HELENA.

Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,O any thing, of nothing first create!O heavy lightness, serious vanity,Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes;Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lover's tears.

Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,O any thing, of nothing first create!O heavy lightness, serious vanity,Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes;Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lover's tears.

But when once he has beheld Juliet, and quaffed intoxicating draughts of hope and love from her soft glance, how all these airy fancies fade before the soul-absorbing reality! The lambent fire that played round his heart, burns to that heart's very core. We no longer find him adorning his lamentations in picked phrases, or making a confidant of his gay companions: he is no longer "for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in;" but all is consecrated, earnest, rapturous, in the feeling and the expression. Compare, for instance, the sparkling antithetical passages just quoted, with one or two of his passionate speeches to or of Juliet:—

Heaven is here,Where Juliet lives! &c.Ah Juliet! if the measure of thy joyBe heaped like mine, and that thy skill be moreTo blazon it, then sweeten with thy breathThis neighbour air, and let rich music's tongueUnfold the imagin'd happiness, that bothReceive in either by this dear encounter.Come what sorrow may,It cannot countervail the exchange of joyThat one short minute gives me in her sight.

Heaven is here,Where Juliet lives! &c.

Ah Juliet! if the measure of thy joyBe heaped like mine, and that thy skill be moreTo blazon it, then sweeten with thy breathThis neighbour air, and let rich music's tongueUnfold the imagin'd happiness, that bothReceive in either by this dear encounter.

Come what sorrow may,It cannot countervail the exchange of joyThat one short minute gives me in her sight.

How different! and how finely the distinction is drawn! His first passion is indulged as a waking dream, a reverie of the fancy; it is depressing, indolent, fantastic; his second elevates him to the third heaven, or hurries him to despair. It rushesto its object through all impediments, defies all dangers, and seeks at last a triumphant grave, in the arms of her he so loved. Thus Romeo's previous attachment to Rosaline is so contrived as to exhibit to us another variety in that passion, which is the subject of the poem, by showing us the distinction between the fancied and the real sentiment. It adds a deeper effect to the beauty of Juliet; it interests us in the commencement for the tender and romantic Romeo; and gives an individual reality to his character, by stamping him like an historical, as well as a dramatic portrait, with the very spirit of the age in which he lived.[25]

It may be remarked of Juliet as of Portia, that we not only trace the component qualities in each as they expand before us in the course of the action, but we seem to have known them previously, and mingle a consciousness of their past, with the interest of their present and their future. Thus, in the dialogue between Juliet and her parents, and in the scenes with the Nurse, we seem to have before us the whole of her previous education and habits: we see her, on the one hand, kept in severe subjection by her austere parents; and on the other, fondled and spoiled by a foolish old nurse—a situation perfectly accordant with the manners of the time. Then Lady Capulet comes sweeping by with her train of velvet, her black hood, her fan,and her rosary—the verybeau-idéalof a proud Italian matron of the fifteenth century, whose offer to poison Romeo in revenge for the death of Tybalt, stamps her with one very characteristic trait of the age and country. Yet she loves her daughter; and there is a touch of remorseful tenderness in her lamentation over her, which adds to our impression of the timid softness of Juliet, and the harsh subjection in which she has been kept:—

But one, poor one!—one poor and loving child,But one thing to rejoice and solace in,And cruel death hath catched it from my sight!

Capulet, as the jovial, testy old man, the self willed, violent, tyrannical father,—to whom his daughter is but a property, the appanage of his house, and the object of his pride,—is equal as a portrait: but both must yield to the Nurse, who is drawn with the most wonderful power and discrimination. In the prosaic homeliness of the outline, and the magical illusion of the coloring, she reminds us of some of the marvellous Dutch paintings, from which, with all their coarseness, we start back as from a reality. Her low humor, her shallow garrulity, mixed with the dotage and petulance of age—her subserviency, her secrecy, and her total want of elevated principle, or even common honesty—are brought before us like a living and palpable truth.

