ence on the other, and not a spark of free and intrinsic attachment existing between them. He was a kind-hearted man, was Scott, but he was a thorough aristocrat by birth, education, and habit; and this circumstance cramped his prodigious brain,-like a Chinese foot; for he had somewhat to seek in the fields of social philosophy. Contrasted with the master-feeling of the "Affections" in this play, we are presented with the shocking treachery of the Queen-mother-a character so odious, and even outrageous, as to amount almost to a monstrous anomaly. To my apprehension, there does not appear sufficient ground— in the light even of self-indulgence-for such wholesale, gratuitous wickedness; except, indeed, that there is a principle of evil in the great economy of Nature, and that some dispositions draw their sustenance from, and batten upon, stratagem and murder. In the case, however, of Cymbeline's Queen, Shakespeare has, with his own gentle wisdom, put a characteristic rebuke to her cruelty in the mouth of her physician, Cornelius, whom she has directed to concoct some poison for her. In answer to his inquiry as to her purport in requiring such dangerous compounds, she says she intends trying their effects on “such creatures as we count not worth the hanging." "Your Highness shall from this practice but make hard your heart," is his gentle remonstrance. This is a little effusion of humanity in relief to the savage craft of the murderess. But the whole detail of this woman (although below even a second-rate character) is perfectly consistent. Cymbeline, the King, is an ordinary specimen of humanity, invested with irresponsible power,-weak, wilful, and violent; not, however, unimpressible to the emotion of a generous sentiment; for, in the conclusion, he makes a handsome and natural atonement for his previous folly and misrule. The constitutional imbecility of the man is well manifested in his requiring the counsel of his stupid step-son, Cloten, at وو the conference with the ambassador from Rome; and, with his usual tact, Shakespeare has made the blurting ass most forward in the debate. With the true lout-intellect, he tells the ambassador that they "will not pay tribute to Rome for wearing their own noses. And he closes the audience with this elegant peroration: "His Majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two longer; if you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fail in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you;—and there's an end." This speech accurately tallies with the description of the man afterwards given by old Belarius; who, in his hiding-place in the mountains, recognizes him after years of absence. He says: “By the snatches in his voice, and burst of speaking, it is absolute Cloten." No one like Shakespeare to give the whole of a man's manner in one line. Again, in the opening of the 2d act, a speaking picture of him is presented to us, where he is fuming and fretting, ruffling and vapouring with two courtier lords, after a game at bowls; in which his temper appears to be as bad as his play had been. In the scene with Pisanio (the 5th of the 3d act) we have yet again full insight into the base soul of the man;-and all by concise yet plenary touches, apparently casual and inadvertent, but carefully and closely calculated. He has detected the letter from Posthumus to Pisanio, and taken it from him; he there finds instruction that Imogen shall meet her husband at Milford-Haven. Having then ordered the servant to fetch him a suit of his master's garments, he falls into soliloquy, pondering his ruffianly intention against Imogen. "To the court I'll knock her back, foot her home again. She hath despised me rejoicingly,—and I'll be merry in my revenge." It will be remembered that she had rejected with ladylike dignity his swinish suit to her: "I am much sorry, sir, You put me to forget a lady's manners, By being so verbal and learn now, for all, That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce, And am so near the lack of charity, (To accuse myself) I hate you; which I had rather In alluding to him in an after-part of the play, she says: As fearful as a siege." Lastly, his reputed animal courage is sagaciously accounted for by Belarius, who imputes it to defective judgment. And this is the solution of much of the headlong bravery that we hear of in the world, which, at times, is referable to phlegm and obtuseness of constitution. Cloten is a masterly varied specimen in Shakespeare's class of half-witted characters: he is of the race, yet distinct and original in feature and bearing. One of the lords of the court says of him : “That such a crafty devil as his mother Should yield the world this ass! a woman that This play of Cymbeline, inwoven as it is with the loftiest sentiment, with superb imagery, and with the most condensed truths and worldly axioms, contains yet no scene more fruitful in matter for sedate meditation than the one between Posthumus and his gaoler. Some commentator has remarked that Voltaire himself has nothing comparable to the humorous discussion of the philosophic gaoler in Cymbeline: probably so; but beneath that humour there are speculations calculated to give one pause, and to set one chewing the cud of serious thoughts. Under these quaint and rough exteriors, Shakespeare loved to read his brethren a lesson upon the subject most deeply interesting their future-world inter ests; as Rabelais beautifully compared his own broad and coarse humour-investing worldly knowledge and wisdomto the old-fashioned jars and bottles of the apothecaries, on the exteriors of which they used to paint grotesque figures and uncouth heads, yet within they contained precious unguents and healing balsams. The scene alluded to (v. 4. 150–201) is short, and not introduced on the stage-which it should be. The scenes in which old Belarius and the young princes, Guiderius and Arviragus, his adopted sons, and stolen by him from the king, are engaged, form the sunshine of the play; and their characters and mountain-life afford a bright relief to the court - treacheries, stormy passions, and heartsickness of the other portion. It is palpable that, whenever our poet places his persons under the open canopy of heaven, and in the unchartered wilds of rural nature, whether amid the solemn aisles and shadows brown of monumental oak, or on the crags and heathy slopes of the mountains old and bare, their language always takes a tone consonant with their free and primeval domain :-as witness all the scenes in the forest of Arden, in As You Like It-and so again, in this Cymbeline:-these wild huntsmen talk the finest and the most vivid poetry of them all; and how different is its character and pitch from those of the placid, ruminating shepherds who compose the still-life, as these mountaineers do the romantic and adventurous life, of rudest nature. What vigour is breathed into their every action! and how finely are discriminated the energy, yet cautious circumspection of the old man, and the impetuosity and recklessness of the young and inexperienced ones:- what freshness, and what fancy too, to say nothing of the homely wisdom,-in the sweet uses of their mountain life! "You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman, and But for the end it works to. Come, our stomachs What a superb illustration of the delight of an active employment! But this division of the play absolutely glitters with these drops of heavenly wisdom, like morning-dew upon the scented hawthorn. Again, what lustre and grandeur in Belarius's description of the dispositions in the two youths: "O thou goddess, Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st Yet again, we note the plausible advantage taken by the poet to signalize the old prejudice of instinct of birth, to distinguish the royal blood flowing in the veins of the two princely youths. I do but refer to the advantage taken of the popular prejudice, and have no argument for its physiological accuracy. Nevertheless, there is undeniable truth in the axioms put into the mouth of old Belarius; for instance: "Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base: Again, referring to the youths, he says: "How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature! These boys know little they are the sons of the king, Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. They think they are mine; and though trained up thus meanly I' the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them |