The artless manner in which her innate nobility of soul shines forth through her pastoral disguise, is thus brought before us

at once:

This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever

Ran on the green sward; nothing she does or seems,
But smacks of something greater than herself;
Too noble for this place.

Her natural loftiness of spirit breaks out where she is menaced and reviled by the King, as one whom his son has degraded himself by merely looking on; she bears the royal frown without quailing; but the moment he is gone, the immediate recollection of herself, and of her humble state, of her hapless love, is full of beauty, tenderness, and nature:

Even here undone!

I was not much afeard: for once or twice,
I was about to speak; and tell him plainly
The self-same sun, that shines upon his court
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on alike.

Will 't please you, Sir, be gone?

I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,

Of your own state take care; this dream of mine—
Being now awake-I'll queen it no inch further,
But milk my ewes, and weep.

How often have I told you 't would be thus!

How often said, my dignity would last

But till 't were known!

FLORIZEL.

It cannot fail, but by

The violation of my faith; and then

Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together

And mar the seeds within!

Lift up thy looks.

*

Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may

Be thereat glean'd! for all the sun sees, or

*

The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To thee, my fair beloved!

Perdita has another characteristic, which lends to the poetical delicacy of the delineation a certain strength and moral elevation which is peculiarly striking. In that sense of truth and rectitude, that upright simplicity of mind which disdains all crooked and indirect means, which would not stoop for an instant to dissemblance, and is mingled with a noble confidence in her love and in

her lover. In this spirit is her answer to Camillo, who says, courtier-like,

Besides, you know

Prosperity's the very bond of love;

Whose fresh complexion, and whose heart together,

Affliction alters.

To which she replies,

One of these is true;

I think, affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

In that elegant scene where she receives the guests at the sheep-shearing, and distributes the flowers, there is in the full flow of the poetry, a most beautiful and striking touch of individual character: but here it is impossible to mutilate the dialogue.

Reverend sirs,

For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long;
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

POLIXENES.

Shepherdess

(A fair one you are), well you fit our ages

With flowers of winter.

PERDITA.

Sir, the year growing ancient,

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season

Are our carnations, and streaked gilliflowers,

Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind

Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not

To get slips of them.

POLIXENES.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

PERDITA.

For I have heard it said,

There is an art, which in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.

POLIXENES.

Say there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean

But nature makes that mean; so o'er that art

Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

A gentle scion to the wildest stock;

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather; but
The art itself is nature.

VOL. I.

R

PERDITA.

So it is.

POLIXENES.

Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers,

And do not call them bastards.

PERDITA.

I'll not put

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them ;
No more than were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say 't were well.

It has been well remarked of this passage, that Perdita does not attempt to answer the reasoning of Polixenes: she gives up the argument, but, woman-like, retains her own opinion, or rather, her sense of right, unshaken by his sophistry. She goes on in a strain of poetry, which comes over the soul like music and fragrance mingled: we seem to inhale the blended odours of a thousand flowers, till the sense faints with their sweetness; and she concludes with a touch of passionate sentiment, which melts into the heart:

very

O Proserpina!

For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,