body has been devoured by the wolves. In the disguise of a mariner, Zinevra then embarks on board a vessel bound to the Levant, and on arriving at Alexandria she is taken into the service of the Sultan of Egypt, under the name of Sicurano. She gains the confidence of her master, who, not suspecting her sex, sends her as captain of the guard which was appointed for the protection of the merchants at the fair of Acre. Here she accidentally meets Ambrogiolo, and sees in his possession the purse and girdle, which she immediately recognizes as her own. In reply to her inquiries, he relates with fiendish exultation the manner in which he had obtained possession of them, and she persuades him to go back with her to Alexandria. She then sends a messenger to Genoa in the name of the Sultan, and induces her husband to come and settle in Alexandria. At a proper opportunity, she summons both to the presence of the Sultan, obliges Ambrogiolo to make a full confession of his treachery, and wrings from her husband the avowal of his supposed murder of herself; then, falling at the feet of the Sultan, discovers her real name and sex, to the great amazement of all. Bernabo is pardoned at the prayer of his wife, and Ambrogiolo is condemned to be fastened to a stake, smeared with honey, and left to be devoured by the flies and locusts. This horrible sentence is executed; while Zinevra, enriched by the presents of the Sultan and the forfeit wealth of Ambrogiolo, returns with her husband to Genoa, where she lives in great honour and happiness, and maintains her reputation of virtue to the end of her life.

These are the materials from which Shakspeare has drawn the dramatic situation of Imogen. He has also endowed her with several of the qualities which are attributed to Zinevra; but for the essential truth and beauty of the individual character, for the sweet colouring of pathos, and sentiment, and poetry interfused through the whole, he is indebted only to nature and himself. . . .

When Ferdinand tells Miranda that she was "created of every creature's best," he speaks like a lover, or refers only to her personal charms: the same expression might be applied critically to the character of Imogen; for, as the portrait of Miranda is produced by resolving the female character into its original elements, so that of Imogen unites the greatest number of those qualities which we imagine to constitute excellency in woman.

Imogen, like Juliet, conveys to our mind the impression. of extreme simplicity in the midst of the most wonderful complexity. To conceive her aright, we must take some peculiar tint from many characters, and so mingle them that, like the combination of hues in a sunbeam, the effect shall be as one to the eye. We must imagine something of the romantic enthusiasm of Juliet, of the truth and constancy of Helen, of the dignified purity of Isabel, of the tender sweetness of Viola, of the self-possession and intellect of Portiacombined together so equally and so harmoniously that we can scarcely say that one quality predominates over the other. But Imogen is less imaginative than Juliet, less spirited and intellectual than Portia, less serious than Helen and Isabel; her dignity is not so imposing as that of Hermione—it stands more on the defensive; her submission, though unbounded, is not so passive as that of Desdemona; and thus, while she resembles each of these characters individually, she stands wholly distinct from all.

It is true that the conjugal tenderness of Imogen is at once the chief subject of the drama and the pervading charm of her character; but it is not true, I think, that she is merely interesting from her tenderness and constancy to her husband. We are so completely let into the essence of Imogen's nature that we feel as if we had known and loved her before she was married to Posthumus, and that her conjugal virtues are a charm superadded, like the colour laid upon a beautiful groundwork. Neither does it appear to me that

Posthumus is unworthy of Imogen, or only interesting on Imogen's account. His character, like those of all the other persons of the drama, is kept subordinate to hers; but this could not be otherwise, for she is the proper subject—the heroine of the poem. Everything is done to ennoble Posthumus and justify her love for him; and though we certainly approve him more for her sake than for his own, we are early prepared to view him with Imogen's eyes, and not only excuse, but sympathize in her admiration of one

"Who sat 'mongst men like a descended god;

Which rare it is to do-most prais'd, most lov'd;
A sample to the youngest, to the more mature
A glass that feated them."

...

One thing more must be particularly remarked, because it serves to individualize the character from the beginning to the end of the poem. We are constantly sensible that Imogen, besides being a 'tender and devoted woman, is a princess and a beauty, at the same time that she is ever superior to her position and her external charms. There is, for instance, a certain airy majesty of deportment—a spirit of accustomed command breaking out every now and thenthe dignity, without the assumption, of rank and royal birth, which is apparent in the scene with Cloten and elsewhere; and we have not only a general impression that Imogen, like other heroines, is beautiful, but the peculiar style and character of her beauty is placed before us. We have an image of the most luxuriant loveliness, combined with exceeding delicacy, and even fragility, of person; of the most refined elegance and the most exquisite modesty, set forth in one or two passages of description; as when Iachimo is contemplating her asleep:

How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets!

5

'T is her breathing that

Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper
Bows toward her, and would underpeep her lids

To see the enclosed lights, now canopied
Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd
With blue of heaven's own tinct!"

The preservation of her feminine character under her masculine attire; her delicacy, her modesty, and her timidity, are managed with the same perfect consistency and unconscious grace as in Viola. And we must not forget that her "neat cookery," which is so prettily eulogized by Guide

rius

"He cut our roots in characters,

And sauc'd our broths, as Juno had been sick,
And he her dieter "-

formed part of the education of a princess in those remote times. . . .

The catastrophe of this play has been much admired for the peculiar skill with which all the various threads of interest are gathered together at last, and entwined with the destiny of Imogen. It may be added that one of its chief beauties is the manner in which the character of Imogen is not only preserved, but rises. upon us to the conclusion with added grace: her instantaneous forgiveness of her husband before he even asks it, when she flings herself at once into his arms

Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?”— and her magnanimous reply to her father, when he tells her that by the discovery of her two brothers she has lost a kingdom

"No-I have got two worlds by 't "

clothing a noble sentiment in a noble image, give the finishing touches of excellence to this most enchanting portrait.

On the whole, Imogen is a lovely compound of goodness, truth, and affection, with just so much of passion and intel

power

lect and poetry as serve to lend to the picture that and glowing richness of effect which it would otherwise have wanted; and of her it might be said, if we could condescend to quote from any other poet with Shakspeare open before us, that "her person was a paradise and her soul the cherub to guard it."*

[From Charles Cowden-Clarke's “Shakespeare-Characters." †]

It is not my purpose to enter upon a discussion of the small dramatic proprieties, as these are observed or ignored in the play of Cymbeline. They who are interested in the rigidities, perhaps the fussiness, of criticism,-who take more pleasure in detecting a lapse in the unity of such a composition as this,—who would rather pride themselves upon exposing a deficiency in its chronology than in displaying its incomparable force and beauty of passion and fancy, of tenderness, imagery, and splendour of language,-are referred to the supplementary notices of the Johnsonian school of criticism. For myself, I care not one straw about the violation of the unities: I am content to be wafted on the wings of the poet's imagination, and to be with him to-day in Rome and to-morrow watching the weary pilgrimage of the divine Imogen towards Milford-Haven. It is enough for me that the play is one of the most romantic and interesting of Shakespeare's dramas; and this we say of every drama of his, as we read them in succession. The romance itself of this story is sublimated by an intensity of passion and heartennobling affection and endurance that I have yet to see excelled. Of all his heroines, no one conveys so fully the ideal of womanly perfection as Imogen. We have full faith in the love and steadfast endurance of Desdemona: we believe that

* Dryden.

From the unpublished "Second Series" of the Shakespeare-Characters (see 2 Hen. IV. p. 18), kindly sent to us by Mrs. Mary Cowden-Clarke for publication here.