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 particularly applied the ingenious simile which Goethe 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 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 tenderness; and all are victims of the unfounded jealousy of their husbands. So far the parallel is close, but here the resemblance ceases; the circumstances of each situation are varied with wonderful 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. Hermione 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 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 fidelity with his friend Polixenes, king of Bohemia; the suspicion once admitted, and working on a jealous, passionate, and vindictive 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, exposed to death on a desert shore; she is herself brought to a public trial for treason and incontinency, 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 dishonor 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.

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 Hermione 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 delineate such a character in the poetical form, to develope it through the medium of action and dialogue, without the aid of description: to preserve its tranquil, mild, and serious beauty, its unimpassioned dignity, and at the same time keep the strongest hold upon our sympathy and our imagination; and out of this exterior calm, produce the most profound pathos, the most vivid impression of life and internal power-it is this which renders the character of Hermione one of Shakspeare'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 simplicity, an easy, unforced, yet dignified self-possession, 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, unfathomable, 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.

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 addressed or alluded to, the boundless devotion and respect of those around her, and their confidence in her goodness and innocence, are so many additional 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.

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 dignity, and lady-like sweetness, with which she prevails on Polixenes to prolong his visit is charming.

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 ?

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 heat an acre.

She receives the first intimation of her husband's jealous suspicions with incredulous astonishment. 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 upon pride or coldness it is the fortitude of a gentle but a strong mind, conscious of its own innocence. 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, combined as they are with the strongest sense of the cruel injustice of her husband, thrill us with admiration 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 favorable. Good my lords,

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 honorable grief lodged here, that burns