she is willing submissively to endure her lot. "Leaving so his service!" not till with her own fingers she had helped to dig her master's grave! That done, and he buried, "I follow you, so please you entertain me." The warrior bids her "be cheerful and wipe her eyes;" and we can believe that Imogen obeys one half of the injunction-that she does "wipe her eyes;" but as to being "cheerful," never more may a smile visit for a moment that beautiful countenance-though Lucius, looking on it, may believe that his page is happy. To him she is but Fidele; to us-Imogen.

It is wonderful how our pity is never impaired by our knowledge, all the while, that the corpse is not that of Posthumus but Cloten's. Perhaps we forget that it is so; assured ly there is no interruption given to our sympathy; we partake in the same delusion, which is only dispelled at last, to our great relief, by the last words of Lucius,

humus, thy head, which now is growing upon thy shoulders, shall within this hour be off; thy mistress enforced; thy garments cut to pieces before thy face; and all this done, spurn her home to her father, who may, haply, be a little angry for such rough usage." The game of heads is one that two can play at; and Guiderius was first in hand. But why did not Cloten "enforce his mistress" when she was lying in his bosom? Beyond all credibility, she laid herself down in her loveliness even within his very arms. But his courage was cooled-oh! the craven -and he offered not to take even the most innocent little liberty with her peerless person. There was some excuse for his frigidity-why ?-for he had lost not only his heart but his head. 'Tis a pretty piece of retributive justice.

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Like a glory from afar, like a reappearing star,"

But what took him so far from home, and into such salvage places? "Post

The "Winter's Tale" and "Cymbeline," affect us with the same kind of interest. They are kindred creations," alike, but, oh! how different!" They are the two most delightful dramas in the whole world. Add to them, " As you like it," "The Midsummer Night's Dream," and "The Tempest," and you have the "Planetary Five," whom all eyes may worship.

But the "Winter's Tale" and Cymbeline" do each other the most resemble-beginning, middle, and end—and their spirit is beauty.

In each the story opens in a court -courts of no common characterthe Sicilian and the British-but at no given era-or if given, obscurely and uncertainly; as if no chronology had been kept, and history were not even so much as an "old almanack!"

Hermione and Imogen are both of royal state-a queen and a princess. Both are wedded; but the one is a mother and a matron,-the other, though a bride, looks still as if a virgin. But Hermione had once been of as delicate, as fragile form as Imogen, and Imogen in a few years will be as stately and dignified as Her

mione.

Both are suspected-believed by their lords, to be guilty of incontinence-though pure as unfallen snow in its white cloud in heaven. Hermione appeals to the supernal powers, and an oracle proclaims her innocence. Imogen has fallen on still more evil times-and for her the

heavens are mute. The offended majesty of the Sicilian Queen simulates death, and seeks a living tomb. The persecuted simplicity of the British Princess takes refuge from her lord's injustice in a cave of the forest. After many long silent years, Hermione descends, a living statue from its pedestal, and receives her husband into her forgiveness. A few weeks (or but days?) of wild and woeful wandering brings Imogen to the royal tent, and to the bosom of the once more loyal Leonatus. Perdita, a new star, rises in the Sicilian skies-and Guiderius and Arviragus, new twin-stars, are bright in that of Britain.

As nowhere else in all poetry do we so sweetly feel "that lowly shepherd's life is best," as in the pastoral picture of Florizel and Perdita, so nowhere else in all poetry do we so strongly feel the "high life of a hunter," as when we behold those princely boys, Guiderius and Arviragus, bounding along the silvan rocks.

