
the violence of the spirit she had herself evoked,
and terrified by the vehemence of his imprecations ;
the transition in her mind from the extremity
of rage to tears and melting fondness, have been
pronounced, and justly, to be in Shakspeare's own
manner.
Go, speak not to me-even now begone.
O go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd
Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,
QUEEN MARAGRET.
253
Loather a hundred times to part than die :
Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee !
which is followed by that beautiful and intense
burst of passion from Suffolk--
'Tis not the hand I care for, wert thou hence ;
A wilderness is populous enough,
So Suffolk had thy heavenly company :
For where thou art, there is the world itself,
With every several pleasure in the world;
And where thou art not, desolation!
In the third part of Henry the Sixth, Margaret,
engaged in the terrible struggle for her hus-
band's throne, appears to rather more advantage.
The indignation against Henry, who had pitifully
yielded his son's birthright for the privilege of
reigning unmolested during his own life, is worthy
of her, and gives rise to a beautiful speech. We
are here inclined to sympathise with her; but soon
after follows the murder of the Duke of York;
and the base revengeful spirit and atrocious cruelty
with which she insults over him, unarmed and a
prisoner, the bitterness of her mockery, and the
254
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
unwomanly malignity with which she presents him
with the napkin stained with the blood of his
youngest son, and "bids the father wipe his eyes
withal," turn all our sympathy into aversion and
horror. York replies in the celebrated speech,
beginning-
She-wolf of France, and worse than wolves of France,
Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth-
and taunts her with the poverty of her father, the
most irritating topic he could have chosen.
Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult ?
It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen,
Unless the adage must be verified,
That beggars, mounted, ride their horse to death.
'Tis beauty, that doth oft make women proud;
But, God he knows, thy share thereof is small.
'Tis virtue that doth make them most admired;
The contrary doth make thee wondered at.
'Tis government that makes them seem divine,
The want thereof makes thee abominable.
*
*
O tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide!
How could'st thou drain the life-blood of the child
QUEEN MARGARET.
255
To bid the father wipe his face withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?
Women are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible,
Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless!
By such a woman as Margaret is here depicted
such a speech could be answered only in one way
--with her dagger's point-and thus she an-
swers it.
It is some comfort to reflect that this trait of
ferocity is not historical: the body of the Duke
of York was found, after the battle, among the
heaps of slain, and his head struck off: but even
this was not done by the command of Margaret.
In another passage, the truth and consistency of
the character of Margaret are sacrificed to the
march of the dramatic action, with a very ill
effect. When her fortunes were at the very lowest
ebb, and she had sought refuge in the court of the
French king, Warwick, her most formidable
enemy, upon some disgust he had taken against
Edward the Fourth, offered to espouse her cause;
and proposed a match between the prince her son
and his daughter Anne of Warwick-the " gentle
256
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Lady Anne," who figures in Richard the Third.
In the play, Margaret embraces the offer without
a moment's hesitation:* we are disgusted by her
versatile policy, and a meanness of spirit in no
way allied to the magnanimous forgiveness of her
terrible adversary. The Margaret of history
sternly resisted this degrading expedient. She
could not, she said, pardon from her heart the
man who had been the primary cause of all her
misfortunes. She mistrusted Warwick, despised
him for the motives of his revolt from Edward,
and considered that to match her son into the fa-
mily of her enemy from mere policy, was a species
of degradation. It took Louis the Eleventh, with
all his art and eloquence, fifteen days to wring a
reluctant consent, accompanied with tears, from
this high-hearted woman.
The speech of Margaret to her council of ge-
* See Henry VI. Part III. Act iii. sc. 3-
QUEEN MARGARET.
Warwick, these words have turned my hate to love:
And I forgive and quite forget old faults,
And joy, that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.
QUEEN MARGARET.
257
nerals before the battle of Tewkesbury, (Act v.
scene 5,) is as remarkable a specimen of false rhe-
toric, as her address to the soldiers, on the eve of
the fight, is of true and passionate eloquence.
She witnesses the final defeat of her army, the
massacre of her adherents, and the murder of her
son; and though the savage Richard would will-
ingly have put an end to her misery, and exclaims
very pertinently——
Why should she live to fill the world with words?
she is dragged forth unharmed, a woful spectacle
of extremest wretchedness, to which death would
have been an undeserved relief. If we compare
the clamorous and loud exclaims of Margaret after
the slaughter of her son, to the ravings of Con-
stance, we shall perceive where Shakspeare's ge-
nius did not preside, and where it did.
in bold defiance of history, but with fine dra-
matic effect, is introduced again in the gorgeous
and polluted court of Edward the Fourth. There
she stalks around the seat of her former great-
ness, like a terrible phantom of departed ma-
Margaret,
258
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
jesty, uncrowned, unsceptred, desolate, powerless
or like a vampire thirsting for blood-or like a
grim prophetess of evil, imprecating that ruin on
the head of her enemies, which she lived to see
realized. The scene following the murder of the
princes in the Tower, in which Queen Elizabeth
and the Duchess of York sit down on the ground
bewailing their desolation, and Margaret suddenly
appears from behind them, like the very personi-
fication of woe, and seats herself beside them revel-
ling in their despair, is, in the general conception
and effect, grand and appalling.
THE DUCHESS.
O, Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes;
God witness with me, I have wept for thine!
QUEEN MARGARET.
Bear with me, I am hungry for revenge,
And now I cloy me with beholding it.
Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;
Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward:
Young York he is but boot, because both they
Match not the high perfection of my loss.
Thy Clarence he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward;
And the beholders of this tragic play,
QUEEN MARGARET.
259
The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.
Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,
Only reserv'd their factor, to buy souls
And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,
Ensues his piteous and unpitied end;
Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar for him; saints pray
To have him suddenly conveyed from hence.
Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
That I may live to say, The dog is dead.*
She should have stopped here; but the effect
thus powerfully excited is marred and weakened by
so much superfluous rhetoric, that we are tempted
to exclaim with the old Duchess of York-
Why should calamity be full of words ?
* Horace Walpole observes, that "it is evident from the con-
duct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor retained all their
Lancasterian prejudices even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
In his play of Richard the Third, he seems to deduce the woes of
the house of York from the curses which Queen Margaret had
vented against them; and he could not give that weight to her
curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them."
39

KR
QUEEN KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
To have a just idea of the accuracy and beauty
of this historical portrait, we ought to bring im-
mediately before us those circumstances of Kathe-
rine's life and times, and those parts of her cha-
racter, which belong to a period previous to the
opening of the play. We shall then be better
able to appreciate the skill with which Shak-
speare has applied the materials before him.
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
261
Katherine of Arragon, the fourth and youngest
daughter of Ferdinand king of Arragon, and Isabella
of Castile, was born at Alcala, whither her mother
had retired to winter after one of the most terrible
campaigns of the Moorish war-that of 1485.
Katherine had derived from nature no dazzling
qualities of mind, and no striking advantages of per-
son. She inherited a tincture of Queen Isabella's
haughtiness and obstinacy of temper, but neither
her beauty nor her splendid talents. Her education
under the direction of that extraordinary mother,
had implanted in her mind the most austere princi-
ples of virtue, the highest ideas of female decorum,
the most narrow and bigoted attachment to the
forms of religion, and that excessive pride of birth
and rank, which distinguished so particularly her
family and her nation. In other respects, her
understanding was strong, and her judgment clear.
The natural turn of her mind was simple, serious,
and domestic, and all the impulses of her heart
kindly and benevolent. Such was Katherine;
such, at least, she appears on a reference to the
chronicles of her times, and particularly from her
VOL. II.
262
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
own letters, and the papers written or dictated by
herself which relate to her divorce; all of which
are distinguished by the same artless simplicity of
style, the same quiet good sense, the same resolute,
yet gentle spirit and fervent piety.
When five years old, Katherine was solemnly
affianced to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest
son of Henry VII.; and in the year 1501, she
landed in England, after narrowly escaping ship-
wreck on the southern coast, from which every
adverse wind conspired to drive her.
She was
received in London with great honour, and imme-
diately on her arrival united to the young Prince.
He was then fifteen, and Katherine in her seven-
teenth year.
Arthur, as it is well known, survived his mar-
riage only five months; and the reluctance of
Henry VII. to refund the splendid dowry of the
Infanta, and forego the advantages of an alliance
with the most powerful prince of Europe, sug-
gested the idea of uniting Katherine to his second
son Henry; after some hesitation, a dispensation
was procured from the Pope, and she was be-
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON,
263
trothed to Henry in her eighteenth year. The
prince, who was then only twelve years old, resisted
as far as he was able to do so, and appears to have
really felt a degree of horror at the idea of mar-
rying his brother's widow. Nor was the mind of
King Henry at rest; as his health declined, his
conscience reproached him with the equivocal
nature of the union into which he had forced his
son; and the vile motives of avarice and expe-
diency which had governed him on this occasion.
A short time previous to his death, he dissolved
the engagement, and even caused Henry to sign a
paper in which he solemnly renounced all idea of
a future union with the Infanta. It is observable,
that Henry signed this paper with reluctance, and
that Katherine, instead of being sent back to her
own country, still remained in England.
It appears that Henry, who was now about
seventeen, had become interested for Katherine,
who was gentle and amiable. The difference of
years was rather a circumstance in her favour;
for Henry was just at that age, when a youth is
most likely to be captivated by a woman older
than himself: and no sooner was he required to
Q 2
264
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
renounce her, than the interest she had gradually
gained in his affections, became, by opposition, a
strong passion. Immediately after his father's
death, he declared his resolution to take for his
wife the Lady Katherine of Spain, and none other;
and when the matter was discussed in council, it
was urged that, besides the many advantages of
the match in a political point of view, she had
given so much proof of virtue, and sweetness of
condition, as they knew not where to parallel
her." About six weeks after his accession, June
3, 1509, the marriage was celebrated with truly
royal splendour, Henry being then eighteen, and
Katherine in her twenty-fourth year.
