last fragment, Henry VIII., and makes us believe that this twice-repeated reunion of husband and wife, in their daughter, late in life, this twice-repeated forgiveness of sinning husbands by sinnd-against wives, have somewhat to do with Shakspere's reunion with his wife, and his renewd family life at Stratford. The Fourth-Period melody is heard all through the play. We see, too, in The Winter's Tale the contrast between court and country that The Tempest and Cymbeline showd us. Plenty of other links there are, of which we will note only two: First, one like the sword line at the end of Lear and Othello, "Slander, whose sting is sharper than the sword's" (Winter's Tale, ii. 3. 85); "Slander, whose edge is sharper than the sword" (Cymbeline, iii. 4. 35); and second, the clown's clothes making the gentleman - born in Winter's Tale, and Cloten's "Know'st thou me not by my clothes?" In The Tempest we have a storm as here, while our play is linkt to Othello by the king's monomaniacal jealousy being like Othello's, though here it is self-suggested, not from without by an Iago. Paulina here is a truer Emilia : she steals no handkerchief: but the ladies are alike in their love for their mistresses, and in their violent indignation, so well-deservd, against their masters. The pretty picture of the two kings' early friendship, which reminds us of those of Celia and Rosalind in As You Like It, and of Hermia and Helena in the Dream,* is soon broken down by the monomania of Leontes's jealousy, and the disgracefulness of his talking to his boy Mamillius about his wife's supposd adultery. His attempt to get Camillo to poison Polixenes is more direct than even John's with Hubert to murder Arthur, Richard's with Tyrrel to strangle the innocents, Henry the Fourth's with Exton to clear Richard the Second from his path. His sending his guiltless daughter to her death, and his insistence on his wife's guilt and trial, *Note the likeness of Hermione's how pretence of love will manage wives, to that of Luciana in the Errors. are almost madness too. But his repentance, like Posthumus's, comes at last, and is, we hope, as real. At any rate, he gets the benefit of Shakspere's Fourth-Period mood, which has restord to him the wife and daughter whom he never deservd. Hermione is, I suppose, the most magnanimous and noble of Shakspere's women; without a fault, she suffers, and for sixteen years, as if for the greatest fault. If we contrast her noble defence of herself against the shameless imputation on her honour, with the conduct of earlier women in like case, the faltering words and swoon of Hero, the few ill-starrd sentences of Desdemona, saying just what would worst inflame her husband's wrath, the pathetic appeal and yet submission of Imogen, we see how splendidly Shakspere has developt in his last great creation. And when Camillo's happy suggestion that Florizel should take Perdita to Sicily and Leontes has borne fruit, and Shakspere-forced to narrative, as in the news of Lear to Cordelia-unites father and daughter, and then brings both into union before us with the mother thought so long a corpse and still a stone, the climax of pathos and delight is reacht: art can no farther go. Combind with this noble, suffering figure of Hermione, and her long-sunderd married life, is the sweet picture of Perdita's and Florizel's love and happy future. Shakspere shows us more of Perdita than of Miranda; and heavenly as the innocence of Miranda was, we yet feel that Perdita comes to us with a sweeter, more earthlike charm, though not less endowd with all that is pure and holy, than her sister of the imaginary Mediterranean isle. On these two sweet English girls, bright with the radiance of youth and love, the mind delights to linger, and does so with happiness, while sadness haunts the recollection of Shakspere's first great girl-figure Juliet, beautiful in different kind. Not only do we see Shakspere's freshness of spirit in his production of Perdita, but also in his creation of Autolycus. That, at the close of his dramatic life, after all the troubles he had passt through, Shakspere had yet the youngness of heart to bubble out into this merry rogue, the incarnation of fun and rascality, and let him sail off successful and unharmd, is wonderful. And that there is no diminution of his former comic power is shown, too, in his clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man. |