But turn we now to take another farewell look of Desdemona and Cordelia.

an

The tr gentle Desdemona, too," like Imogen, wedded without her father's consent or knowledge; so we believe did Juliet, so did Jessica, and so fain would Perdita have done, and mayhap, had Prospero been unreasonable, even Miranda. Shakspeare is a dangerous author to young ladies who are not orphans. Yet what else could the poor dear innocent affectionate loving young creatures do? Brabantio, that surly old licenser of the press, would never have given his imprimatur to essay on marriage by the Moor. That's flat. Nobody knew that better than his own daughter-and nature never told the "gentle Desdemona" to keep all her gentleness for her sire. None of the " wealthy curled darlings of our nation" had taken her fancy, her feelings, or her heart; but Brabantio, though right in calling her "tender, fair, and happy," was wrong in affirming that her indifference to them proved her to be " opposite to marriage." Iago grossly calls Othello "a black ram," Brabantio speaks with disgust of his "sooty bosom," and mine Ancient afterwards, in Cyprus, again sarcastically speaks of the "Black Othello." All that is very

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well. But not only did Desdemona "Othello's visage in his mind," but his complexion, as long as he kept his temper, does not appear to have been generally thought repulsive. People at large who knew him express no surprise or astonishment at hearing that the noble general had married a beautiful white wifeeven the "divine" Desdemona. The fairest women are seen every day marrying what must always seem to us the ugliest men, and for love, or if not for love, for hatred-a still more unaccountable case. Nor had those ugliest men-as far as we ever heard-seen the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," nor could the most eloquent of them have delivered a speech, composed for the occasion by a literary friend, half as long as Othello's, in the Council Chamber, even with the assistance of copious notes on a paper that, if observed, might appear to be the lining of his hat. Where is the wonder, then, of that happening once on a time in Venice, which is perpetually happening, without one circumstance of alleviation, in London, and Manchester, and Liverpool, and Birmingham, and Bristol, and Edinburgh, and Glasgow (we know a case in Paisley), namely, that an ugly elderly gentleman wins, woos, and wears a beautiful young lady, fresh and fair from a boarding school, and an adept, though a novice " in house affairs?" But in good truth Othello was the finest man of his time-the Captain of the Venetian Six-Feet Club. He was yet in his prime-that is, " somewhat declined into the vale of years, but that not much." No strongbodied, strong-minded, strong-souled, strong-hearted man reaches his true prime till he is turned of forty; and he keeps in it till sixty-being probably at seventy threatened with a small family by a second or third wife. Othello was also, as all the world knows, the most eloquent man of the age-"Rude am I in speech, and little graced with the set phrase of peace!" So Burke used to speak of my poor abilities." But hear the Duke of Venice. "I think this tale would win my daughter too," or any other woman. He was the bravest, and the most victorious, and descended-we chance to know-from

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the kingly line of Gebel el Tuaric. For how many hundred years did the Moors keep marrying-or worse

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Spanish ladies in the Peninsula ? The gentle Desdemona," then, stands acquitted of all blame, in every court of conscience, and honour, and taste in Europe. But Othello was a modest man, and had within him the germs of fear, and doubt, and jeafousy, which, under the infusion of the bitter waters of suspicion poured upon them by the diabolical cunning and malignity of Iago, expanded into a huge hideous flower ten times blacker than the "sooty bosom" in which that deadly nightshade grew

and thence distraction, delirium, danger, despair, and death.

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Iago. O you are well tuned now, But I'll set down the pegs that make this music!"

And that she had imagination, she shewed the Moor "by devouring up his discourse,"

"Wherein of antres vast, and desarts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak.'

Some one has said, that we "think as little of the persons of Shakspeare's heroines as they do themselves, because we are let into the secrets of their hearts, which are more important." The remark is in every way poor. In what great tragic dramas are women nobly "doing or suffering" taken up about their persons? In none; and in all we are let into the secrets of their hearts. But the remark is not true with respect to us. We do think very much of their persons, and so did Shakspeare. And of the persons of none of them all more than Desdemona's.

"Mon. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?

Cas. Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid, That paragons description, and wild fame; One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,

And in the essential vesture of creation, Does bear all excellency."

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"Cas. He has had a most favourable and happy speed: Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,

The gutter'd rocks, and congregated
sands,
Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless
keel,

As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona."

"Cas. The riches of the ship is come on shore!

Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees:

Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven,

"Iago. She is sport for Jove. Cas. She's a most exquisite lady. An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.

She is indeed perfection."

And in what graceful accomplishments befitting her gentle condition did Desdemona not excel?

"Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well."

"So delicate with her needle! An admirable musician! O she will sing the savageness out of a bear! Of so high and plenteous wit and invention !"

Othello himself tells us so the very instant he had said

"Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night!"

On both sides the love was perfect love. On Othello's, high and heroic, and exulting in its guardian power extended like a shield over the blessed object of a new delight. On Desdemona's, pure, profound, devoted, and fearlessly happy, in the pride of having her destiny linked with that glorious alien who was the pride and the prop of the state. Nature made them for each other-though he was sable, and she exceeding fair-his soul made of fire, and hers of the moonlight-and nothing in the common course of nature hindered that through all life long they should be blessed. But power is given to the Prince of the Air to trouble with perplexity and confusion the clearest and the noblest spirits—and he had an earthly minister of his will, a devil in a human shape-(" I look down towards his feet-but that's a fable") -that leered, and sneered, and insinuated, and lied, and whispered Othello into a murderer.

Desdemona's case was a far different one, indeed, from that of either Hermione or Imogen. Hermione had with her all the court. Leontes was furious, but not terrible-his senseless anger wanted the dreadfulness of deadly wrath. His queen was granted a public trial. And nobly she stood up in her own defence. Appeal being made to the Oracle, in her innocence she had nothing to fear. Her dignity was that of a noble nature; and self-support

ed, heaven-acquitted, her very stature seems to rise before our imagination at the reading of the response. No fears have we for her from the beginning to the end of her husband's jealousy-we foresee her triumph. Imogen has not to look on the face of Posthumus while he is

meditating her murder. At hearing of that letter her agony is great-but she soon sees that she has no reason to shudder at Pisanio's sword. Her adventures are wild; but with grief and horror are mingled comfort and peace, and all she meets sympathize with her in her known and unknown affliction. Most beautiful is her character in all her trials; but her very despair seems to fade into melancholy, like mournful music or moonlight. Nothing happens to shake our trust, for a moment, in a happy ending; the fair pilgrim we know well is not to be a martyr; her sufferings are not those of one who is to be herself a sacrifice. But Desdemona! she is seen to be circumvented, almost from the very first change on the Moor's face, with inevitable doom. For a while she herself has no fears, for she knows not of what she is suspected-that she is suspected at all; nor can she be made to comprehend that in Othello's soul there is any evil thought towards her -her innocence being so perfect that she cannot even imagine guilt.

"Emil. Pray heaven, it be state matters, as you think;

And no conception, nor no jealous toy, Concerning you.

Des. Alas, the day! I never gave him

cause.

Emil. But jealous souls will not be answer'd so:

They are not ever jealous for the cause, But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster,

Begot upon itself, born on itself.

Des. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!"

A prayer for him, not for herself-so blind in her simplicity is the most innocent of victims!

to think of the change from the days when first

"She loved him for the dangers he had past,

And he loved her because she pitied them."

Even after she can no longer doubt that." this monster has entered Othello's mind," she feels but for him; and all her demeanour is marked by a "sadder cheer." But still she is happy, so profound is her love. Erelong she becomes very mournful

"If, haply, you my father do suspect, An instrument of this your calling back, Lay not the blame on me!"

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"I hope my noble lord esteems me honest." "Alas! what ignorant sin have I committed!

Oth. What committed? Impudent strumpet!

Des. By heaven! you do me wrong. Oth. Are you not a strumpet? Des. No; as I am a Christian! If to preserve this vessel for my lord, From any other foul unlawful touch, Be-not to be a strumpet, I am none.

Oth. What, not a whore?
Des. No; as I shall be saved!
Oth. Is it possible?

Des. O, heaven forgive us!

Oth. I cry your mercy then.

I

took you for that cunning whore of Venice

That married with Othello."