Among these harsh and inferior spirits is Juliet placed; her haughty parents, and her plebeiannurse, not only throw into beautiful relief her own native softness and elegance, but are at once the cause and the excuse of her subsequent conduct. She trembles before her stern mother and her violent father: but, like a petted child, alternately cajoles and commands her nurse. It is her old foster-mother who is the confidante of her love. It is the woman who cherished her infancy, who aids and abets her in her clandestine marriage. Do we not perceive how immediately our impression of Juliet's character would have been lowered, if Shakspeare had placed her in connection with any common-place dramatic waiting-woman?—even with Portia's adroit Nerissa, or Desdemona's Emilia? By giving her the Nurse for her confidante, the sweetness and dignity of Juliet's character are preserved inviolate to the fancy, even in the midst of all the romance and wilfulness of passion.

The natural result of these extremes of subjection and independence, is exhibited in the character of Juliet, as it gradually opens upon us. We behold it in the mixture of self-will and timidity, of strength and weakness, of confidence and reserve, which are developed as the action of the play proceeds. We see it in the fond eagerness of the indulged girl, for whose impatience the "nimblest of the lightning-winged loves" had been too slow a messenger; in her petulance with her nurse; in those bursts of vehement feeling, which prepare us for the climax of passion at the catastrophe; in herinvectives against Romeo, when she hears of the death of Tybalt; in her indignation when the nurse echoes those reproaches, and the rising of her temper against unwonted contradiction:—

NURSE.Shame come to Romeo!JULIET.Blistered be thy tongue,For such a wish! he was not born to shame.

NURSE.

Shame come to Romeo!

JULIET.

Blistered be thy tongue,For such a wish! he was not born to shame.

Then comes that revulsion of strong feeling, that burst of magnificent exultation in the virtue and honor of her lover:—

Uponhisbrow Shame is ashamed to sit,For 'tis a throne where Honor may be crown'dSole monarch of the universal earth!

And this, by one of those quick transitions of feeling which belong to the character, is immediately succeeded by a gush of tenderness and self-reproach—

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it?

With the same admirable truth of nature, Juliet is represented as at first bewildered by the fearful destiny that closes round her; reverse is new and terrible to one nursed in the lap of luxury, and whose energies are yet untried.

Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagemsUpon so soft a subject as myself.

While a stay remains to her amid the evils that encompass her, she clings to it. She appeals to her father—to her mother—

Good father, I beseech you on my knees,Hear me with patience but to speak one word!* * * *Ah, sweet my mother, cast me not away!Delay this marriage for a month,—a week!

Good father, I beseech you on my knees,Hear me with patience but to speak one word!

* * * *

Ah, sweet my mother, cast me not away!Delay this marriage for a month,—a week!

And, rejected by both, she throws herself upon her nurse in all the helplessness of anguish, of confiding affection, of habitual dependence—

O God! O nurse! how shall this be prevented?Some comfort, nurse!

The old woman, true to her vocation, and fearful lest her share in these events should be discovered, counsels her to forget Romeo and marry Paris; and the moment which unveils to Juliet the weakness and baseness of her confidante, is the moment which reveals her to herself. She does not break into upbraidings; it is no moment for anger; it is incredulous amazement, succeeded by the extremity of scorn and abhorrence, which take possession of her mind. She assumes at once and asserts all her own superiority, and rises to majesty in the strength of her despair.

JULIET.Speakest thou from thy heart?NURSE.Aye, and from my soul too;—or elseBeshrew them both!JULIET.Amen!

JULIET.

Speakest thou from thy heart?

NURSE.

Aye, and from my soul too;—or elseBeshrew them both!

JULIET.

Amen!

This final severing of all the old familiar ties of her childhood—

Go, counsellor!Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain!

and the calm, concentrated force of her resolve,

If all else fail,—myself have power to die;

have a sublime pathos. It appears to me also an admirable touch of nature, considering the master-passion which, at this moment, rules in Juliet's soul, that she is as much shocked by the nurse's dispraise of her lover, as by her wicked, time-serving advice.

