sally; it has suffered toc much. At | characters are necessary to sustain last the gravedigger comes with executioners, a coffin, and they sing before ner a funeral dirge:

"Duchess. Farewell, Cariola.

I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy
Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl
Say her prayers ere she sleep.-Now, what
you please:

What death?

these terrible dramas. All these per sonages are ready for extreme acts, their resolves break forth like blows of a sword; we follow, meet at every change of scene their glowing eyes, wan lips, the starting of their muscles, the tension of their whole frame. Their powerful will contracts their violent

Bosola. Strangling; here are your execu- hands, and their accumulated passion

tioners.

breaks out in th inder-bolts, which tear
their own hearts.
and ravage all around them, and in
We know them, the
heroes of this tragic population, Iago,
Richard III., Lady Macbeth, Othello,
Coriolanus, Hotspur, full of genius,

After the mistress the maid; the latter courage, desire, generally mad or crim

cries and struggles:

"Cariola. I will not die; I must not;

contracted

To a young gentleman.

I am

inal, always self-driven to the tomb. There are as many around Shakspeare as in his own works. Let me exhibit one character more, written by the No one,

1st Executioner. Here's your wedding- same dramatist, Webster. ring.

C. If you kill me now,

I am damn'd, I have not been at confession
This two years.

B. When?t

C. I am quick with child." +

They strangle her also, and the two
children of the duchess. Antonio is
assassinated; the cardinal and his mis-
tress, the duke and his confidant, are
poisoned or butchered; and the solemn
words of the dying, in the midst of this
butchery, utter, as from funereal trum-
pets, a general curse upon existence :
"We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves,
That, ruin'd yield no echo. Fare you well...
O, this gloomy world!
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! "§

In all our quest of greatness,
Like wanton boys, whose pastime is their

care,

We follow after bubbles blown in the air.

Pleasure of life, what is't? only the good

except Shakspeare, has seen further into the depths of diabolical and unchained nature. The "White Devil' is the name which he gives to his heroine. His Vittoria Corombona receives as her lover the Duke of Brachiano, and at the first interview dreams of the issue:

"To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace A dream I had last night."

It is certainly well related, and still bet ter chosen, of deep meaning and very clear import. Her brother Flaminio says, aside:

"Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream

To make away his duchess and her hus band."

So, her husband, Camillo, is strangled, the Duchess poisoned, and Vittoria, before the tribunal. Step by step, like accused of the two crimes, is brought a soldier brought to bay with his back Whether we fall by ambition, biood, or lust, futing and defying judges and advo against a wall, she defends herself, re

hours

Of an ague; merely a preparative to rest,
To endure vexation....

Like diamonds, we are cut with our own

dust."

cates incapable of blenching or quailinsults and proofs, even menaced with ing, clear in mind, ready in word, amid death on the scaffold. The advocate

begins to speak in Latin.

"Vittoria. Pray my lord, let him speak his usual tongue;

I'll make no answer else.

* Vittoria Corombona, i. a·

Francis de Medicis. Why, you under- | she will not weep. She goes off erect

They condemn her to be shut up in a Cordelia, Imogen; but they abound

The sarcasm comes home like a sword-where. The two natures go each to thrust; then another behind it; then cries and curses. She will not bend,