It has been said with truth, that if Henry had
died while Katherine was yet his wife, and Wol-
sey his minister, he would have left behind him
the character of a magnificent, popular, and ac-
complished prince, instead of that of the most
hateful ruffian and tyrant who ever swayed these
realms. Notwithstanding his occasional infideli-
ties, and his impatience at her midnight vigils, her
long prayers, and her religious austerities, Kathe-
rine and Henry lived in harmony together. He
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
265
was fond of openly displaying his respect and love
for her; and she exercised a strong and salutary
influence over his turbulent and despotic spirit.
When Henry set out on his expedition to France,
in 1513, he left Katherine regent of the king-
dom during his absence, with full powers to carry
on the war against the Scots; and the Earl of
Surry at the head of the army, as her lieutenant-
general. It is curious to find Katherine-the
pacific, domestic, and unpretending Katherine-
describing herself as having "her heart set to
war," and "horrible busy" with making "stand-
ards, banners, badges, scarfs, and the like.” * Nor
was this mere silken preparation--mere dalliance
with the pomp and circumstance of war; for
within a few weeks afterwards, her general de-
feated the Scots in the famous battle of Flodden-
field, where James IV. and most of his nobility
were slain.+
* See her letters in Ellis's Collection.
+ Under similar circumstances, one of Katherine's predecessors,
Philippa of Hainault, had gained in her husband's absence the
battle of Neville Cross, in which David Bruce was taken prisoner.
266
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Katherine's letter to Henry, announcing this
event, so strikingly displays the piety and tender-
ness, the quiet simplicity, and real magnanimity of
her character, that there cannot be a more apt and
beautiful illustration of the exquisite truth and
keeping of Shakspeare's portrait.
SIR,
My Lord Howard hath sent me a letter, open
to your Grace, within one of mine, by the which
ye shall see at length the great victory that our
Lord hath sent your subjects in your absence:
and for this cause, it is no need herein to trouble
your Grace with long writing; but to my thinking
this battle hath been to your Grace, and all
your realm, the greatest honour that could be, and
more than ye should win all the crown of France,
thanked be God for it! And I am sure your
Grace forgetteth not to do this, which shall be
cause to send you many more such great victories,
as I trust he shall do. My husband, for haste,
with Rougecross, I could not send your Grace the
piece of the king of Scots' coat, which John
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
267
Glyn now bringeth. In this your grace shall see
how I can keep my promise, sending you for your
banners a king's coat. I thought to send himself
unto you, but our Englishmen's hearts would not
suffer it. It should have been better for him to
have been in peace than have this reward, but all
that God sendeth is for the best. My Lord of
Surry, my Henry, would fain know your pleasure
in the burying of the king of Scots' body, for he
hath written to me so.
With the next messenger,
your Grace's pleasure may be herein known,
And with this I make an end, praying God to
send you home shortly; for without this, no joy
here can be accomplished-and for the same I
pray.
And now go to our Lady at Walsyngham,
that I promised so long ago to see.
At Woburn, the 16th day of September (1513.)
I send your Grace herein a bill, found in a Scot-
tishman's purse, of such things as the French
king sent to the said king of Scots, to make war
against you, beseeching you to send Mathew
268
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
hither as soon as this
as this messenger cometh with
tidings of your Grace.
Your humble wife and true servant,
KATHERINE.*
The legality of the king's marriage with Ka-
therine remained undisputed till 1527. In the
course of that year, Anna Bullen first appeared at
court, and was appointed maid of honour to the
queen; and then, and not till then, did Henry's
union with his brother's wife "
creep too near his
conscience." In the following year, he sent special
messengers to Rome, with secret instructions :
they were required to discover (among other "hard
questions") whether, if the queen entered a reli-
gious life, the king might have the Pope's dispen-
sation to marry again; and whether if the king
(for the better inducing the queen thereto) would
enter himself into a religious life, the Pope would
dispense with the king's vow, and leave her there?
Poor Katherine! we are not surprised to read
* Ellis's Collection. We must keep in mind that Katherine
was a foreigner, and till after she was seventeen, never spoke or
wrote a word of English.
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
269
that when she understood what was intended
against her, "she laboured with all those passions
which jealousy of the king's affection, sense of her
own honour, and the legitimation of her daughter,
could produce, laying in conclusion the whole
fault on the Cardinal." It is elsewhere said, that
Wolsey bore the queen ill-will, in consequence
of her reflecting with some severity on his haughty
temper, and very unclerical life.
The proceedings were pending for nearly six
years, and one of the causes of this long delay,
in spite of Henry's impatient and despotic character,
is worth noting. The old Chronicle tells us, that
though the men generally, and more particularly
the priests and the nobles, sided with Henry in
this matter, yet all the ladies of England were
against it. They justly felt that the honour and
welfare of no woman was secure if, after twenty
years of union, she might be thus deprived of all
her rights as a wife; the clamour became so loud
and general, that the king was obliged to yield to
it for a time, to stop the proceedings, and to banish
Anna Bullen from the court.
Cardinal Campeggio, called by Shakspeare Cam-
270
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
peius, arrived in England in October, 1528.
He
at first endeavoured to persuade Katherine to avoid
the disgrace and danger of contesting her mar-
riage, by entering a religious house; but she re-
jected his advice with strong expressions of dis-
dain. "I am," said she, "the king's true wife
and to him married; and if all doctors were dead,
or law or learning far out of men's minds at the
time of our marriage, yet I cannot think that the
court of Rome, and the whole church of Eng-
land, would have consented to a thing unlawful
and detestable as you call it. Still I say I am his
wife, and for him will I pray.”
About two years afterwards, Wolsey died: (in
November, 1530:)—the king and queen met for
the last time on the 14th of July, 1531. Until
that period, some outward show of respect and
kindness had been maintained between them; but
the king then ordered her to repair to a private re-
sidence, and no longer to consider herself as his
lawful wife. "To which the virtuous and mourn-
ing queen replied no more than this, that to whatever
place she removed, nothing could remove her from
being the king's wife. And so they bid each other
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
271
farewell; and from this time the king never saw
her more. "* He married Anna Bullen in 153%,
while the decision relating to his former marriage
was still pending. The sentence of divorce to
which Katherine never would submit, was finally
pronounced by Cranmer in 1533; and the unhappy
queen, whose health had been gradually declining,
through these troubles of heart, died January
29, 1536, in the fiftieth year of her age.
Thus the action of the play of Henry VIII.
includes events which occurred from the impeach-
ment of the Duke of Buckingham in 1521, to the
death of Katherine in 1536. In making the death
of Katherine precede the birth of Queen Elizabeth,
Shakspeare has committed an anachronism, not
only pardonable, but necessary. We must remem-
ber that the construction of the play required a
happy termination; and that the birth of Elizabeth,
before or after the death of Katherine, involved
the question of her legitimacy. By this slight de-
viation from the real course of events, Shakspeare
has not perverted historic facts, but merely sacri-
ficed them to a higher principle; and in doing so has
*Hall's Chronicle.
40
272
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
not only preserved dramatic propriety, and height-
ened the poetical interest, but has given a strong
proof both of his delicacy and his judgment.
If we also call to mind that in this play Kathe-
rine is properly the heroine, and exhibited from
first to last as the very "queen of earthly queens;"
that the whole interest is thrown round her and
Wolsey-the one the injured rival, the other the
enemy of Anna Bullen-and that it was written in
the reign and for the court of Elizabeth, we shall
yet farther appreciate the moral greatness of the
poet's mind, which disdained to sacrifice justice and
the truth of nature to any time-serving expediency.

KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
273
Schlegel observes somewhere, that in the literal
accuracy and apparent artlessness with which
Shakspeare has adapted some of the events and
characters of history to his dramatic purposes, he
has shown equally his genius and his wisdom.
This, like most of Schlegel's remarks, is profound
and true; and in this respect Katherine of Arragon
may rank as the triumph of Shakspeare's genius
and his wisdom. There is nothing in the whole
range of poetical fiction in any respect resembling
or approaching her; there is nothing comparable,
I suppose, but Katherine's own portrait by Hol-
bein, which, equally true to the life, is yet as far
inferior as Katherine's person was inferior to
her mind. Not only has Shakspeare given us
here a delineation as faithful as it is beautiful,
of a peculiar modification of character; but
he has bequeathed us a precious moral lesson
in this proof that virtue alone,- (by which I
mean here the union of truth or conscience with
benevolent affection-the one the highest law,
the other the purest impulse of the soul,)—that
such virtue is a sufficient source of the deepest
274
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
pathos and power without any mixture of foreign
or external ornament: for who but Shakspeare
would have brought before us a queen and a
heroine of tragedy, stripped her of all pomp of
place and circumstance, dispensed with all the
usual sources of poetical interest, as youth, beauty,
grace, fancy, commanding intellect; and without
any appeal to our imagination, without any viola-
tion of historical truth, or any sacrifices of the other
dramatic personages for the sake of effect, could
depend on the moral principle alone, to touch the
very springs of feeling in our bosoms, and melt
and elevate our hearts through the purest and
holiest impulses of our nature!