This scene is the crisis in the character; and henceforth we see Juliet assume a new aspect. The fond, impatient, timid girl, puts on the wife and the woman: she has learned heroism from suffering, and subtlety from oppression. It is idle to criticize her dissembling submission to her father and mother; a higher duty has taken place of that which she owed to them; a more sacred tie has severed all others. Her parents are pictured asthey are, that no feeling for them may interfere in the slightest degree with our sympathy for the lovers. In the mind of Juliet there is no struggle between her filial and her conjugal duties, and there ought to be none. The Friar, her spiritual director, dismisses her with these instructions:—

Go home,—be merry,—give consentTo marry Paris;

and she obeys him. Death and suffering in every horrid form she is ready to brave, without fear or doubt, "to live an unstained wife:" and the artifice to which she has recourse, which she is even instructed to use, in no respect impairs the beauty of the character; we regard it with pain and pity; but excuse it, as the natural and inevitable consequence of the situation in which she is placed. Nor should we forget, that the dissimulation, as well as the courage of Juliet, though they spring from passion, are justified by principle:—

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;How shall my faith return again to earth,Unless that husband send it me from heaven?

In her successive appeals to her father, her mother, her nurse, and the Friar, she seeks those remedies which would first suggest themselves to a gentle and virtuous nature, and grasps her dagger only as the last resource against dishonor and violated faith;—

God join'd my heart with Romeo's,—thou our hands.And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,Shall be the label to another deed,Or my true heart with treacherous revoltTurn to another,—thisshall slay them both!

Thus, in the very tempest and whirlwind of passion and terror, preserving, to a certain degree, that moral and feminine dignity which harmonizes with our best feelings, and commands our unreproved sympathy.

I reserve my remarks on the catastrophe, which demands separate consideration; and return to trace from the opening, another and distinguishing trait in Juliet's character.

In the extreme vivacity of her imagination, and its influence upon the action, the language, the sentiments of the drama, Juliet resembles Portia; but with this striking difference. In Portia, the imaginative power, though developed in a high degree, is so equally blended with the other intellectual and moral faculties, that it does not give us the idea of excess. It is subject to her nobler reason; it adorns and heightens all her feelings; it does not overwhelm or mislead them. In Juliet, it is rather a part of her southern temperament, controlling and modifying the rest of her character; springing from her sensibility, hurried along by her passions, animating her joys, darkening her sorrows, exaggerating her terrors, and, in the end, overpowering her reason. With Juliet, imagination is, in the first instance, if not the source, themedium of passion; and passion again kindles her imagination. It is through the power of imagination that the eloquence of Juliet is so vividly poetical; that every feeling, every sentiment comes to her, clothed in the richest imagery, and is thus reflected from her mind to ours. The poetry is not here the mere adornment, the outward garnishing of the character; but its result, or rather blended with its essence. It is indivisible from it, and interfused through it like moonlight through the summer air. To particularize is almost impossible, since the whole of the dialogue appropriated to Juliet is one rich stream of imagery: she speaks in pictures and sometimes they are crowded one upon another—thus in the balcony scene—

I have no joy of this contract to-night:It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,Too like the lightning which doth cease to beEre one can say it lightens.This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

I have no joy of this contract to-night:It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,Too like the lightning which doth cease to beEre one can say it lightens.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Again,

O for a falconer's voiceTo lure this tassel-gentle back again!Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud,Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mineWith repetition of my Romeo's name.

Here there are three images in the course of sixlines. In the same scene, the speech of twenty-two lines, beginning,

Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,

contains but one figurative expression,the mask of night; and every one reading this speech with the context, must have felt the peculiar propriety of its simplicity, though perhaps without examining the cause of an omission which certainly is not fortuitous. The reason lies in the situation and in the feeling of the moment; where confusion, and anxiety, and earnest self-defence predominate, the excitability and play of the imagination would be checked and subdued for the time.

In the soliloquy of the second act, where she is chiding at the nurse's delay:—

O she is lame! Love's heralds should be thoughts,That ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,Driving back shadows over low'ring hills:Therefore do nimble-pinioned doves draw Love,And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings!

