277 In Cymbeline, Imogen being accused of infidelity to Poshumus, exclaims : "False to his bed! What is it to be false? When Arviragus enters the cave, bearing Imogen, as if dead, in his arms, Guiderius says: O sweetest, fairest lily! My brother bears thee not the one half so well As when thou grew'st thyself." Belarius exclaims. "O melancholy! Whoever yet could sound thy bottom? find The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare Might easiliest harbour in !. Imogen throws herself on the neck of Poshumus, when he is convinced of his unfounded Jealousy, and he exclaims : What mak'st thou me a dullard in this act? Wilt thou not speak to me? Your blessing, Sir," replies Imogen at his feet. I have quoted the above passages, merely as examples of beauty of style, without reference to the merits of the plays from which they are taken. I have not attempted to paint the heartmoving madness of Ophelia, the resolute love of Juliet, the nature, the affection and the terror of Desdemona, when Othello awakens her and declares his intention of killing her, or the piety, tenderness and generosity which characterise Imogen: in all this the romantic takes place of the tragic, and the picture appeals more forcibly to the senses than to the soul. CLASSIC MODELS. FULL and complete justice being rendered to suavities of pencilling and harmony, I must say that the works of the romantic era gain much in being quoted by extracts. A few pages fertile in beauty are generally interspersed through a mass of barrenness. To read Shakspeare from beginning to end is to fulfil a pious but wearisome duty to departed genius. The cantos of Dante form a rhymed chronicle in which beauty of diction does not always compensate for dulness. The merit of the monuments of classic literature is of a contrary kind. It consists in the perfection of the whole and the just proportion of parts. There is another truth which must likewise be acknowledged. All Shakspeare's young female characters are formed on one model. They are all mere girls, and, setting apart the shades of difference between the characters of daughter, lover, and wife, they all resemble each other as closely as twin sisters; nay, have the same smile, the same look, the same tone of voice. If we could forget their names and close our eyes, we should not know which of them was speaking-their language is more elegiac than dramatic. These charming sketches are like the outlines traced by Raphael, when a figure of celestial beauty suggested itself to his genius: but Raphael converted the sketch into a picture, whilst Shakspeare contented himself with his first unfinished pencillings, and did not always take time to paint. We must not compare the Ossianic shadows of the English stage-those victims so full of tenderness and fortitude, who allowed themselves to be sacrificed like courageous lambswe must not compare the Delias of Tibullus, the Charicleas of Heliodorus with the heroines of the Greek and French drama, who of themselves sustain the whole weight of a tragedy. Happy situations, striking effects, and touches of beauty scattered here and there, are widely different from parts sustained from begining to end with equal superiority, and strongly drawn characters, occupying their proper places in the picture. The Desdemonas, Juliets, Ophelias, Perditas, Cordelias, Mirandas, are not like Antigone, Electra, Iphigenia Phædra, Andromache, Chimene, Roxana, Monimia, Berenice, or Esther, nor can they be compared even with Zaire or Amenaide. A few phrases of deep passion, more or less beautifully expressed in poetic prose, cannot be pronounced equal to the same sentiments clothed in the pure language of the Gods. Let us take for example, Iphigenia's appeal to her father : Peut-être assez d'honneurs environnaient ma vie, Ni qu'en me l'arrachant un sévère destin Si près de ma naissance en eût marqué la fin. Hélas! avec plaisir je me faisais conter D'un triomphe si beau je préparais la fête. And the beautiful lines delivered by Monimia : Si tu m'aimais, Phœdime, il fallait me pleurer, |