The character, when analysed, is, in the first
place, distinguished by truth. I do not only mean
its truth to nature, or its relative truth arising
from its historic fidelity and dramatic consistency,
but truth as a quality of the soul; this is the
basis of the character. We often hear it remarked
that those who are themselves perfectly true and
artless, are in this world the more easily and fre-
quently deceived-a common-place fallacy: for
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON,
275
we shall ever find that truth is as undeceived as it
is undeceiving, and that those who are true to
themselves and others, may now and then be mis-
taken, or in particular instances duped by the in-
tervention of some other affection or quality of the
mind; but they are generally free from illusion,
and they are seldom imposed upon in the long run
by the shows of things and superfices of characters.
It is by this integrity of heart and clearness of un-
derstanding, this light of truth within her own soul,
and not through any acuteness of intellect, that
Katherine detects and exposes the real character
of Wolsey, though unable either to unravel his de-
signs, or defeat them.
My lord, my lord,
I am a simple woman, much too weak
T'oppose your cunning.
She rather intuitively feels than knows his dupli-
city, and in the dignity of her simplicity she
towers above his arrogance as much as she scorns
his crooked policy. With this essential truth are
276
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
combined many other qualities, natural or ac-
quired, all made out with the same uncompro-
mising breath of execution and fidelity of pencil,
united with the utmost delicacy of feeling. For
instance, the apparent contradiction arising from
the contrast between Katherine's natural disposi-
tion and the situation in which she is placed; her
lofty Castilian pride and her extreme simplicity of
language and deportment; the inflexible resolu-
tion with which she asserts her right, and her soft
resignation to unkindness and wrong; her warmth
of temper breaking through the meekness of a
spirit subdued by a deep sense of religion; and
a degree of austerity tinging her real benevolence;
-all these qualities, opposed yet harmonising, has
Shakspeare placed before us in a few admirable
scenes.
Katherine is at first introduced as pleading be-
fore the king in behalf of the commonalty, who
had been driven by the extortions of Wolsey into
some illegal excesses. In this scene, which is true
to history, we have her upright reasoning mind,
her steadiness of purpose, her piety and benevo-
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
277
lence, placed in a strong light. The unshrinking
dignity with which she opposes without descend-
ing to brave the Cardinal, the stern rebuke ad-
dressed to the Duke of Buckingham's surveyor,
are finely characteristic; and by thus exhibiting
Katherine as invested with all her conjugal rights
and influence, and royal state, the subsequent
situations are rendered more impressive. She is
placed in the first instance on such a height in our
esteem and reverence, that in the midst of her
abandonment and degradation, and the profound
pity she afterwards inspires, the first effect remains
unimpaired, and she never falls beneath it.
In the beginning of the second act, we are pre-
pared for the proceedings of the divorce, and our
respect for Katherine heightened by the general
sympathy for "the good queen," as she is expres-
sively entitled, and by the following beautiful eulo-
gium on her character uttered by the Duke of
Norfolk :
He (Wolsey) counsels a divorce-the loss of her
That like a jewel hath hung twenty years
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre.
278
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
Of her that loves him with that excellence
That angels love good men with. Even of her,
That when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
Will bless the King!
The scene in which Anna Bullen is introduced
as expressing her grief and sympathy for her royal
mistress is exquisitely graceful.
Here's the pang that pinches :
His highness having liv'd so long with her, and she
So good a lady, that no tongue could ever
Pronounce dishonour of her,-by my life
She never knew harm doing. O now, after
So many courses of the sun enthron'd,
Still growing in a majesty and pomp,--the which
To leave is a thousand-fold more bitter, than
"Tis sweet at first to acquire. After this process,
To give her the avaunt! it is a pity
Would move a monster.
OLD LADY.
Hearts of most hard temper
Melt and lament for her.
ANNE.
O, God's will! much better
She ne'er had known pomp: though it be temporal,
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
279
Yet if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce
It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance, panging
As soul and body's severing.
OLD LADY.
She's a stranger now again.
Alas, poor lady!
ANNE.
So much the more
Must pity drop upon her. Verily,
I swear 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with bumble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
How completely, in the few passages appro-
priated to Anna Bullen, is her character portrayed!
with what a delicate and yet luxuriant grace is
she sketched off, with her gaiety and her beauty,
her levity, her extreme mobility, her sweetness of
disposition, her tenderness of heart, and, in short,
all her femalities! How nobly has Shakspeare
done justice to the two women, and heightened our
interest in both, by placing the praises of Kathe-
rine in the mouth of Anna Bullen! and how cha-
VOL. II.
R
280
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
racteristic of the latter, that she should first ex-
press unbounded pity for her mistress, insisting
chiefly on her fall from her regal state and
worldly pomp, thus betraying her own disposi-
tion---
For she that had all the fair parts of woman,
Had, too, a woman's heart, which ever yet
Affected eminence, wealth, and sovereignty.
That she should call the loss of temporal pomp,
once enjoyed, "a sufferance equal to soul and
body's severing;" that she should immediately pro-
test that she would not herself be a queen-" No,
good troth! not for all the riches under heaven !”—
and not long afterwards ascend without reluctance
that throne and bed from which her royal mistress
had been so cruelly divorced !—-how natural! The
portrait is not less true and masterly than that of
Katherine; but the character is overborne by the
superior moral firmness and intrinsic excellence of
the latter. That we may be more fully sensible of
this contrast, the beautiful scene just alluded to
immediately precedes Katherine's trial at Black-
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
281
friars, and the description of Anna Bullen's tri-
umphant beauty at her coronation, is placed im-
mediately before the dying scene of Katherine ;
yet with equal good taste and good feeling Shak-
speare has constantly avoided all personal collision
between the two characters; nor does Anna Bullen
ever appear as queen except in the pageant of
the procession, which in reading the play is scarcely
noticed.
To return to Katherine. The whole of the trial
scene is given nearly verbatim from the old chro-
nicles and records; but the dryness and harshness
of the law proceedings is tempered at once and
elevated by the genius and the wisdom of the poet.
It appears, on referring to the historical au-
thorities, that when the affair was first agitated in
council, Katherine replied to the long expositions
and theological sophistries of her opponents with
resolute simplicity and composure:-"I am a
woman, and lack wit and learning to answer these
opinions; but I am sure that neither the king's
father nor my father would have condescended
R 2
282
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
to our marriage, if it had been judged unlawful.
As to your saying that I should put the cause to
eight persons of this realm, for quietness of the
king's conscience, I pray Heaven to send his
Grace a quiet conscience: and this shall be your
answer, that I say I am his lawful wife, and to him
lawfully married, though not worthy of it; and
in this point I will abide, till the court of Rome,
which was privy to the beginning, have made
a final ending of it."*
Katherine's appearance in the court at Black-
friars, attended by a noble troop of ladies and
prelates of her counsel, and her refusal to answer
the citation, are historical. Her speech to the
king-
Sir, I beseech you do me right and justice,
And to bestow your pity on me, &c. &c.
* Hall's Chronicle, p. 781.
"The
+ The court at Blackfriars sat on the 28th of May, 1529.
queen being called, accompanied by the four bishops and others.
of her counsel, and a great company of ladies and gentlewomen
following her; and after her obeisance, sadly and with great
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
283
is taken word for word, (as nearly as the change
from prose to blank verse would allow,) from the
old record in Hall. It would have been easy for
Shakspeare to have exalted his own skill, by
throwing a colouring of poetry and eloquence into
this speech, without altering the sense or senti-
ment; but by adhering to the calm argumentative
simplicity of manner and diction natural to the
woman, he has preserved the truth of character
without lessening the pathos of the situation. Her
challenging Wolsey as a "foe to truth," and her
very expressions, "I utterly refuse-yea, from my
soul abhor you for my judge," are taken from fact.
The sudden burst of indignant passion towards the
close of this scene,
In one who ever yet
Had stood to charity, and displayed the effects
Of disposition gentle, and of wisdom
O'ertopping woman's power;
gravity, she appealed from them to the court of Rome."- See Hall
and Cavendish's Life of Wolsey.
The account which Hume gives of this scene is very elegant;
but after the affecting naïveté of the old chroniclers, it is very cold
and unsatisfactory.
284
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
is taken from nature, though it occurred on a dif-
ferent occasion.*
Lastly, the circumstance of her being called
back after she had appealed from the court, and
angrily refusing to return, is from the life. Mas-
ter Griffith, on whose arm she leaned, observed
that she was called: “On, on," quoth she; “it
maketh no matter, for it is no indifferent court for
me, therefore I will not tarry.
Go on your
ways."+
King Henry's own assertion, "I dare to say, my
lords, that for her womanhood, wisdom, nobility,
and gentleness, never prince had such another
wife, and therefore if I would willingly change her
I were not wise," is thus beautifully paraphrased
by Shakspeare:
That man i' the world who shall report he has
A better wife, let him in nought be trusted,
* "The queen answered the Duke of Suffolk very highly and
obstinately, with many high words; and suddenly, in a fury, she
departed from him into her privy chamber."-Vide Hall's Chronicle.
† Vide Cavendish's Life of Wolsey.
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
285
For speaking false in that!
Thou art alone,
If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
(Thy meekness, saint-like, wife-like government,
Obeying in commanding; and thy parts,
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out,)
The queen of earthly queens. She's nobly born,
And like her true nobility she has
Carried herself towards me.
The annotators on Shakspeare have all ob-
served the close resemblance between this fine
passage-
Sir,
I am about to weep, but thinking that
We are a queen, or long have dreamed so, certain
The daughter of a king-my drops of tears
I'll turn to sparks of fire.
and the speech of Hermione—
I am not prone to weeping as our sex
Commonly are, the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here, which burns
Worse than tears drown.