How beautiful! how the lines mount and float responsive to the sense! She goes on—

Had she affections, and warm youthful blood,She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;My words should bandy her to my sweet love,And his to me!

The famous soliloquy, "Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds," teems with luxuriant imagery. The fond adjuration, "Come night! come Romeo!comethou day in night!" expresses that fulness of enthusiastic admiration for her lover, which possesses her whole soul; but expresses it as only Juliet could or would have expressed it,—in a bold and beautiful metaphor. Let it be remembered, that, in this speech, Juliet is not supposed to be addressing an audience, nor even a confidante; and I confess I have been shocked at the utter want of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a spirit of prudery, yet more gross and perverse, have dared to comment on this beautiful "Hymn to the Night," breathed out by Juliet in the silence and solitude of her chamber. She is thinking aloud; it is the young heart "triumphing to itself in words." In the midst of all the vehemence with which she calls upon the night to bring Romeo to her arms, there is something so almost infantine in her perfect simplicity, so playful and fantastic in the imagery and language, that the charm of sentiment and innocence is thrown over the whole; and her impatience, to use her own expression, is truly that of "a child before a festival, that hath new robes and may not wear them." It is at the very moment too that her whole heart and fancy are abandoned to blissful anticipation, that the nurse enters with the news of Romeo's banishment; and the immediate transition from rapture to despair has a most powerful effect.

It is the same shaping spirit of imagination which, in the scene with the Friar, heaps together all images of horror that ever hung upon a troubled dream.

O bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,From off the battlements of yonder tower,Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurkWhere serpents are—chain me with roaring bears,Or shut me nightly in a charnel-houseO'ercovered quite with dead men's rattling bones;Or bid me go into a new made grave;Or hide me with a dead man in his shroud;—Things that to hear them told have made me tremble

But she immediately adds,—

And I will do it without fear or doubt,To live an unstained wife to my sweet love!

In the scene where she drinks the sleeping potion, although her spirit does not quail, nor her determination falter for an instant, her vivid fancy conjures up one terrible apprehension after another, till gradually, and most naturally in such a mind once thrown off its poise, the horror rises to frenzy—her imagination realizes its own hideous creations, and sheseesher cousin Tybalt's ghost.[26]

In particular passages this luxuriance of fancy may seem to wander into excess. For instance,—

O serpent heart, hid with a flowery face!Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!Dove-feather'd raven! wolfish ravening lamb, &c.

Yet this highly figurative and antithetical exuberance of language is defended by Schlegel on strong and just grounds; and to me also it appears natural, however critics may argue against its taste or propriety.[27]The warmth and vivacity of Juliet's fancy, which plays like a light over every part of her character—which animates every line she utters—which kindles every thought into a picture, and clothes her emotions in visible images, would naturally, under strong and unusual excitement, and in the conflict of opposing sentiments, run into some extravagance of diction.[28]

With regard to the termination of the play, whichhas been a subject of much critical argument, it is well known that Shakspeare, following the old English versions, has departed from the original story of Da Porta;[29]and I am inclined to believethat Da Porta, in making Juliet waken from her trance while Romeo yet lives, and in his terrible final scene between the lovers, has himself departed from the old tradition, and, as a romance, has certainly improved it; but that which is effective in a narrative, is not always calculated for the drama, and I cannot but agree with Schlegel, that Shakspeare has done well and wisely in adhering to the old story. Can we doubt for a moment that he who has given us the catastrophe of Othello, and the tempest scene in Lear, might also have adopted these additional circumstances of horror in the fate of the lovers, and have so treated them as to harrow up our very soul—had it been his object to do so? But apparently it wasnot. The tale is one,

Such as, once heard, in gentle heart destroysAll pain but pity.

