other breaches of faith, we are not entitled to believe that her third marriage was incompatible with her passionate love for the heir of so many hopes, her heartbreaking devotion to her betrayed and forsaken son, and her natural belief, that 'Since the birth of Cain, the first male Child, There was not such a gracious creature born.' The fate of Constance was not altogether inconsistent with Shakespeare's delineation of the heart-broken mother. She died in 1201. But Arthur was not then John's captive—although all his high hopes were limited to Brittany. FLETCHER (p. 10): In her elaborate consideration of the character of The Lady Constance Mrs. Jameson falls somewhat into the error which has constantly, more or less, been committed in treating of Shakespeare's historical plays-that of failing to consider not only the composition of each drama on the whole, but the conception and development of every character in it, primarily and independently with relation to dramatic art, and without any regard whatever to real or alleged departures from the literal or even the substantial truth of history. Unless this point of view be steadily maintained by the critic in forming his dramatic judgment, his opinions will, at every moment, be liable to fall into inconsistency and injustice. A very little reflection should have sufficed to shew any commentator the preposterousness of dragging Shakespeare, the dramatist-the dramatist transcendently and exclusively-to the bar of historical criticism-a kind of procedure which, in the following observations, we shall studiously avoid. So far from representing either Arthur or his mother as ambitious, the poet, in legitimate pursuit of his dramatic object, has studiously excluded from view every historical circumstance that could countenance the smallest impression of that nature. He has not only reduced the prince's age to such tender years as would hardly admit of his harbouring a political sentiment; but, in direct opposition to the recorded facts, represents the boy as one of a peculiarly mild and quiet temper, devoid of all princely airs and all appetite for command-simple-hearted, meek, and affectionate. He weeps at the violent scene produced by his mother's meeting with Queen Elinor, and exclaims, '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.' Again, to his mother's violent grief at hearing of the accommodation between the two kings, he says, 'I do beseech you, madam, be content.' And again, in 'his innocent prate' to his keeper Hubert, 'So I were out of prison, and kept sheep, I should be merry as the day is long, &c.' Is it not plain that this very inoffensiveness is designed by the dramatist to place in the stronger light the clearness of Arthur's title, as the exclusive reason for his Uncle's hostility, at the same time that it deepens so wonderfully the pathos of the scene wherein he pleads for the preservation of his eyes? Another element of this pathos is the exceeding beauty which the poet has ascribed to the princely boy, which is made to affect the hearts of all who approach him, even the rudest of his Uncle's creatures, and gives to this only orphan child the crowning endearment to his widowed mother's heart. That mother herself, it is most important to observe and to bear in mind, whatever she was in history, is not represented by the poet as courting power for its own sake. Had he so represented her, it would have defeated one of those fine contrasts of character which Shakespeare so much delighted that between Constance and Elinor, which is perfect in every way. The whole conduct and language of Constance in the piece shew that her excessive fondness for her son, and that alone, makes her so eagerly desire the restitution of his lawful inheritance. She longs to see this one sole, and beautiful, and gracious object of her maternal idolatry placed on the pedestal of grandeur which is his birthright, that she may idolize it more fondly still— 'Thou and thine usurp The domination, royalties and rights Of this oppressed boy.' Such is her defiance to Elinor. Still more strikingly unfolded is the entire subordination, in the breast of Constance, of all ambitious view, to the concentrated feelings of the doting mother, in the well-known address to Arthur, when her sworn friends have betrayed her: 'If thou, that bidst me be content, wert grim, I would not care, I then would be content; If we could still doubt the absolute and all-absorbing predominance of the maternal affection, it is disclosed to us in all its awful and beautiful depth in those bursts of sublimest poetry that gush from her heart when informed of Arthur's capture. In all these she never once thinks of him as a prince, who ought to be a king-far less of the station to which she is herself entitled. It is the thought of never more beholding her 'absent child,' her 'pretty Arthur,' her 'fair son' that is driving her to distraction 'I will not keep this form upon my head We come now to consider the most important point of all that should guide us in judging of the histrionic expression of this character—namely, the indications afforded by the whole tenour of the incident and dialogue as to the individuality of Constance's person and disposition as a woman—independently even of that maternal relation in which the drama constantly places her before us. That Constance, in the poet's conception, is of graceful as well as noble person we are not left to infer merely from the graces of her vigorous mind, nor from the rare loveliness of her child, and her extreme sensibility to it. We hear of her beauty more explicitly from the impression which it makes upon those around herespecially from the exclamations of King Philip on beholding her distress for Arthur's loss, the greater part of which we regret to find omitted in the present acting of the play 'O, fair affliction, peace! Bind up those tresses. Oh, what love I note But it is the moral and intellectual beauty, the logic and the poetry of the character, that is the most essential to consider. And here we are called upon to dissent materially from the view of this matter which Mrs Jameson has exhibited at some length. In commencing her essay on this character she numbers among the qualities which the Lady Constance of Shakespeare has in common with the mother of Coriolanus 'self-will and exceeding pride.' In a following page she speaks again of 'her haughty spirit' and 'her towering pride.' Again, of 'her proud spirit' and 'her