286
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
But these verbal gentlemen do not seem to have
felt that the resemblance is merely on the surface,
and that the two passages could not possibly
change places, without a manifest violation of the
truth of character. In Hermione it is pride of
sex merely in Katherine it is pride of place and
pride of birth. Hermione, though so superbly
majestic, is perfectly independent of her regal state :
Katherine, though so meekly pious, will neither
forget hers, nor allow it to be forgotten by others
for a moment. Hermione, when deprived of that
CC crown and comfort of her life," her husband's
love, regards all things else with despair and indif-
ference except her feminine honour: Katherine,
divorced and abandoned, still with true Spanish
pride stands upon respect, and will not bate one
atom of her accustomed state.
Though unqueened, yet like a queen,
And daughter to a king, inter me!
The passage-
A fellow of the royal bed, that owns
A moiety of the throne-a great king's daughter,
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
287
here standing
To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore
Who please to come to hear,*
would apply nearly to both queens, yet a single
sentiment—nay, a single sentence-could not pos-
sibly be transferred from one character to the
other. The magnanimity, the noble simplicity,
the purity of heart, the resignation in each-how
perfectly equal in degree! how diametrically op-
posite in kind !+
置
​Once more to return to Katherine.
We are told by Cavendish, that when Wolsey
* Winter's Tale, act iii. scene 2.
+ I bave constantly abstained from considering any of these
characters with a reference to the theatre; yet I cannot help re-
marking, that if Mrs. Siddons, who excelled equally in Hermione
and Katherine, and threw such majesty of demeanour, such
power, such picturesque effect, into both, could likewise feel and
convey the infinite contrast between the ideal grace, the classical
repose and imaginative charm thrown round Hermione, and the
matter-of-fact, artless, prosaic nature of Katherine; between the
poetical grandeur of the former, and the moral dignity of the
latter,—then she certainly exceeded all that I could have imagined
possible, even to her wonderful powers.
288
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
and Campeggio visited the queen by the king's
order she was found at work among her women,
and came forth to meet the cardinals with a skein
of white thread hanging about her neck; that
when Wolsey addressed her in Latin, she inter-
rupted him, saying, "Nay, good my lord, speak
to me in English, I beseech you; although I un-
derstand Latin." "Forsooth then," quoth my
lord, "madam, if it please your grace, we come
both to know your mind, how ye be disposed to
do in this matter between the king and you, and
also to declare secretly our opinions and our
counsel unto you, which we have intended of very
zeal and obedience that we bear to your grace."
66
My lords, I thank you then," quoth she, "of
your good wills; but to make answer to your
request I cannot so suddenly, for I was set among
my maidens at work, thinking full little of any
such matter; wherein there needeth a longer deli-
beration, and a better head than mine to make
answer to so noble wise men as ye be. I had need
of good counsel in this case, which toucheth me so
near; and for any counsel or friendship that I
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
289
*
can find in England, they are nothing to my pur-
pose or profit. Think you, I pray you, my lords,
will any Englishmen counsel, or be friendly unto
me, against the king's pleasure, they being his
subjects? Nay, forsooth, my lords! and for my
counsel, in whom I do intend to put my trust,
they be not here; they be in Spain, in my native
country. Alas! my lords, I am a poor woman
lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to
answer such approved wise men as ye be both, in
so weighty a matter. I pray you to extend
good and indifferent minds in your authority unto
me, for I am a simple woman, destitute and barren
of friendship and counsel, here in a foreign region;
and as for your counsel, I will not refuse, but be
glad to hear."
*This affecting passage is thus rendered by Shakspeare:
Nay, forsooth, my friends,
They that must weigh out my afflictions-
They that my trust must grow to, live not here-
They are, as all my other comforts, far bence,
In mine own country, lords.
your
Henry VIII, act iiì. se, 1.
290
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
It appears, also, that when the Archbishop of
York and Bishop Tunstall waited on her at her
house near Huntingdon, with the sentence of the
divorce, signed by Henry, and confirmed by act
of parliament, she refused to admit its validity,
she being Henry's wife, and not his subject. The
bishop describes her conduct in his letter: "She
being therewith in great choler and agony, and
always interrupting our words, declared that she
would never leave the name of queen, but would
persist in accounting herself the king's wife till
death." When the official letter containing
minutes of their conference, was shown to her,
she seized a pen, and dashed it angrily across
every sentence in which she was styled Princess-
dowager.
If now we turn to that inimitable scene between
Katherine and the two cardinals, (act iii. scene 1,)
we shall observe how finely Shakspeare has con-
densed these incidents, and unfolded to us all the
workings of Katherine's proud yet feminine nature.
She is discovered at work with some of her women
-she calls for music "to soothe her soul, grown
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
291
sad with troubles"-then follows the little song, of
which the sentiment is so well adapted to the oc-
casion, while its quaint yet classic elegance breathes
the very spirit of those times, when Surry loved
and sung.
SONG.
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music, plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care, and grief of heart,
Fall asleep, on hearing, die.
They are interrupted by the arrival of the two car-
dinals. Katherine's perception of their subtlety-
her suspicion of their purpose-her sense of her own
weakness and inability to contend with them, and
292
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
her mild subdued dignity, are beautifully repre-
sented; as also the guarded self-command with
which she eludes giving a definitive answer; but
when they counsel her to that which she, who
knows Henry, feels must end in her ruin, then the
native temper is roused at once, or, to use Tun-
stall's expression, "the choler and the agony,"
burst forth in words.
Is this your christian counsel? Out upon ye!
Heaven is above all yet; there sits a Judge
That no king can corrupt.
WOLSEY.
Your rage mistakes us.
QUEEN KATHERINE.
The more shame for ye! Holy men I thought ye,
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;
But cardinal sins, and hollow hearts, I fear ye :
Mend them, for shame, my lords: is this your comfort,
The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady?
With the same force of language, and im-
petuous yet dignified feeling, she asserts her own
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON,
293
conjugal truth and merit, and insists upon her
rights.
Have I liv'd thus long, (let me speak myself,
Since virtue finds no friends,) a wife, a true one,
A woman, (I dare say, without vain glory,)
Never yet branded with suspicion ?
Have I with all my full affections
Still met the king-lov'd him next heaven, obey'd him!
Been out of fondness superstitious to him-
Almost forgot my prayers to content him,
And am I thus rewarded? 'tis not well, lords, &c.
My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,
To give up willingly that noble title
Your master wed me to nothing but death
Shall e'er divorce my dignities.
And this burst of unwonted passion is immedi-
ately followed by the natural reaction; it subsides
into tears, dejection, and a mournful self-compas-
sion.
Would I had never trod this English ground,
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it.
41
294
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
What will become of me now, wretched lady?
I am the most unhappy woman living.
Alas! poor wenches! where are now your fortunes ?
[To her women.
Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me!
Almost no grave allowed me ! Like the lily that once
Was mistress of the field, and flourished,
I'll hang my head and perish.

KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
295
Dr. Johnson observes on this scene, that all
Katherine's distresses could not save her from a
quibble on the word cardinal.
Holy men I thought ye,
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues ;
But cardinal sins, and hollow hearts, I fear ye!
When we read this passage in connexion with the
situation and sentiment, the scornful play upon
the words is not only appropriate and natural, it
seems inevitable. Katherine, assuredly, is neither
an imaginative nor a witty personage; but we all
acknowledge the truism, that anger inspires wit,
and whenever there is passion there is poetry. In
the instance just alluded to, the sarcasm springs
naturally out from the bitter indignation of the mo-
ment. In her grand rebuke of Wolsey, in the
trial scene, how just and beautiful is the gradual
elevation af her language, till it rises into that
magnificent image-
You have by fortune and his highness' favours,
Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted,
Where powers are your retainers, &c.
296
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
In the depth of her affliction, the pathos as na-
turally clothes itself in poetry.
Like the lily,
That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd,
I'll hang my head and perish.
But these, I believe, are the only instances of
imagery throughout; for, in general, her language
is plain and energetic. It has the strength and
simplicity of her character, with very little meta-
phor and less wit.
In approaching the last scene of Katherine's
life, I feel as if about to tread within a sanctuary,
where nothing befits us but silence and tears;
veneration so strives with compassion, tenderness
with awe.*
* Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that this scene" is above any
other part of Shakspeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene
of any other poet, tender and pathetic; without gods, or furies, or
poisons, or precipices; without the help of romantic circum-
stances; without improbable sallies of poetical lamentation, and
without any throes of tumultuous misery."
I have already observed, that in judging of Shakspeare's
characters as of persons we meet in real life, we are swayed un-
consciously by our own habits and feelings, and our preference
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
297
We must suppose a long interval to have elapsed
since Katherine's interview with the two cardinals.
Wolsey was disgraced, and poor Anna Bullen at
the height of her short-lived prosperity. It was
Wolsey's fate to be detested by both queens. In
the pursuance of his own selfish and ambitious
designs, he had treated both with perfidy; and
one was the remote, the other the immediate, cause
of his ruin.*
governed, more or less, by our individual prejudices or sympa-
thies. Thus, Dr. Johnson, who has not a word to bestow on
Imogen, and who has treated poor Juliet as if he had been in
truth the very beadle to an amorous sigh," does full justice to
the character of Katherine, because the logical turn of his mind,
his vigorous intellect, and his austere integrity, enabled him to
appreciate its peculiar beauties and, accordingly, we find that he
gives it, not only unqualified, but almost exclusive admiration :
he goes so far as to assert, that in this play the genius of
Shakspeare comes in and goes out with Katherine.
:
It will be remembered, that in early youth Anna Bullen was
betrothed to Lord Henry Percy, who was passionately in love
with her. Wolsey, to serve the king's purposes, broke off this
match, and forced Percy into an unwilling marriage with Lady
Mary Talbot. The stout Earl of Northumberland," who arrested
Wolsey at York, was this very Percy he was chosen for this
VOL. II.
