"I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, Only a learned and a manly soul I purpos'd her; that should, with even powers, That Shakespeare fully shared in this magnanimous bravery of sentiment, we need no further proof than is furnished in the hero. ine of this play; whom we can scarce call sweet, or gentle, though she is both; she is a noble woman, -one that, even in her greatest anguish, we hardly dare to pity. As she acts the part of a statue in the play, so she has a statue-like calmness and firmness of soul. A certain austere sweetness pervades her whole demeanour, and seems, as it were, the essential form of her life. Appearing at first as the cheerful hostess of her husband's friend, and stooping from her queenly elevation to the most winning affabilities, her behaviour rises in dignity as her sorrow deepens. With an equal sense of what is due to the king as her husband, and to herself as a woman, a wife, and a mother, she knows how to reconcile all these demands; she therefore resists without violence, and submits without weakness. And what her wise spirit sees to be fit and becoming, that she always has strength and steadiness of character to do for which cause, notwithstanding the insults and hardships wantonly put upon her, she still preserves the smoothnesses of peace; is never betrayed into the least sign of anger, or impatience, or resentment, but maintains, throughout, perfect order and fitness and proportion in act and speech: the charge, so dreadful in itself, and so cruel in its circumstances, neither rousing her passions, as it would Paulina's, nor stunning her sensibilities, as in case of Desdemona; but, like the sinking of lead in the ocean's bosom, going to the depths without ruffling the surface of her soul. Her situation is indeed full of pathos, -a pathos the more deeplymoving to others, that it stirs no tumults in her; for her nature is manifestly fitted up and furnished with all tender and gentle and womanly feelings, only she has the force of mind to control them, and keep them all in the right place and degree. And thus amidst the worst that can befall she remains within the region of herself, calm and serenely beautiful, stands firm, yet full of grace, in the austere strengths of reason and conscious rectitude. And when at her terrible wrongs and sufferings all hearts are shaken, all eyes wet, but her own, the impression made by her stout-hearted forti tude is of one whose pure, tranquil, innocent breast is the home of sorrows too big for any eye-messengers to report; a pace where none but majestic pains may dwell; and that she has "that honourable grief lodged there, which burns worse than tears drown." The long concealing of herself has been censured by some as repugnant to nature. It does not seem repugnant to nature as individualized by her reason and will; nor is her character herein more above or out of nature than the ideal of art abundantly warrants. For to her keen sensibility of honour the king's treatment is literally an infinite wrong; nor does its cruelty more wound her affection than its meanness quenches her respect; and one so strong to bear injury might well be equally strong to remember it. And she knows full well that in so delicate an instrument as married life if one string be out of tune, the whole is ajar, and will yield no music for her, therefore, all things must be right, else none are so. And she is both too clear of mind and too upright of heart to pat herself where she cannot be precisely what the laws of propriety and decorum require her to seem. Accordingly, when she does forgive, the forgiveness is simply perfect; the breach that has been so long a-healing is at length completely healed; every part of her being is in concert with her hand; for to be entire in whatsoever she does, to "move all together, if she move at all," is both an impulse of nature and a law of conscience with her. Moreover, with her severe chastity of principle the reconciliation to her husband must begin where the separation grew: they can never be reunited save in the offspring and representative of their former union; she can never be again his wife but as the mother of his child. Nor, on the other hand, can she be the mother of his child but as his wife: where they are father and mother, there they are and must be one. Thus it was for Perdita alone to restore the parental unity which her being expresses, but of which she had occasioned the breaking. During the first three acts the interest of this play is mainly tragical; the scene is densely crowded with incidents; the action hurried, abrupt, almost spasmodic; the style, suiting the matter, quick, sharp, severe, flashing off point after point in brief, sinewy strokes; and all is rapidity and despatch: what with the insane jealousy of the king, the noble agony of the queen, the enthusiasm of the court in her behalf, and the king's violence towards both them and her, the mind is kept on the jump: all which, if contin ued to the end, would generate rather a tumult and hubbub in the thoughts, than that inward music which the title of the play promises; not to say, that such a prolonged hurry of movement and stretch of expectation would at length become monotonous and wearisome in themselves. Far otherwise the latter half of the play here the anticipations proper to a long, leisurely winter evening are fully met: the general effect is soothing and compos ing; the tones, dipped in sweetness, fall gently on the ear, disposing the mind to be still, and listen, and contemplate; thus making the play, what Coleridge pronounces it, "exquisitely respondent to the title." It would seem, indeed, that in these scenes the Poet had for once specially endeavoured how much of silent effect he could produce, without deserting the form or substance of the drama and to do this he provides resting-places for thought, $ ispends or retards the action by musical