sensitive to anxiety and pain for those she loves, as the ill-starred Danish maiden; she too, and with a slighter cause than Ophelia, goes distracted and does herself to death-a death by fire, not the piteous, musical death of Ophelia. Portia is as finely strung as any of Shakspeare's heroines, but she is Cato's daughter and Brutus' wife. With an irresistible appeal to Brutus-not to heaven-she urges her wifely right to share the purposes and the cares of her husband. Let Ophelia keep for her epitaph her brother's words, "sweet rose of May"-a rose borne helplessly down the stream of fate, and muddied at the close; it is inexpressibly piteous. But if we would be proud, not pitiful, let us turn to Portia, Shakspeare's ideal of Stoic virtue enshrined within a woman's frailty, and let us inscribe to her memory the words of Brutus

Portia, the Roman wife, represents one aspect of ideal womanhood in ancient Rome; Volumnia, the Roman mother, completes the ideal. She were a fit wife for Hercules; "in anger, Juno-like." She is indeed like mother Rome herself, as grand, as imperious, as proud of her valiant son. And yet if we compare her action throughout the play with that of Coriolanus, we shall perceive how truly she, like Portia, is first a woman, and only in the second place a Roman mother. With all her haughtiness she has the woman's tact, which Coriolanus lacks, and she instructs him, but in vain, to seem gracious even to the plebeians when it is his interest to conciliate them

These

The great figures of the tragedies, all so familiar to us, admit of no grouping or arrangement, for each is a separate full-length study, and each must be gazed at singly and for a sufficient time. are saviours and martyrs, or else the destroyers of life; Cordelia, the martyr and patron saint of filial truth and devotion, Desdemona, the wife who enters Paradise with a sacred lie upon her lips; and over against these the she-wolves Goneril and Regan; and Lady Macbeth, whose delicate and desperate womanhood is so finely contrasted with the coarser strength and duller conscience of her husband. Apart from the rest, and more wonderful than any other of Shakspeare's heroines, stands Cleopatra

"That southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.”

From an historical point of view we may say, that as Portia and Volumnia represent the virtue and the majesty of Roman womanhood, so Cleopatra represents the sensuous witchery of the East

1

sapping in upon Roman manliness and laying it low. But it is an error to view Cleopatra as representative of an epoch, a class, or an influence; she is Cleopatra, and that is enough; an individual who herself constitutes a whole species; an Eastern star, with none other like it, and ruling the destinies of the lords of the earth.

Of these it is enough to record the mere names, and to let each name bring its own associations. But before ending I must say a word of the contrasted types of womanhood which appear in the latest plays of Shakspeare, some perhaps dreamed of as he wandered among the woods and fields around Stratford, or on the banks of the Avon after his return home from the life of distraction and toil in the great city. Shakspeare had known trial and sorrow, and had conquered them. And now out of his deep experience and his clarified vision of life he creates the figures of great sufferers— Hermione, Queen Katherine, who conquer by patience, fortitude, a spirit of justice and long-suffering; and in contrast with these he imagines exquisite figures of children transfigured, as it were, in the radiance of his own wide and calm sunset-Perdita, Mirandachildren who have known no sorrow, and over whose happiness, the loveliest and the frailest of things, Shakspeare bows with pathetic sympathy, and some of that passion which Shelley describes so accurately

"The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.'

And with what rare felicity Shakspeare varies the common type in his two girl-lovers-Perdita, with the air of the fields around her, shepherdess queen of curds and cream, "the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the greensward," lover of flowers and of all pastoral pleasures; Miranda, the child of wonder, breathing the sea-air of the enchanted island, not nurtured like Perdita among the lads and lasses of the country-side, but instructed by a wonderworking sage, and waited on by a spirit of the air and the hag-born monster, Caliban. Both maidens are flower-like in their delicacy and their fresh beauty-Perdita, a blossom of the inland meadow lands; Miranda, a more wonderful flower of the foam of the sea.