:
S
298
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
The ruffian king, of whom one hates to think,
was bent on forcing Katherine to concede her
rights, and illegitimize her daughter in favour of
the offspring of Anna Bullen: she steadily refused,
was declared contumacious, and the sentence of
divorce pronounced in 1533. Such of her at-
tendants as persisted in paying her the honours
due to a queen were driven from her household;
those who consented to serve her as princess-
dowager she refused to admit into her presence;
so that she remained unattended, except by a few
women, and her gentleman usher, Griffith. During
the last eighteen months of her life, she resided at
Kimbolton. Her nephew, Charles V., had offered
her an asylum and princely treatment; but Kathe-
rine, broken in heart and declining in health, was
unwilling to drag the spectacle of her misery and
degradation into a strange country: she pined in
her loneliness, deprived of her daughter, receiving
no consolation from the pope, and no redress from
mission by the interference of Anna Bullen:-a piece of vengeance
truly feminine in its mixture of sentiment and spitefulness; and
every way characteristic of the individual woman.
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
299
the emperor. Wounded pride, wronged affection,
and a cankering jealousy of the woman preferred
to her, (which though it never broke out into un-
seemly words, is enumerated as one of the causes
of her death,) at length wore out a feeble frame.
"Thus," says the chronicle, "Queen Katherine
fell into her last sickness; and though the king
sent to comfort her through Chapuys, the empe-
ror's ambassador, she grew worse and worse; and
finding death now coming, she caused a maid at-
tending on her to write to the king to this
effect:
66
My most dear Lord, King, and Husband;
"The hour of my death now approaching, I
cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you,
advise you of your soul's health, which you ought
to prefer before all considerations of the world or
flesh whatsoever; for which yet you have cast me
into many calamities, and yourself into many
troubles: but I forgive you all, and pray God to
do so likewise; for the rest, I commend unto you
Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good
S 2
300
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I
must intreat you also to respect my maids, and
give them in marriage, which is not much, they
being but three, and all my other servants a year's
pay besides their due, lest otherwise they be un-
provided for: lastly, I make this vow, that mine
eyes desire you above all things.-Farewell !"*
She also wrote another letter to the ambas-
sador, desiring that he would remind the king
of her dying request, and urge him to do her
this last right.
What the historian relates, Shakspeare realizes.
On the wonderful beauty of Katherine's closing
scene we need not dwell; for that requires no
illustration. In transferring the sentiments of her
letter to her lips, Shakspeare has given them added
grace, and pathos, and tenderness, without in-
juring their truth and simplicity: the feelings,
* The king is said to have wept on reading this letter, and her
body being interred at Peterbro', in the monastery, for honour of
her memory it was preserved at the dissolution, and erected into a
bishop's see. Herbert's Life of Henry VIII.
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
301
and almost the manner of expression, are Kathe-
rine's own. The severe justice with which she
draws the character of Wolsey is extremely
characteristic! the benign candour with which
she listens to the praise of him "whom living
she most hated," is not less so. How beautiful
her religious enthusiasm -the slumber which
visits her pillow, as she listens to that sad music
she called her knell; her awakening from the
vision of celestial joy to find herself still on
earth-
Spirits of peace! where are ye? are ye gone,
And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?
how unspeakably beautiful!
And to consum-
mate all in one final touch of truth and nature,
we see that consciousness of her own worth and
integrity which had sustained her through all
her trials of heart, and that pride of station
for which she had contended through long years,
--which had become more dear by opposition,
and by the perseverance with which she had
asserted it, remaining the last strong feeling
302
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
upon her mind, to the very last hour of ex-
istence.
When I am dead, good wench,
Let me be used with honour: strew me over
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
I was a chaste wife to my grave: embalm me,
Then lay me forth: although unqueen'd, yet like
A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.
I can no more—
In the epilogue to this play,* it is recom-
mended-
To the merciful construction of good women,
For such a one we show'd them :
а
alluding to the character of Queen Katherine.
Shakspeare has, in fact, placed before us
queen and a heroine, who in the first place, and
above all, is a good woman; and I repeat, that
in doing so, and in trusting for all his effect
* Written, (as the commentators suppose,) not by Shak-
speare, but by Ben Jonson.
KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.
303
to truth and virtue, he has given a sublime
proof of his genius and his wisdom;-for which
among many other obligations, we women remain
his debtors.

42

ག ཡ པ་
LADY MACBETH.
I doubt whether the epithet historical can pro-
perly apply to the character of Lady Macbeth ;
for though the subject of the play be taken from
history, we never think of her with any reference
to historical associations, as we do with regard to
Constance, Volumnia, Katherine of Arragon, and
others. I remember reading some critique, in
LADY MACBETH.
305
sounded like a vulgarism.
which Lady Macbeth was styled the "Scottish
queen ;" and methought the title, as applied to her,
It appears that the
real wife of Macbeth,--she who lives only in the
obscure record of an obscure age, bore the very
unmusical appellation of Graoch, and was insti-
gated to the murder of Duncan, not only by am-
bition, but by motives of vengeance. She was
the granddaughter of Kenneth the Fourth, killed in
1003, fighting against Malcolm the Second, the
father of Duncan. Macbeth reigned over Scot-
land from the year 1039 to 1056:-but what is all
this to the purpose ? The sternly magnificent
creation of the poet stands before us independent
of all these aids of fancy: she is Lady Macbeth;
as such she lives, she reigns, and is immortal in
the world to imagination. What earthly title
could add to her grandeur? what human record
or attestation strengthen our impression of her
reality?
Characters in history move before us like a pro-
cession of figures in basso relievo: we see one side
only, that which the artist chose to exhibit to us;
306
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
the rest is sunk in the block: the same characters
in Shakspeare are like the statues cut out of the
block, fashioned, finished, tangible in every part:
we may consider them under every aspect, we may
examine them on every side. As the classical times,
when the garb did not make the man, were pecu-
liarly favourable to the developement and delinea-
tion of the human form, and have handed down to
us the purest models of strength and grace-so
the times in which Shakspeare lived were favour-
able to the vigorous delineation of natural cha-
racter. Society was not then one vast conventional
masquerade of manners. In his revelations, the
accidental circumstances are to the individual cha-
racter, what the drapery of the antique statue is
to the statue itself; it is evident, that, though
adapted to each other, and studied relatively, they
were also studied separately. We trace through the
folds the fine and true proportions of the figure
beneath they seem and are independent of each
other to the practised eye, though carved together
from the same enduring substance; at once per-
fectly distinct and eternally inseparable. In history
:
LADY MACBETH,
307
we can but study character in relation to events, to
situation and circumstances, which disguise and
encumber it: we are left to imagine, to infer, what
certain people must have been, from the manner in
which they have acted or suffered. Shakspeare
and nature bring us back to the true order of
things; and showing us what the human being is,
enable us to judge of the possible as well as the
positive result in acting and suffering. Here,
instead of judging the individual by his actions, we
are enabled to judge of actions by a reference to
the individual. When we can carry this power
into the experience of real life, we shall perhaps
be more just to one another, and not consider our-
selves aggrieved, because we cannot gather figs
from thistles and grapes from thorns.
In the play or poem of Macbeth, the interest of
the story is so engrossing, the events so rapid and
so appalling, the accessories so sublimely conceived
and so skilfully combined, that it is difficult to
detach Lady Macbeth from the dramatic situation,
or consider her apart from the terrible associations
of our first and earliest impressions. As the vulgar
308
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS,
idea of a Juliet-that all beautiful and heaven-
gifted child of the south--is merely a love-sick girl
in white satin, so the common-place idea of Lady
Macbeth, though endowed with the rarest powers,
the loftiest energies, and the profoundest affections,
is nothing but a fierce, cruel woman, brandishing
a couple of daggers, and inciting her husband to
butcher a poor old king.
Even those who reflect more deeply are apt to
consider rather the mode in which a certain cha-
racter is manifested, than the combination of ab-
stract qualities making up that individual human
being; so what should be last, is first; effects are
mistaken for causes, qualities are confounded with
their results, and the perversion of what is essen-
tially good, with the operation of positive evil.
Hence it is, that those who can feel and estimate
the magnificent conception and poetical develope-
ment of the character, have overlooked the grand
moral lesson it conveys; they forget that the crime
of Lady Macbeth terrifies us in proportion as we
sympathize with her; and that this sympathy is in
proportion to the degree of pride, passion, and
LADY MACBETH.
309
intellect, we may ourselves possess. It is good to
behold and to tremble at the possible result of the
noblest faculties uncontrolled or perverted. True
it is, that the ambitious women of these civilized
times do not murder sleeping kings: but are there,
therefore, no Lady Macbeths in the world? no
women who, under the influence of a diseased or
excited appetite for power or distinction, would
sacrifice the happiness of a daughter, the fortunes
of a husband, the principles of a son, and peril
their own souls?
*
*
The character of Macbeth is considered as one
of the most complex in the whole range of Shak-
speare's dramatic creations. He is represented in
the course of the action under such a variety of
aspects; the good and evil qualities of his mind
are so poised and blended, and instead of being
gradually and successively developed, evolve them-
selves so like shifting lights and shadows playing
over the "unstable waters," that his character has
afforded a continual and interesting subject of ana-
310
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
lysis and contemplation. None of Shakspeare's
personages have been treated of more at large;
none have been more minutely criticised and pro-
foundly examined. A single feature in his cha-
racter-the question, for instance, as to whether
his courage be personal or constitutional, or excited
by mere desperation-has been canvassed, asserted,
and refuted, in two masterly essays.
On the other hand, the character of Lady Mac-
beth resolves itself into few and simple elements.
