good humor of the one, the really fine understanding of the other, and the value they so evidently attach to each other's esteem, will insure them a tolerable portion of domestic felicity, and in this hope we leave them.

ROSALIND.

I COME now to Rosalind whom I should have ranked before Beatrice, inasmuch as a greater degree of her sex's softness and sensibility, united with equal wit and intellect, give her the superiority as a woman; but that as a dramatic character, she is inferior in force. The portrait is one of infinitely more delicacy and variety, but of less strength and depth. It is easy to seize on the prominent features in the mind of Beatrice, but extremely difficult to catch and fix the more fanciful graces of Rosalind. She is like a compound of essences, so volatile in their nature, and so exquisitely blended, that on any attempt to analyze them, they seem to escape us. To what else shall we compare her, all enchanting as she is?-to the silvery summer clouds, which even while we gaze on them, shift their hues and forms, dissolving into air and light, and rainbow showers?-to the May-morning, flush with opening flowers and roseate dews, and "charm of earliest birds?—to some wild and beautiful melody, such as some shepherd boy might pipe to Amarillis in the shade?-to a mountain streaming now smooth as a mirror in which the skies may glass themselves and anon leaping and sparkling in the sunshine-or rather to the very sunshine itself? for so her genial spirit touches into life and beauty whatever it shines on!

But this impression, though produced by the complete development of the character, and in the end possessing the whole fancy, is not immediate. The first introduction of Rosalind is less striking than interesting; we see her a

dependant, almost a captive, in the house of her usurping uncle; her genial spirits are subdued by her situation, and the remembrance of her banished father: her playfulness is under a temporary eclipse.

I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry!

is an adjuration which Rosalind needed not, when once at liberty, and sporting "under the greenwood tree." The sensibility and even pensiveness of her demeanor in the first instance, render her archness and gayety afterwards, more graceful, and more fascinating.

Though Rosalind is a princess, she is a princess of Arcady; and notwithstanding the charming effect produced by her first scenes, we scarcely ever think of her with a reference to them, or associate her with a court, and the artificial appendages of her rank. She was not made to "lord it o'er a fair mansion," and take state upon her like the all-accomplished Portia; but to breathe the free air of heaven, and frolic among green leaves. She was not made to stand the siege of daring profligacy, and oppose high action and high passion to the assaults of adverse fortune, like Isabel; but to" fleet the time carelessly, as they did i' the golden age." She was not made to bandy wit with lords, and tread courtly measures with plumed and warlike cavaliers, like Beatrice; but to dance on the green sward, and " murmur among living brooks a music sweeter than their own." Though sprightliness is the distinguishing characteristic of Rosalind, as of Beatrice, yet we find her much more nearly allied to Portia in temper and intellect. The tone of her mind is, like Portia's, genial and buoyant she has something too of her softness and sentiment: there is the same confiding abandonment of self in her affections; but the characters are otherwise as distinct as the situations are dissimilar. The age, the manners, the circumstance in which Shakspeare has placed his Portia, are not beyond

the bounds of probability; nay, have a certain reality and locality. We fancy her a cotemporary of Titian and Ariosto; the sea-wedded Venice, its merchants, and Magnificos, the Rialto, and the long canals,-rise before us when we think of her. But Rosalind is surrounded with the purely ideal and imaginative; the reality is in the characters and in the sentiments, not in the circumstances or situation. Portia is dignified, splendid and romantic, Rosalind is playful, pastoral and picturesque: both are in the highest degree poetical, but the one is epic and the other lyric.

Every thing about Rosalind breathes of "youth and youth's sweet prime." She is fresh as the morning, sweet as the dew-awakened blossoms, and light as the breeze that plays among them. She is as witty as voluble, as sprightly as Beatrice; but in style altogether distinct. In both, the wit is equally unconscious; but in Beatrice it plays about us like the lightning, dazzling but also alarming; while the wit of Rosalind bubbles up and sparkles like the living fountain, refreshing all around. Her volubility is like the bird's song; it is the outpouring of a heart filled to overflowing with life, love, and joy, and all sweet and affectionate impulses. She has as much tenderness as mirth, and in her most petulant raillery there is a touch of softness-" By this hand it will not hurt a fly!" As her vivacity never lessens our impression of her sensibility, so she wears her masculine attire without the slightest impugnment of her delicacy. Shakspeare did not make the modesty of his women depend on their dress, as we shall see further when we come to Viola and Imogen, Rosalind has in truth" no doublet and hose in her disposition.' How her heart seems to throb and flutter under her page's vest! What depth of love in her passion for Orlando! whether disguised beneath a saucy playfulness,

or breaking forth with a fond impatience, or half betrayed in that beautiful scene where she faints at the sight of the 'kerchief stained with his blood! Here her recovery of her self-possession-her fears lest she should have revealed her sex-her presence of mind, and quick-witted excuse—

I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited

and the characteristic playfulness which seems to return so naturally with her recovered senses,-are all as amusing as consistent. Then how beautifully is the dialogue managed between herself and Orlando! how well she assumes the airs of a saucy page, without throwing off her feminine sweetness! How her wit flutters free as air over every subject! With what a careless grace, yet with what exquisite propriety!

For innocence hath a privilege in her

To dignify arch jests and laughing eyes.

And if the freedom of some of the expressions used by Rosalind or Beatrice be objected to, let it be remembered that this was not the fault of Shakspeare or the women, but generally of the age. Portia, Beatrice, Rosalind, and the rest, lived in times when more importance was attached to things than to words; now we think more of words than of things; and happy are we in these latter days of super-refinement, if we are to be saved by our verbal morality. But this is meddling with the province of the melancholy Jaques, and our argument is Rosalind.

The impression left upon our hearts and minds by the character of Rosalind-by the mixture of playfulness, sensibility, and what the French, (and we for lack of a better expression) call naivete-is like a delicious strain of music. There is a depth of delight, and a subtlety of words to express that delight, which is enchanting. Yet when we call to mind particular speeches and passages,

we find that they have a relative beauty and propriety, which renders it difficult to separate them from the context without injuring their effect. She says some of the most charming things in the world, and some of the most humorous, but we apply them as phrases rather than as maxims, and remember them rather for their pointed felicity of expression and fanciful application, than for their general truth and depth of meaning. I will give a few instances:

I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras' time-that I was an Irish rat-which I can hardly remember.*

Good, my complexion! Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, that I have a doublet and hose in my disposition?

We dwell here on the skirts of a forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Love is merely a madness; and I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too.

A traveller! by my faith, you have great reason to be sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then to have seen much, and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Farewell, Monsieur Traveller. Look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.

Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him on the shoulder, but I warrant him heart-whole.

* In Shakspeare's time there were people in Ireland, (there may be such still, for aught I know,) who undertook to charm rats to death, by chanting certain verses which acted as a spell. 'Rhyme them to death, as they do rats in Ireland," is a line in one of Ben Jonson's comedies: this will explain Rosalind's humorous allusion.