ts extreme in the one to boldness, the | room.* Domestic life and obedience spirit of enterprise and resistance, the are more easy to them. More pliant warlike, imperious, and unpolished and more sedentary, they are at the character; in the other to sweetness, same time more concentrated and in devotion, patience, inextinguishable af- trospective, more disposed to follow fection, a thing unknown in distant the noble dream called duty, which is lands, in France especially so: a wo- hardly generated in mankind but by man in England gives herself without silence of the senses. They are not Irawing back, and places her glory and tempted by the voluptuous sweetress duty in obedience, forgiveness, adora- which in southern countries is breath. ion, wishing and professing only to be ed out in the climate, in the sky a melted and absorbed daily deeper and the general spectacle of things; which deeper in him whom she has freely and dissolves every obstacle, which causes forever chosen.† It is this, an old privation to be looked upon as a snare German instinct, which these great and virtue as a theory. They can rest painters of instinct diffuse here, one content with dull sensations, dispense and all: Penthea, Dorothea, in Ford with excitement, endure weariness; and and Greene; Isabella and the Duchess in this monotony of a regulated exist of Malfi, in Webster; Bianca, Ordella, ence, fall back upon themselves, obey Arethusa, Juliana, Euphrasia, Amoret, a pure idea, employ all the strength and others, in Beaumont and Fletcher of their hearts in maintaining their there are a score of them who, under moral dignity. Thus supported by inthe severest tests and the strongest nocence and conscience, they introduce temptations, display this wonderful into love a profound and upright senpower of self-abandonment and devo- timent, abj coquetry, vanity, and tion. The soul, in this race, is at flirtation: tney do not lie nor simper. once primitive and serious. Women When they love, they are not tasting keep their purity longer than elsewhere. a forbidden fruit, but are binding them They lose respect less quickly; weigh selves for their whole life. Thus unworth and characters less suddenly: derstood, love becomes almost a holy they are less apt to think evil, and to thing; the spectator no longer wishes take the measure of their husbands. to be spiteful or to jest; women do not To this day, a great lady, accustomed think of their own happiness, but of to company, blushes in the presence of that of the loved ones; they aim no! an unknown man, and feels bashful at pleasure, but at devotion. Euphralike a little girl: the blue eyes are sia, relating her history to Philaster., dropt, and a child-like shame flies to says: her rosy cheeks. English women have not the smartness, the boldness of ideas, the assurance of bearing, the precocity, which with the French make of a young girl, in six months, a woman of intrigue and the queen of a drawing

Hence the happiness and strength of the narriage tie. In France it is but an association two comrades, tolerably alike and tolerably equal, which gives se to endless disturbance ind bickering.

+ See the representation of this character hroughout English and German literature. Steudhal, an acute observer, saturated with Italian and French morals and ideas, is astonished at this phenomenon. He understands nothing of this kind of devotion, "this slavery which English husbands have had the wit to impose on their wives under the name of duty." These are "the manners of a seraglio." See also Corinne, by Madame de Staël.

"My father oft would speak
Your worth and virtue; and, as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so prais'd; but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing, to be lost
As soon as found; till sitting in my window.
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
I thought, (but it was you) enter our gates.
My blood flew out, and back again as fast,
As I had puff'd it forth and suck'd it in
Like breath: Then was I call'd away
haste

To entertain you. Never was a man,
Heav'd from a sheep-cote to a sceptre, rais'd
So high in thoughts as I: You left a kiss
Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep
From you for ever. I did hear you talk,
Far above singing! After you were gc,
I grew acquainted with my heart, and
search'd

What stirr'd t so: Alas! I found it love;

*See, by way of contrast, all Molière's ! Louison.

A perfect woman already: meek and pa- women, so French; even Agnes and little

tient.

HEYWOOD

Yet far from lust; for could I but have liv'd | There is no diference twixt your birth and In presence of you I had had my end."

She had disguised herself as a page, followed him, was his servant; what greater happiness for a woman than to serve on her knees the man she loves? She let him scold her, threaten her with death, wound her.

* Beaumont and Fletcher, Works, ed. G.Col- of the Inn, iv. man, 3 vols., 1811, Philaster, v. + Like Kaled in Byron's Lara. 1 Philaster, iv.

0. I do. T. And | from duty or submission, allow thein selves to be married, while their heart belongs to another. They are not re signed, do not recover, like Pauline in Polyeucte. They are crushed to death. Penthea, in Ford's Broken Heart, is as upright, but not so strong, as Pauline; she is the English wife, not the Roma::. stoical and calm.* She despairs, sweetly, silently, and pines to death In her innermost heart she holds herself married to him to whom she has

• Thierry and Theodoret, iv. I. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Trag in Molière. dy, i