energetic self-will'; and 'her impetuous temper conflicting with her pride.' Once more-'on the whole it may be said, that pride and maternal affection form the basis of the character of Constance'; and 'in all the state of her great grief, a grand impersonation of pride and passion.' But the contrary of all this inherent pride and self-will which the critic alleges appears in the poet's delineation. It is the mild language of gratitude and patience that we first hear from Constance, in the scene where she thanks the French King and the Austrian duke for their espousal to her dear son's cause, but entreats them to wait for John's answer to the French ambassador before they proceed to bloodshed. In the scene where she encounters Elinor all the 'pride and self-will' are on the side of her enemies; the outraged right and feeling on her own. To Elinor's 'Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?' it is but natural that she should say, 'Let me make answer-thy usurping son.' And Elinor's atrocious imputation upon her, of adultery and of guilty ambition'Out insolent!-thy bastard shall be king, That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!—' more than justifies all the keenness of retort that follows. That she resents the insults thus added to the injuries of her foes, infers but little pride. To have remained silent under them, would have been nothing less than meanness in any woman-most of all in a sovereign princess on so public an occasion. Again, in all her exclamations on the betrayal of her cause by her selfish allies, we find, indeed, all the sensitive and intellectual widow and mother, 'Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;' but where is the proud self-will? it seems extraordinary that Mrs Jameson and others should not have reflected that, had a particle of it been represented as belong ing originally and inherently to the character of Constance, it would have utterly marred the grand, the sublime effect of her concluding words in this majestic scene. It is simply because there is no pride in her nature—nothing but the indispensable self-respect of the woman, the mother, and the princess-and more especially because the whole previous tenour of this scene itself exhibits her as anything but 'an impersonation of pride' 'A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; A woman, naturally born to fears—' that the passage in question is so wonderfully impressive. It is not the proud, fierce, haughty woman, but the sensitive and apprehensive woman alone, lashed out of all of her usual habits of mind and temper, by direct injury and basest treachery, into intense resistance and resentment, to whom it can ever occur to say, 'I will instruct my sorrows to be proud; For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout. Here is my throne-bid kings come bow to it!' Here is pride indeed! wrung, for the first time, from a noble tender nature by the awful climax of indignant sorrow, and placing the 'gentle Constance' on that towering eminence from whence, in the desolate majesty of afflicted right, she hurls the keen lightnings of her eloquence upon the mean-souled great ones around her. Theirs, indeed, is the gain, but hers is the triumph! So much have we deemed it necessary to say in vindication of the moral qualities wherewith Shakespeare has endowed his heroine. We must now say something for the guidance, it may be, both of the reader and the performer, in correction of some erroneous views, as we esteem them, to which the authoress above cited, and others, have given circulation, respecting the intellectual powers developed in this character. The substance of Mrs Jameson's observations on this head is contained in the following sentence: "The moral energy, that faculty which is principally exercised in selfcontrol, and gives consistency to the rest, is deficient, or rather, to speak more correctly, the extraordinary development of sensibility and imagination, which lends to the character its rich poetical colouring, leaves the other qualities comparatively subordinate.' Following out this view of the matter, Mrs Jameson speaks of the dramatic Constance as 'a generous woman, betrayed by her own rash confidence.' Generous she is, but where is the rashness of her confidence? What better resource have she and her son than to trust in the solemn protestations which the potentates best able to assist them are made to deliver at the opening of the second act? What weakness of intellect is here implied? It is clearly her best policy to confide in them. Again, Mrs Jameson desires us to observe that the heroine cannot from her intellectual resources 'borrow patience to submit, or fortitude to endure.' But, all feeling apart, what, we would ask, betrayed on every hand, and friendless, as she is, has she to gain by submitting and enduring? Constance herself understands her own position as clearly, as she feels it keenly; and states it, too, with her ever forcible and coherent logic. In answer to the legate's observation respecting the excommunication of King John 'There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse most justly does she reply, 'And for mine too, when law can do no right, How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?' Equally logical-more strikingly and terribly consequential than the cool reasonings of the Cardinal himself—are these sentences addressed to him in her despairing scene: '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, 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, And so he'll die; and, rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heaven, Here, indeed, her heart may be said to stimulate her intellect to a sort of preternatural activity; but she does not rave, she reasons herself into the climax of despair. Yet Mrs Jameson speaks of 'the bewildered pathos and poetry of this address'; and in a subsequent page proceeds in the same strain-'It is this exceeding vivacity of imagination which in the end turns sorrow to frenzy,'-and calls the sublime effusions of her despair 'the frantic violence of uncontrolled feeling.' This is nothing less than using to the afflicted mother the language addressed to her by the cold-blooded papal diplomatist, 'Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow:' and Constance's own answer to the Cardinal is a triumphant refutation of all such criticism: 'Thou art not holy, to belie me so. I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; |