The grand features of her character are so dis-
tinctly and prominently marked, that though ac-
knowledged to be one of the poet's most sublime
creations she has been passed over with compara-
tively few words: generally speaking, the com-
mentators seem to have considered Lady Macbeth
rather with reference to her husband, and as in-
fluencing the action of the drama, than as an
individual conception of amazing power, poetry,
and beauty or if they do individualize her, it is
ever with those associations of scenic representa-
tion which Mrs. Siddons has identified with the
LADY MACBETH.
311
character. Those who have been accustomed to
see it arrayed in the form and lineaments of that
magnificent woman, and developed with her won-
der-working powers, seem satisfied to leave it there,
as if nothing more could be said or added.*
But the generation which beheld Mrs. Siddons
in her glory is passing away, and we are again
left to our own unassisted feelings, or to all the
satisfaction to be derived from the sagacity of critics
and the reflections of commentators. Let us turn
to them for a moment.
Dr. Johnson, who seems to have regarded her
as nothing better than a kind of ogress, tells us
* Mrs. Siddons left among her papers an analysis of the cha-
racter of Lady Macbeth, which I have never seen; but I have
heard her say, that after playing the part for thirty years, she never
read it over without discovering in it something new, She had an
idea that Lady Macbeth must from her Celtic origin have been a
small, fair, blue-eyed woman. Bonduca, Fredegonde, Brunehault,
and other Amazons of the gothic ages were of this complexion;
yet I cannot help fancying Lady Macbeth dark, like Black Agnes
of Douglas-a sort of Lady Macbeth in her way.
312
IIISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
in so many words that "Lady Macbeth is merely
detested." Schlegel dismisses her in haste, as a
species of female fury. In the two essays on
Macbeth already mentioned, she is passed over
with one or two slight allusions. The only jus-
tice that has yet been done to her is by Haz-
litt, in the "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays."
Nothing can be finer than his remarks as far as
they go, but his plan did not allow him sufficient
space to work out his own conception of the cha-
racter, with the minuteness it requires. All that
he says is just in sentiment, and most eloquent in
the expression; but in leaving some of the finest
points altogether untouched, he has also left us in
doubt whether he even felt or perceived them; and
this masterly criticism stops short of the whole
truth-it is a little superficial, and a little too
harsh.
In the mind of Lady Macbeth, ambition is re-
presented as the ruling motive, an intense over-
mastering passion, which is gratified at the ex-
pense of every just and generous principle, and
LADY MACBETH.
313
every feminine feeling. In the pursuit of her ob-
ject, she is cruel, treacherous, and daring. She is
doubly, trebly dyed in guilt and blood; for the
murder she instigates is rendered more frightful
by disloyalty and ingratitude, and by the violation
of all the most sacred claims of kindred and hos-
pitality. When her husband's more kindly na-
ture shrinks from the perpetration of the deed of
horror, she, like an evil genius, whispers him on
to his damnation. The full measure of her wick-
edness is never disguised, the magnitude and atro-
city of her crime is never extenuated, forgotten,
or forgiven, in the whole course of the play. Our
judgment is not bewildered, nor our moral feeling
insulted, by the sentimental jumble of great crimes
and dazzling virtues, after the fashion of the Ger-
man school, and of some admirable writers of our
own time. Lady Macbeth's amazing power of
intellect, her inexorable determination of purpose,
her superhuman strength of nerve, render her as
fearful in herself as her deeds are hateful; yet
she is not a mere monster of depravity, with whom
we have nothing in common, nor a meteor
314
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
whose destroying path we watch in ignorant af-
fright and amaze. She is a terrible impersonation
of evil passions and mighty powers, never so far re-
moved from our own nature as to be cast beyond
the pale of our sympathies; for the woman herself
remains a woman to the last-still linked with her
sex and with humanity.
This impression is produced partly by the es-
sential truth in the conception of the character, and
partly by the manner in which it is evolved; by
a combination of minute and delicate touches, in
some instances by speech, in others by silence: at
one time by what is revealed, at another by what
we are left to infer. As in real life, we perceive
distinctions in character we cannot always explain,
and receive impressions for which we cannot
always account, without going back to the begin-
ning of an acquaintance, and recalling many and
trifling circumstances-looks, and tones, and
words: thus to explain that hold which Lady
Macbeth, in the midst of all her atrocities, still
keeps upon our feelings, it is necessary to trace mi-
nutely the action of the play, as far as she is con-
LADY MACBETH.
315
cerned in it, from its very commencement to its
close.
We must then bear in mind, that the first idea
of murdering Duncan is not suggested by Lady
Macbeth to her husband: it springs within his
mind, and is revealed to us, before his first inter-
view with his wife,--before she is introduced or
even alluded to.
MACBETH.
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor-
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?
It will be said, that the same "horrid sugges-
tion" presents itself spontaneously to her, on the
reception of his letter; or rather that the letter
itself acts upon her mind as the prophecy of the
Weird Sisters on the mind of her husband, kin-
dling the latent passion for empire into a quench-
VOL. II.
T
316
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
less flame. We are prepared to see the train of
evil, first lighted by hellish agency, extend itself
to her through the medium of her husband; but
we are spared the more revolting idea that it
originated with her. The guilt is thus more
equally divided than we should suppose, when
we hear people pitying "the noble nature
of Macbeth," bewildered and goaded on to
crime, solely or chiefly by the instigation of his
wife.
It is true that she afterwards appears the more
active agent of the two; but it is less through
her pre-eminence in wickedness than through her
superiority of intellect. The eloquence—the fierce,
fervid eloquence with which she bears down the
relenting and reluctant spirit of her husband, the
dexterous sophistry with which she wards off his
objections, her artful and affected doubts of his
courage the sarcastic manner in which she lets
fall the word coward-a word which no man can
endure from another, still less from a woman, and
least of all from a woman he loves--and the
bold address with which she removes all ob-
LADY MACBETH.
317
stacles, silences all arguments, overpowers all
scruples, and marshals the way before him,
absolutely make us shrink before the command-
ing intellect of the woman, with a terror in which
interest and admiration are strangely mingled.
LADY MACBETH.
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH.
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH.
Know you not be has?
MACBETH.
We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBeth.
Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since,
And wakes it now to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
T 2
318
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS,
As thou art in desire?
Would'st thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH.
Pr'ythee peace:
I dare do all that may become a man ;
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH.
What beast was it then,
That made you break this enterprize to me?
Where you durst do it, there you were a man;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both;
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it were smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn, as you
Have done to this.
MACBETH.
If we should fail,
LADY MACBETH.
319
LADY MACBETH.
We fail.*
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
Again, in the murdering scene, the obdurate
inflexibility of purpose with which she drives on
Macbeth to the execution of their project, and
her masculine indifference to blood and death,
would inspire unmitigated disgust and horror,
but for the involuntary consciousness that it is
produced rather by the exertion of a strong power
over herself, than by absolute depravity of dis-
position and ferocity of temper. This impression
* In her impersonation of the part of Lady Macbeth, Mrs.
Siddons adopted successively three different intonations in giving
the words we fail. At first a quick contemptuous interrogation
-"we fail?" Afterwards with the note of admiration-we fail!
and an accent of indignant astonishment, laying the principal
emphasis on the word we-we fail! Lastly, she fixed on what I
am convinced is the true reading-we fail. with the simple period,
modulating her voice to a deep, low, resolute tone, which settled
the issue at once-as though she had said, "if we fail, why then we
fail, and all is over." This is consistent with the dark fatalism of
the character and the sense of the line following, and the effect
was sublime, almost awful.
320
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
of her character is brought home at once to our
very hearts with the most profound knowledge of
the springs of nature within us, the most subtle
mastery over their various operations, and a feeling
of dramatic effect not less wonderful. The very
passages in which Lady Macbeth displays the
most savage and relentless determination, are so
worded as to fill the mind with the idea of sex,
and place the woman before us in all her dearest
attributes, at once softening and refining the
horror, and rendering it more intense. Thus when
she reproaches her husband for his weakness-
From this time
Such I account thy love!
Again,
Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, ye murdering ministers,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, &c.
I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis
To love the babe that milks me, &c.
And lastly, in the moment of extremest horror
LADY MACBETH.
321
comes that unexpected touch of feeling, so startling,
yet so wonderfully true to nature-
Had he not resembled my father as he slept,
I had done it!
Thus in one of Weber's or Beethoven's grand
symphonies, some unexpected soft minor chord
or passage will steal on the ear, heard amid the
magnificent crash of harmony, making the blood
pause, and filling the eye with unbidden tears.
It is particularly observable, that in Lady Mac-
beth's concentrated, strong-nerved ambition, the
ruling passion of her mind, there is yet a touch of
womanhood: she is ambitious less for herself than
for her husband. It is fair to think this, be-
cause we have no reason to draw any other infer-
ence either from her words or actions. In her
famous soliloquy, after reading her husband's
letter, she does not once refer to herself. It is of
him she thinks: she wishes to see her husband on
the throne, and to place the sceptre within his
grasp. The strength of her affections adds strength
to her ambition. Although in the old story of
Boethius we are told that the wife of Macbeth
322
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
"burned with unquenchable desire to bear the
name of queen," yet in the aspect under which
Shakspeare has represented the character to us, the
selfish part of this ambition is kept out of sight.
We must remark also, that in Lady Macbeth's
reflections on her husband's character, and on that
milkiness of nature, which she fears "may impede
him from the golden round," there is no indica-
tion of female scorn: there is exceeding pride, but
no egotism in the sentiment or the expres-
sion -no want of wifely and womanly respect
and love for him, but on the contrary, a sort of
unconsciousness of her own mental superiority,
which she betrays rather than asserts, as interest-
ing in itself as it is most admirably conceived and
delineated.