It is in truth a tale of love and sorrow, not of anguish and terror. We behold the catastrophe afar off with scarcely a wish to avert it. Romeo and Julietmustdie; their destiny is fulfilled; they have quaffed off the cup of life, with all its infinite of joys and agonies, in one intoxicating draught. What have they to do more upon this earth?Young, innocent, loving and beloved, they descend together into the tomb: but Shakspeare has made that tomb a shrine of martyred and sainted affection consecrated for the worship of all hearts,—not a dark charnel vault, haunted by spectres of pain, rage, and desperation. Romeo and Juliet are pictured lovely in death as in life; the sympathy they inspire does not oppress us with that suffocating sense of horror, which in the altered tragedy makes the fall of the curtain a relief; but all pain is lost in the tenderness and poetic beauty of the picture. Romeo's last speech over his bride is not like the raving of a disappointed boy: in its deep pathos, its rapturous despair, its glowing imagery, there is the very luxury of life and love. Juliet, who had drunk off the sleeping potion in a fit of frenzy, wakes calm and collected—

I do remember well where I should be,And there I am—Where is my Romeo?

The profound slumber in which her senses have been steeped for so many hours has tranquillized her nerves, and stilled the fever in her blood; she wakes "like a sweet child who has been dreaming of something promised to it by its mother," and opens her eyes to ask for it—

... Where is my Romeo?

she is answered at once,—

Thy husband in thy bosom here lies dead.

This is enough: she sees at once the whole horror of her situation—she sees it with a quiet and resolved despair—she utters no reproach against the Friar—makes no inquiries, no complaints, except that affecting remonstrance—

O churl—drink all, and leave no friendly dropTo help me after!

All that is left to her is to die, and she dies. The poem, which opened with the enmity of the two families, closes with their reconciliation over the breathless remains of their children; and no violent, frightful, or discordant feeling is suffered to mingle with that soft impression of melancholy left within the heart, and which Schlegel compares to one long, endless sigh.

"A youthful passion," says Goëthe, (alluding to one of his own early attachments,) "which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell for a moment, with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls—it bursts—consuming and destroying all around, even as itself expires."

To conclude: love, considered under its poetical aspect, is the union of passion and imagination and accordingly, to one of these, or to both, all the qualities of Juliet's mind and heart (unfolding and varying as the action of the drama proceeds) maybe finally traced; the former concentrating all those natural impulses, fervent affections and high energies, which lend the character its internal charm, its moral power and individual interest: the latter diverging from all those splendid and luxuriant accompaniments which invest it with its external glow, its beauty, its vigor, its freshness, and its truth.

With all this immense capacity of affection and imagination, there is a deficiency of reflection and of moral energy arising from previous habit and education: and the action of the drama, while it serves to develope the character, appears but its natural and necessary result. "Le mystère de l'existence," said Madame de Staël to her daughter, "c'est le rapport de nos erreurs avec nos peines."

In the character of Juliet we have seen the passionate and the imaginative blended in an equal degree, and in the highest conceivable degree as combined with delicate female nature. In Helena we have a modification of character altogether distinct; allied, indeed, to Juliet as a picture of fervent, enthusiastic, self-forgetting love, but differing wholly from her in other respects; for Helen is the union of strength of passion with strength of character.

"To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity."[30]Such a character, almost as difficult to delineate in fiction as to find in real life, has Shakspeare given us in Helena; touched with the most soul-subduing pathos, and developed with the most consummate skill.

Helena, as a woman, is more passionate than imaginative; and, as a character, she bears the same relation to Juliet that Isabel bears to Portia. There is equal unity of purpose and effect, with much less of the glow of imagery and the external coloring of poetry in the sentiments, language, and details. It is passion developed under its most profound and serious aspect; as in Isabella, we have the serious and the thoughtful, not the brilliant side of intellect. Both Helena and Isabel are distinguished by high mental powers, tinged with a melancholy sweetness; but in Isabella the serious and energetic part of the character is founded in religious principle; in Helena it is founded in deep passion.