pauses and periods of lyrical movement; breathing in the mellowest strains of poetical harmony, till the eye is "made quiet by the power of beauty, and all tumult of mind is hushed in the very intensity of feeling. In the last two acts we have a most artful interchange and blend ing of romantic beauty and comic drollery. The lost princess and the heir-apparent of Bohemia, two of the noblest and loveliest beings that ever fancy conceived, occupy the centre of the picture, while around them are clustered rustic shepherds and shepherdesses amid their pastimes and pursuits, the whole being enlivened by the tricks and humours of a merry pedler and pickpocket. For simple purity and sweetness the scene which unfolds the loves and characters of the prince and princess is not surpassed by any thing in Shakespeare. Whatsoever is enchanting in romance, lovely ir innocence, elevated in feeling, and sacred in faith, is here concentrated; forming, all together, one of those things which we always welcome as we do the return of spring, and over which our feel ings may renew their youth forever. Perdita, notwithstanding she occupies so little room in the play, fills a large space in the reader's thoughts, almost disputing precedence with the queen. And her mother's best native qualities reappear in her, sweetly modified by pastoral associations: her nature being really much the same, only it has been developed and seasoned in a different atmosphere, and amid far other influ ences; a nature too strong indeed to be displaced by any power of circumstances or supervenings of art, but at the same time toc delicate and susceptive not to take a lively and lasting impress of them. So that, though she have thoroughly assimilated, still she clearly indicates, the food of place and education; insomuch that the dignities of the princely and the simplicities of the pastoral character scem striving which shall express her goodliest. We can scarce call her a poetical being; she is rather poetry itself, and every thing lends and borrows beauty at her touch. A playinate of the flowers, when we see her with them we are at loss whether they take more inspiration from her, or she from them. If, as Schlegel somewhere remarks, the Poet be "particularly fond of showing the superiority of the innate over the acquired," surely he has nowhere done it with finer effect than in this "prettiest lowborn lass that ever ran on the greensward." There is much to suggest a comparison between Perdita and Miranda; yet how shall we compare them? Perfectly distinct, indeed, as individ uals, still their characters are strikingly similar; only Perdita has perhaps a sweeter gracefulness, the freedom, simplicity, and play fulness of nature being in her case less checked by influences from without; while Miranda carries more of a magical and mysterious charm, woven into her character by the supernatural ministers that obey her father's so potent art. So like, and yet so different, it is hardly possible to say which is best of the two; or rather it seems impossible not to like her best with whom we last conversed. Of Florizel it is enough to say, that none but a living abstract and sum total of all that is manly could have so felt the perfections of such a woman. He is manifestly drawn and held to her by a powerful instinct of congeniality: but that his spirit were akin to hers, he would not have found out his peer through such a disguise of circumstances. And then, the heavenly purity of their courtship! who, O who can be untouched, unsweetened by it, and still hope to be forgiven! cause. The minor characters of this charming play are both finely conceived and skilfully disposed; the one giving them a large personal, the other a larger dramatic interest; while at the same time they are so diversified as to secure all the effect that mere variety can yield.― Paulina is perhaps the most amiable termagant that we have any portrait of. Without any of the queen's dignified calmness and reserve, she is alive to all her beauty and greatness of character with a head to understand and a heart to reverence such a woman, she unites a temper to fight, a generosity to die for her. Loud, voluble, violent, and viraginous, with a tongue sharper than a sword, and an eloquence that almost blisters where it touches, she has, therewithal, too much honour and magnanimity either to use them without good cause, or to forbear them when she has such Mrs. Jameson classes her, and justly, 1 , no doubt, among the women, and she assures us there are many such, who seem regard less of the feelings of those for whom they would sacrifice their life. - Shakespeare was perhaps a little too fond of placing his char acters in exigencies where they have to be false, in order to be the truer which doubtless happens sometimes; yet, surely, in so delicate a point of morality, some care is needful, lest the exceptions grow to oversway rather than establish the rule. And something too much of this there may be in case of the honest, upright, yet deceiving old lord, Camillo; who, though little more than a staff in the drama, is nevertheless a pillar of state; his integrity and wisdom making him a light to the counsels and a guide to the footsteps of the greatest around him. Fit to be the stay of princes, he is one of those venerable relics of the past, which show us how beautiful age can be, and which, linking together different generations, form at once the salt of society and the strength of government. Autolycus, the "snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," is the most amiable and ingenious rogue we shall desire to see; who cheats almost as divinely as those about him love, and whose thieving tricks the very gods seem to crown with thrift as a reward for his wit. His self-raillery and droll soliloquizing upon the sins of his own committing leaves it rather uncertain whether he does them more for lucre or for fun. |