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised :— Yet do I fear thy nature ;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way. Thou would'st be great;
Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly,
That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false,
LADY MACBETH.
323
And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, This thou must do, if thou have it ;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical* aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
Nor is there any thing vulgar in her ambition:
as the strength of her affections lends to it some-
thing profound and concentrated, so her splendid
imagination invests the object of her desire with its
own radiance. We cannot trace in her grand and
capacious mind that it is the mere baubles and
trappings of royalty which dazzle and allure her :
hers is the sin of the "star-bright apostate," and
she plunges with her husband into the abyss of
guilt, to procure for "all their days and nights
sole sovereign sway and masterdom.”
She revels,
she luxuriates in her dream of power. She reaches
at the golden diadem, which is to sear her brain;
Metaphysical is here used in the sense of spiritual or preter-
natural.
324
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
she perils life and soul for its attainment, with an
enthusiasm as perfect, a faith as settled, as that
of the martyr, who sees at the stake, heaven and its
crowns of glory opening upon him.
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter !
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant !
This is surely the very rapture of ambition!
and those who have heard Mrs. Siddons pronounce
the word hereafter, cannot forget the look, the tone,
which seemed to give her auditors a glimpse of
that awful future, which she, in her prophetic fury,
beholds upon the instant.
But to return to the text before us: Lady Mac-
beth having proposed the object to herself and
arrayed it with an ideal
glory, fixes her eye
steadily upon it, soars far above all womanish
feelings and scruples to attain it, and stoops upon
her victim with the strength and velocity of a
vulture; but having committed unflinchingly the
LADY MACBETH.
325
crime necessary for the attainment of her purpose,
she stops there. After the murder of Duncan, we
see Lady Macbeth, during the rest of the play,
occupied in supporting the nervous weakness and
sustaining the fortitude of her husband; for instance,
Macbeth is at one time on the verge of frenzy,
between fear and horror, and it is clear that if she
loses her self-command, both must perish-
MACBETH.
One cried, God help us! and Amen! the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands
Listening their fear, I could not say Amen !
When they did cry God bless us!
LADY MACBETH.
Consider it not so deeply!
MACBETH.
But wherefore could not I pronounce amen?
I had most need of blessing, and amen
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH.
These deeds must not be thought ou
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH.
Methought I beard a voice cry,
44
Sleep no more." &c. &c.
326
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
LADY MACBeth.
What do you mean? who was it that thus cried?
Why, worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things.-Go, get some water, &c. &c.
Afterwards in act iii. she is represented as mutter-
ing to herself,
Nought's had, all's spent,
When our desire is got without content
yet immediately addresses her moody and con-
science-stricken husband-
How now, my lord? why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making;
Using those thoughts, which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without remedy
Should be without regard; what's done, is done.
But she is no where represented as urging him on
to new crimes; so far from it, that when Macbeth
darkly hints his purposed assassination of Banquo,
and she inquires his meaning, he replies,
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou approve the deed.
The same may be said of the destruction of
Macduff's family. Every one must perceive how
our detestation of the woman had been increased,
LADY MACBETH.
327
if she had been placed before us as suggesting and
abetting those additional cruelties into which Mac-
beth is hurried by his mental cowardice.
If my feeling of Lady Macbeth's character be
just to the conception of the poet, then she is one
who could steel herself to the commission of a
crime from necessity and expediency, and be
daringly wicked for a great end, but not likely to
perpetrate gratuitous murders from any vague or
selfish fears. I do not mean to say that the per-
fect confidence existing between herself and Mac-
beth could possibly leave her in ignorance of his
actions or designs: that heart-broken and shud-
dering allusion to the murder of Lady Macduff (in
the sleeping scene) proves the contrary:
The thane of Fife had a wile; where is she now?
But she is no where brought before us in imme-
diate connexion with these horrors, and we are
spared any flagrant proof of her participation in
them. This may not strike us at first, but most
undoubtedly has an effect on the general bearing of
the character, considered as a whole.
328
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
*
Another more obvious and pervading source of
interest arises from that bond of entire affection
and confidence which, through the whole of this
dreadful tissue of crime and its consequences, unites
Macbeth and his wife; claiming from us an invo-
luntary respect and sympathy, and shedding a soft-
tening influence over the whole tragedy. Macbeth
leans upon her strength, trusts in her fidelity, and
throws himself on her tenderness.
O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
She sustains him, calms him, soothes him-
Come on;
Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial 'mong your guests to-night.
The endearing epithets, the terms of fondness in
which he addresses her, and the tone of respect
she invariably maintains towards him, even when
most exasperated by his vacillation of mind and his
brain-sick terrors, have by the very force of con-
trast a powerful effect on the fancy.
By these tender redeeming touches we are im-
ī
LADY MACBETH.
329
pressed with a feeling that Lady Macbeth's influ-
ence over the affections of her husband, as a wife
and a woman, is at least equal to her power over
him as a superior mind. Another thing has always
struck me.
During the supper scene, in which
Macbeth is haunted by the spectre of the murdered
Banquo, and his reason appears unsettled by the
extremity of his horror and dismay, her indignant
rebuke, her low whispered remonstrance, the sar-
castic emphasis with which she combats his sick
fancies, and endeavours to recall him to himself,
have an intenseness, a severity, a bitterness, which
makes the blood creep.
LADY MACBETH.
Are you a man?
MACBETH.
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.
LADY MACBETH.
O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger, which you said
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts
330
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
(Impostors to true fear) would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authoriz'd by her grandam! Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done
You look but on a stool.
What! quite unmann'd in folly?
Yet when the guests are dismissed, and they are
left alone, she says no more, and not a syllable of
reproach or scorn escapes her: a few words in
submissive reply to his questions, and an entreaty
to seek repose, are all she permits herself to utter.
There is a touch of pathos and of tenderness in
this silence which has always affected me beyond
expression: it is one of the most masterly and
most beautiful traits of character in the whole
play.
Lastly, it is clear that in a mind constituted
like that of Lady Macbeth, and not utterly de-
praved and hardened by the habit of crime, con-
science must wake some time or other, and bring
with it remorse closed by despair, and despair by
death. This great moral retribution was to be
displayed to us-but how? Lady Macbeth is
LADY MACBETH.
331
not a woman to start at shadows; she mocks at
air-drawn daggers; she sees no imagined spec-
tres rise from the tomb to appal or accuse her.*
The towering bravery of her mind disdains the
visionary terrors which haunt her weaker husband.
We know, or rather we feel, that she who could
give a voice to the most direful intent, and call
on the spirits that wait on mortal thoughts to
"unsex her," and "
stop up all access and pas-
sage of remorse -to that remorse would have
given nor tongue nor sound; and that rather
than have uttered a complaint, she would have
held her breath and died. To have given her
a confidant, though in the partner of her guilt,
would have been a degrading resource, and
have disappointed and enfeebled all our pre-
vious impressions of her character; yet justice is
* Mrs. Siddons, I believe, had an idea that Lady Macbeth be-
held the spectre of Banquo in the supper scene, and that her self-
control and presence of mind enabled her to surmount her con-
sciousness of the ghastly presence. This would be superhuman,
and I do not see that either the character or the text bear out this
supposition.
VOL. II.
U
332
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
to be done, and we are to be made acquainted with
that which the woman herself would have suffered
a thousand deaths of torture rather than have be-
trayed. In the sleeping scene we have a glimpse
into the depths of that inward hell: the seared
brain and broken heart are laid bare before us
in the helplessness of slumber. By a judgment
the most sublime ever imagined, yet the most un-
forced, natural, and inevitable, the sleep of her
who murdered sleep is no longer repose, but a con-
densation of resistless horrors which the prostrate
intellect and the powerless will can neither baffle
nor repel. We shudder and are satisfied; yet our
human sympathies are again touched: we rather
sigh over the ruin than exult in it; and after
watching her through this wonderful scene with a
sort of fascination, we dismiss, the unconscious,
helpless, despair-stricken murderess, with a feel-
ing which Lady Macbeth, in her waking strength,
with all her awe-commanding powers about her,
could never have excited.
It is here especially we perceive that sweetness
of nature which in Shakspeare went hand in hand
LADY MACBETH.
333
with his astonishing powers. He never confounds
that line of demarcation which eternally separates
good from evil, yet he never places evil before us.
without exciting in some way a consciousness of
the opposite good which shall balance and re-
lieve it.
I do deny that he has represented in Lady Mac-
beth a woman "naturally cruel,”* “ invariably sa-
vage," or endued with "pure demoniac firmness."+
If ever there could have existed a woman to
whom such phrases could apply—a woman with-
out touch of modesty, pity, or fear,-Shakspeare
knew that a thing so monstrous was unfit for all
the purposes of poetry. If Lady Macbeth had
been naturally cruel, she needed not so solemnly
to have abjured all pity, and called on the spirits
that wait on mortal thoughts to unsex her; nor
would she have been loved to excess by a man of
Macbeth's character; for it is the sense of intel-
lectual energy and strength of will overpowering
* Cumberland.
+ Professor Richardson.
Forster's Essays.
U 2
334
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
her feminine nature, which draws from him that
burst of intense admiration—
Bring forth men children only
For thy undaunted metal should compose
Nothing but males.
If she had been invariably savage, her love would
not have comforted and sustained her husband in
his despair, nor would her uplifted dagger have
been arrested by a dear and venerable image
rising between her soul and its fell purpose. If
endued with pure demoniac firmness, her woman's
nature would not, by the reaction, have been so
horribly avenged, she would not have died of
remorse and despair.