There never was, perhaps, a more beautiful picture of a woman's love, cherished in secret, not self-consuming in silent languishment—not pining in thought—not passive and "desponding over its idol"—but patient and hopeful, strong in its ownintensity, and sustained by its own fond faith. The passion here reposes upon itself for all its interest; it derives nothing from art or ornament or circumstance; it has nothing of the picturesque charm or glowing romance of Juliet; nothing of the poetical splendor of Portia, or the vestal grandeur of Isabel. The situation of Helena is the most painful and degrading in which a woman can be placed. She is poor and lowly; she loves a man who is far her superior in rank, who repays her love with indifference, and rejects her hand with scorn. She marries him against his will; he leaves her with contumely on the day of their marriage, and makes his return to her arms depend on conditions apparently impossible.[31]All the circumstances and details with which Helena is surrounded, are shocking to our feelings and wounding to our delicacy: and yet the beauty of the character is made to triumph over all: and Shakspeare, resting for all his effect on its internal resources and its genuine truth and sweetness, has not even availed himself of some extraneous advantages with which Helen is represented in the original story. She is the Giletta di Narbonna of Boccaccio. In the Italian tale, Giletta is the daughter of a celebrated physician attached to the court of Roussillon; she is represented as a rich heiress, who rejects many suitors of worth andrank, in consequence of her secret attachment to the young Bertram de Roussillon. She cures the King of France of a grievous distemper, by one of her fathers prescriptions; and she asks and receives as her reward the young Count of Roussillon as her wedded husband. He forsakes her on their wedding day, and she retires, by his order, to his territory of Roussillon. There she is received with honor, takes state upon her in her husband's absence as the "lady of the land," administers justice, and rules her lord's dominions so wisely and so well, that she is universally loved and reverenced by his subjects. In the mean time, the Count, instead of rejoining her, flies to Tuscany, and the rest of the story is closely followed in the drama. The beauty, wisdom, and royal demeanor of Giletta are charmingly described, as well as her fervent love for Bertram. But Helena, in the play, derives no dignity or interest from place or circumstance, and rests for all our sympathy and respect solely upon the truth and intensity of her affections. She is indeed represented to us as one

Whose beauty did astonish the surveyOf richest eyes: whose words all ears took captive;Whose dear perfection, hearts that scorn'd to serve.Humbly called mistress.

As her dignity is derived from mental power, without any alloy of pride, so her humility has a peculiar grace. If she feels and repines over her lowly birth, it is merely as an obstacle which separatesher from the man she loves. She is more sensible to his greatness than her own littleness: she is continually looking from herself up to him, not from him down to herself. She has been bred up under the same roof with him; she has adored him from infancy. Her love is not "th' infection taken in at the eyes," nor kindled by youthful romance: it appears to have taken root in her being; to have grown with her years; and to have gradually absorbed all her thoughts and faculties, until her fancy "carries no favor in it but Bertram's," and "there is no living, none, if Bertram be away."

It may be said that Bertram, arrogant, wayward, and heartless, does not justify this ardent and deep devotion. But Helena does not behold him with our eyes; but as he is "sanctified in her idolatrous fancy." Dr. Johnson says he cannot reconcile himself to a man who marries Helena like a coward, and leaves her like a profligate. This is much too severe; in the first place, there is no necessity that weshouldreconcile ourselves to him. In this consists a part of the wonderful beauty of the character of Helena—a part of its womanly truth, which Johnson, who accuses Bertram, and those who so plausibly defend him, did not understand. If it never happened in real life, that a woman, richly endued with heaven's best gifts, loved with all her heart, and soul, and strength, a man unequal to or unworthy of her, and to whose faults herself alone was blind—I would give up the point: but if it be in nature, why should it not be in Shakspeare?We are not to look into Bertram's character for the spring and source of Helena's love for him, but into her own. She loves Bertram,—because she loves him!—a woman's reason,—but here, and sometimes elsewhere, all-sufficient.

And although Helena tells herself that she loves in vain, a conviction stronger than reason tells her that she does not: her love is like a religion, pure, holy, and deep: the blessedness to which she has lifted her thoughts is forever before her; to despair would be a crime,—it would be to cast herself away and die. The faith of her affection, combining with the natural energy of her character, believing all things possible makes them so. It could say to the mountain of pride which stands between her and her hopes, "Be thou removed!" and it is removed. This is the solution of her behavior in the marriage scene, where Bertram, with obvious reluctance and disdain, accepts her hand, which the king, his feudal lord and guardian, forces on him. Her maidenly feeling is at first shocked, and she shrinks back—

That you are well restor'd, my lord, I am glad:Let the rest go.