Of all the daughters of his imagination, which did Shakspeare love the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we say one of the latestborn of them all, our English Imogen. And what most clearly shows us how Shakspeare loved Imogen is this-he has given her faults, and has made them exquisite, so that we love her better for their sake. No one has so quick and keen a sensibility to whatever pains and to whatever gladdens as she. To her a word is a blow; and as she is quick in her sensibility, so she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at once through the Queen's false show of friendship; quick in her contempt for what is unworthy, as for all professions of

love from the clown-prince, Cloten; quick in her resentment, as when she discovers the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. Wronged she is indeed by her husband, but in her haste she too grows unjust; yet she is dearer to us for the sake of this injustice, proceeding as it does from the sensitiveness of her love. It is she to whom a word is a blow, who actually receives a buffet from her husband's hand; but for Imogen it is a blessed stroke, since it is the evidence of his loyalty and zeal on her behalf. In a moment he is forgiven, and her arms are round his neck.

Shakspeare made so many perfect women unhappy that he owed us some amende. And he has made that amende by letting us see one perfect woman supremely happy. Shall our last glance at Shakspeare's plays show us Florizel at the rustic merry-making receiving blossoms from the hands of Perdita ? or Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess in Prospero's cave, and winning one a king. and one a queen, while the happy fathers gaze in from the entrance of the cave? We can see a more delightful sight than theseImogen with her arms around the neck of Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joy by the playful challenge and mock reproach

"Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock, and now
Throw me again ;"

We shall find in all Shakspeare no more blissful creatures than

these two.

EDWARD DOWDEN.

PRESENT LOW PRICES AND THEIR

CAUSES.

THE

HE question of price is, of course, a complicated one, because many things may operate to affect the price of any given article, or of articles generally. You may have fluctuations of supply and variations of demand affecting the articles themselves, and arising merely out of commercial causes.

But you may have changes arising from political events, which may affect supply and demand, not only of articles bought and sold, but also of the money in which price is calculated. Thus, for instance, it can hardly be doubted that the last Franco-German War caused an extraordinary demand for gold, and forced on the market an unusual supply of silver, which had a marked effect on its value in Europe. Other causes inherent in the business of mining affect the supply and demand of gold and silver, as the discovery of new mines or the working-out of old ones, or the increased cost of working mines, and thus prices must be affected by the supply and demand of the precious metals.

But the state of credit also affects prices seriously. A rapid creation of paper money without a due security in bullion may have a powerful influence, and so may credit in other forms. A state of speculation may cause great demand for various articles, and a state of panic and alarm may force excessive supplies on the markets. Thus it is clear that any analysis of a rise or fall in prices is far from easy, and can probably at the best be only approximate and tentative, however careful may be the endeavour to give due relative weight to the various agencies which affect the transactions of mankind.

In January 1879, Mr. Giffen read before the Statistical Society a remarkable paper as to the then condition of prices. He pointed

out how general and how important had been the fall which had then taken place, and he ventured on a prophecy of a continued and increased depression, giving also a statement of causes, including amongst them a comparative scarcity of gold, which he considered was an ascertained fact. Six years have passed, and recent phenomena as to prices are so curious and important that I have ventured to think that many readers, even of this Review, may be interested by a consideration of these events and their probable causes.

A comparison in figures of the prices as given in his tables and of the prices of the same articles six years later will bring before the reader the present situation more impressively than any other mode of statement. It will suffice to give the most important articles of commerce.

Table of prices in January 1879, and in January 1885, of several

There is not here a general fall, and the serious fall did not arise until the year 1884.

It seems to be impossible to understand the causes of the present fall without a consideration of other similar changes which have occurred in years long past. The fluctuations during the past century have been very remarkable, and we had several serious falls of price, which lasted through considerable periods, even before any great changes in the supply of the precious metals had occurred.

Some of us can recollect the depression of 1849, and the dread which soon after that arose lest the discoveries of gold should so alter the value of the standard that all holders of fixed incomes VOL. XLVII.