*
*
We cannot but observe that through the whole
of the dialogue appropriated to Lady Macbeth,
there is something very peculiar and characteristic
in the turn of expression: her compliments, when
she is playing the hostess or the queen, are elabo-
rately elegant and verbose: but, when in earnest,
she speaks in short energetic sentences-sometimes
LADY MACBETH.
335
abrupt, but always full of meaning; her thoughts
are rapid and clear, her expressions forcible,
and the imagery like sudden flashes of light-
ning all the foregoing extracts exhibit this,
:
but I will venture one more, as an immediate
illustration.
MACBETH.
My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH.
And when goes hence?
MACBETH.
To-morrow,-
-as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH.
Shall sun that morrow see!
O never
Thy face, my Thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time:
Look like the time, bear welcome in your eye,
Your tongue, your hand; look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it.
What would not the firmness, the self-command,
the enthusiasm, the intellect, the ardent affections
of this woman have performed, if properly directed?
I
336
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
but the object being unworthy of the effort, the
end is disappointment, despair, and death,
The power of religion could alone have con-
trolled such a mind; but it is the misery of a very
proud, strong, and gifted spirit, without sense of
religion, that instead of looking upward to find a
superior, it looks round and sees all things as
subject to itself. Lady Macbeth is placed in a
dark, ignorant, iron age; her powerful intellect is
slightly tinged with its credulity and superstition,
but she has no religious feeling to restrain the
force of will. She is a stern fatalist in principle
and action-"what is done, is done," and would be
done over again under the same circumstances; her
remorse is without repentance, or any reference to
an offended Deity: it arises from the pang of a
wounded conscience, the recoil of the violated
feelings of nature: it is the horror of the past,
not the terror of the future; the torture of self-
condemnation, not the fear of judgment; it is
strong as her soul, deep as her guilt, fatal as
her resolve, and terrible as her crime.
If it should be objected to this view of Lady
LADY MACBETH.
337
Macbeth's character, that it engages our sympa-
thies in behalf of a perverted being—and that to
leave her so strong a power upon our feelings in
the midst of such supreme wickedness, involves a
moral wrong, I can only reply in the words of
Dr. Channing, that "in this and the like cases
our interest fastens on what is not evil in the cha-
racter- that there is something kindling and
ennobling in the consciousness, however awakened,
of the energy which resides in mind: and
many a virtuous man has borrowed new strength
from the force, constancy, and dauntless courage
of evil agents."*
This is true; and might he not have added that
many a powerful and gifted spirit has learnt hu-
mility and self-government, from beholding how far
the energy which resides in mind may be degraded
and perverted?
*
*
*
*
In general, when a woman is introduced into a
* See Dr. Channing's remarks on Satan, in his essay
the Character and Writings of Milton."-Works, p. 131.
On
338
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
tragedy to be the presiding genius of evil in herself,
or the cause of evil to others, she is either too feebly
or too darkly portrayed; either crime is heaped on
crime, and horror on horror, till our sympathy is
lost in incredulity, or the stimulus is sought in
unnatural or impossible situations, or in situations
that ought to be impossible, (as in the Myrrha or
the Cenci) or the character is enfeebled by a mix-
ture of degrading propensities and sexual weak-
ness, as in Vittoria Corombona. But Lady Mac-
beth, though so supremely wicked, and so con-
sistently feminine, is still kept aloof from all
base alloy. When Shakspeare created a female
character purely detestable, he made her an ac-
cessary, never a principal. Thus Regan and
Goneril are two powerful sketches of selfishness,
cruelty and ingratitude; we abhor them whenever
we see or think of them, but we think very little
about them, except as necessary to the action of
the drama. They are to cause the madness of
Lear, and to call forth the filial devotion of Cor-
delia, and their depravity is forgotten in its effects.
LADY MACBETH.
339
A comparison has been made between Lady Mac-
beth and the Greek Clytemnestra in the Aga-
memnon of Eschylus. The Clytemnestra of So-
phocles is something more in Shakspeare's spirit,
for she is something less impudently atrocious;
but, considered as a woman and an individual,
would any one compare this shameless adulteress,
cruel murderess, and unnatural mother, with Lady
Macbeth? Lady Macbeth herself would certainly
shrink from the approximation.*
* The vision of Clytemnestra the night before she is murdered,
in which she dreams that she has given birth to a dragon, and
that in laying it to her bosom, it draws blood instead of milk, has
been greatly admired, but I suppose that those who most admire
it would not place it in comparison with Lady Macbeth's sleeping
scene. Lady Ashton, in the Bride of Lammermoor, is a domestic
Lady Macbeth; but the developement being in the narrative, not
the dramatic form, it follows hence that we have a masterly
portrait, not a complete individual: and the relief of poetry and
sympathy being wanting, the detestation she inspires is so un-
mixed as to be almost intolerable consequently the character con-
sidered in relation to the other personages of the story, is perfect;
but abstractedly, it is imperfect; a basso relievo—not a statue.
340
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
The Electra of Sophocles comes nearer to Lady
Macbeth as a poetical conception, with this strong
distinction, that she commands more respect and
esteem, and less sympathy. The murder in which
she participates is ordained by the oracle-is an
act of justice, and therefore less a murder than a
sacrifice. Electra is drawn with magnificent sim--
plicity and intensity of feeling and purpose, but
there is a want of light, and shade, and relief.
Thus the scene in which Orestes stabs his mother
within her chamber, and she is heard pleading for
mercy, while Electra stands forward listening ex-
ultingly to her mother's cries, and urging her
brother to strike again, "another blow! another!"
&c. is terribly fine, but the horror is too shocking,
too physical—if I may use such an expression: it
will not surely bear a comparison with the mur-
dering scene in Macbeth, where the exhibition of
various passions-the irresolution of Macbeth, the
bold determination of his wife, the deep suspense,
the rage of the elements without, the horrid stillness.
within, and the secret feeling of that infernal agency
LADY MACBETH.
341
which is ever present to the fancy, even when not
visible on the scene-throw a rich colouring of
poetry over the whole, which does not take from
"the present horror of the time," and yet relieves
it. Shakspeare's blackest shadows are like those
of Rembrandt; so intense, that the gloom which
brooded over Egypt in her day of wrath was pale
in comparison,-yet so transparent that we seem
to see the light of heaven through their depth.
In the whole compass of dramatic poetry, there
is but one female character which can be placed
near that of Lady Macbeth; the MEDEA. Not
the vulgar, voluble fury of the Latin tragedy,* nor
the Medea in a hoop petticoat of Corneille, but
the genuine Greek Medea-the Medea of Euri-
pides.+
*Attributed to Seneca.
† A comparison has already been made in an article in the
Reflector." It will be seen on a reference to that very masterly
Essay, that I differ from the author in his conception of Lady
Macbeth's character.
342
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
There is something in the Medea which seizes
irresistibly on the imagination. Her passionate de-
votion to Jason, for whom she had left her parents
and country-to whom she had given all, and
Would have drawn the spirit from her breast
Had he but asked it, sighing forth her soul
Into his bosom,*
the wrongs and insults which drive her to des-
peration-the horrid refinement of cruelty with
which she plans and executes her revenge upon
her faithless husband-the gush of fondness.
with which she weeps over her children, whom in
the next moment she devotes to destruction in a
paroxysm of insane fury, carry the terror and
pathos of tragic situation to their extreme height.
But if we may be allowed to judge through the
medium of a translation, there is a certain hard-
ness in the manner of treating the character, which
in some degree defeats the effect. Medea talks
* Appollonius Rhodius.-Vide Elton's Specimens of the Clas-
sic poets.
LADY MACBETH.
343
too much her human feelings and superhuman
power are not sufficiently blended. Taking into
consideration the different impulses which actuate
Medea and Lady Macbeth, as love, jealousy, and
revenge on the one side, and ambition on the
other, we expect to find more of female nature in
the first than in the last: and yet the contrary is
the fact: at least, my own impression, as far as a
woman may judge of a woman, is, that although
the passions of Medea are more feminine, the
character is less so; we seem to require more
feeling in her fierceness, more passion in her
frenzy; something less of poetical abstraction,-
less art, fewer words; her delirious vengeance we
might forgive, but her calmness and subtlety are
rather revolting.
These two admirable characters, placed in con-
trast to each other, afford a fine illustration of
Schlegel's distinction between the ancient or Greek
drama, which he compares to sculpture, and the
modern or romantic drama, which he compares to
painting. The gothic grandeur, the rich chiaro-
344
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS,
scuro, and deep-toned colours of Lady Macbeth,
stand thus opposed to the classical elegance and
mythological splendour, the delicate yet inflexible
outline of the Medea. If I might be permitted to
carry this illustration still further, I would add,
that there exists the same distinction between the
Lady Macbeth and the Medea, as between the
Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci and the Medusa of
the Greek gems and bas reliefs. In the painting
the horror of the subject is at once exalted and
softened by the most vivid colouring, and the most
magical contrast of light and shade. We gaze—
until from the murky depths of the back-ground
the serpent hair seems to stir and glitter as if in-
stinct with life, and the head itself, in all its
ghastliness and brightness, appears to rise from
the canvass with the glare of reality. In the Me-
dusa of sculpture how different is the effect on
the imagination! We have here the snakes con-
volving round the winged and graceful head: the
brows contracted with horror and pain: but every
feature is chiselled into the most regular and
LADY MACBETH.
345
faultless perfection; and amid the gorgon terrors,
there rests a marbly, fixed, supernatural grace,
which without reminding us for a moment of
common life or nature, stands before us a presence,
a power, and an enchantment!

FINIS.
LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOX STREET, STRAND.

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