But shall she weakly relinquish the golden opportunity, and dash the cup from her lips at the moment it is presented? Shall she cast away the treasure for which she has ventured both life and honor, when it is just within her grasp? Shall she, after compromising her feminine delicacy by thepublic disclosure of her preference, be thrust back into shame, "to blush out the remainder of her life," and die a poor, lost, scorned thing? This would be very pretty and interesting and characteristic in Viola or Ophelia, but not at all consistent with that high determined spirit, that moral energy, with which Helena is portrayed. Pride is the only obstacle opposed to her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared to the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted her heart and truth, her soul, her life, her service, must not one day love her in return; and once her own beyond the reach of fate, that her cares, her caresses, her unwearied patient tenderness, will not at last "win her lord to look upon her"—

... For time will bring on summer,When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns,And be as sweet as sharp.

It is this fond faith which, hoping all things, enables her to endure all things:—which hallows and dignifies the surrender of her woman's pride, making it a sacrifice on which virtue and love throw a mingled incense.

The scene in which the Countess extorts from Helen the confession of her love, must, as an illustration, be given here. It is perhaps, the finest in the whole play, and brings out all the striking points of Helen's character, to which I have already alluded. We must not fail to remark, that though the acknowledgment is wrung from her with an agony which seems to convulse her whole being, yet when once she has given it solemn utterance, she recovers her presence of mind, and asserts her native dignity. In her justification of her feelings and her conduct, there is neither sophistry, nor self-deception, nor presumption, but a noble simplicity, combined with the most impassioned earnestness; while the language naturally rises in its eloquent beauty, as the tide of feeling, now first let loose from the bursting heart, comes pouring forth in words. The whole scene is wonderfully beautiful.

HELENA.What is your pleasure, madam?COUNTESS.You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.HELENA.Mine honorable mistress.COUNTESSNay, a mother;Why not a mother? When I said a mother,Methought you saw a serpent: what's in mother,That you start at it? I say, I am your mother:And put you in the catalogue of thoseThat were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen,Adoption strives with nature; and choice breedsA native slip to us from foreign seeds.You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,Yet I express to you a mother's care;—God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood,To say, I am thy mother? What's the matterThat this distempered messenger of wet,The many-color'd Iris, rounds thine eye?Why?—that you are my daughter?HELENA.That I am not.COUNTESS.I say, I am your mother.HELENA.Pardon, madam:The Count Roussillon cannot be my brother:I am from humble, he from honor'd name;No note upon my parents, his all noble:My master, my dear lord he is: and IHis servant live, and will his vassal die:He must not be my brother.COUNTESS.Nor I your mother?HELENA.You are my mother, madam; would you were(So that my lord, your son, were not my brother,)Indeed my mother, or, were you both our mothers,I care no more for, than I do for Heaven,[32]So I were not his sister; can't no other,But I, your daughter, he must be my brother?COUNTESS.Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law;God shield, you mean it not! daughter and motherSo strive upon your pulse: what, pale again?My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I seeThe mystery of your loneliness, and findYour salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis grossYou love my son; invention is asham'd,Against the proclamation of thy passion,To say, thou dost not: therefore tell me true;But tell me, then, 'tis so:—for, look, thy cheeksConfess it, one to the other.Speak, is't so?If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue!If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,As heaven shall work in me for thy avail,To tell me truly.HELENA.Good madam, pardon me!COUNTESS.Do you love my son?HELENA.Your pardon, noble mistress!COUNTESS.Love you my son?HELENA.Do not you love him, madam?COUNTESS.Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,Whereof the world takes note: come, come, discloseThe state of your affection; for your passionsHave to the full appeach'd.HELENA.Then I confessHere on my knee, before high heaven and you,That before you, and next unto high heaven,I love your son:—My friends were poor, but honest; so's my loveBe not offended; for it hurts not him,That he is loved of me; I follow him notBy any token of presumptuous suit;Nor would I have him till I do deserve him:Yet never know how that desert should be.I know I love in vain; strive against hope;Yet, in this captious and untenable sieve,I still pour in the waters of my love,And lack not to love still: thus, Indian-like,Religious in mine error, I adoreThe sun that looks upon his worshipper,But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,Let not your hate encounter with my love,For loving where you do: but, if yourself,Whose aged honor cites a virtuous youth,Did ever in so true a flame of liking,Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your DianWas both herself and love; O then give pityTo her, whose state is such, that cannot chooseBut lend and give, where she is sure to lose;That seeks not to find that her search implies,But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.

HELENA.

What is your pleasure, madam?

COUNTESS.

You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.

HELENA.

Mine honorable mistress.

COUNTESS

Nay, a mother;Why not a mother? When I said a mother,Methought you saw a serpent: what's in mother,That you start at it? I say, I am your mother:And put you in the catalogue of thoseThat were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen,Adoption strives with nature; and choice breedsA native slip to us from foreign seeds.You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,Yet I express to you a mother's care;—God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood,To say, I am thy mother? What's the matterThat this distempered messenger of wet,The many-color'd Iris, rounds thine eye?Why?—that you are my daughter?

HELENA.

That I am not.

COUNTESS.

I say, I am your mother.

HELENA.

Pardon, madam:The Count Roussillon cannot be my brother:I am from humble, he from honor'd name;No note upon my parents, his all noble:My master, my dear lord he is: and IHis servant live, and will his vassal die:He must not be my brother.

COUNTESS.

Nor I your mother?

HELENA.

You are my mother, madam; would you were(So that my lord, your son, were not my brother,)Indeed my mother, or, were you both our mothers,I care no more for, than I do for Heaven,[32]So I were not his sister; can't no other,But I, your daughter, he must be my brother?

COUNTESS.

Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law;God shield, you mean it not! daughter and motherSo strive upon your pulse: what, pale again?My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I seeThe mystery of your loneliness, and findYour salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis grossYou love my son; invention is asham'd,Against the proclamation of thy passion,To say, thou dost not: therefore tell me true;But tell me, then, 'tis so:—for, look, thy cheeksConfess it, one to the other.Speak, is't so?If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue!If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,As heaven shall work in me for thy avail,To tell me truly.

HELENA.

Good madam, pardon me!

COUNTESS.

Do you love my son?

HELENA.

Your pardon, noble mistress!

COUNTESS.

Love you my son?

HELENA.

Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS.

Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,Whereof the world takes note: come, come, discloseThe state of your affection; for your passionsHave to the full appeach'd.

HELENA.

Then I confessHere on my knee, before high heaven and you,That before you, and next unto high heaven,I love your son:—My friends were poor, but honest; so's my loveBe not offended; for it hurts not him,That he is loved of me; I follow him notBy any token of presumptuous suit;Nor would I have him till I do deserve him:Yet never know how that desert should be.I know I love in vain; strive against hope;Yet, in this captious and untenable sieve,I still pour in the waters of my love,And lack not to love still: thus, Indian-like,Religious in mine error, I adoreThe sun that looks upon his worshipper,But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,Let not your hate encounter with my love,For loving where you do: but, if yourself,Whose aged honor cites a virtuous youth,Did ever in so true a flame of liking,Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your DianWas both herself and love; O then give pityTo her, whose state is such, that cannot chooseBut lend and give, where she is sure to lose;That seeks not to find that her search implies,But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.

This old Countess of Roussillon is a charming sketch. She is like one of Titian's old women, whostill, amid their wrinkles, remind us of that soul of beauty and sensibility, which must have animated them when young. She is a fine contrast to Lady Capulet—benign, cheerful, and affectionate; she has a benevolent enthusiasm, which neither age, nor sorrow, nor pride can wear away. Thus, when she is brought to believe that Helen nourishes a secret attachment for her son, she observes—

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