in making their own matches; and as they are not impelled to choose, so they are not to be restrained from their choice, by any prudential considerations whatever. In this respect Imogen is a fair specimen of them; and for her the law of nature could not be repealed or suspended by any earthly power, nor could the violation of her faith, her duty, and her honour as a woman, be compensated to her by any earthly rewards. With intelligence enough generally, to supply a whole community of fashionably-educated ladies, Shakspeare's women do not pretend to be governed by the maxims of worldly prudence, nor by the unimpassioned dictates of the understanding. They never undertake, therefore, to exemplify the supremacy or the sufficiency of human reason; never set themselves up as philosophers or logicians; never try to rival, to imitate, to be the other sex. Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of them, than that they are not so rational as to avoid falling in love; nor do they pretend to have any other reason for loving than a woman's reason. They are, indeed, no miracles of discretion; veterans from the cradle in the knowledge of the world; old in their youth, and young in their age with the prudence of forty at eighteen, and the impulsiveness of eighteen at forty. In short, (for the thing may as well be spoken,) they are neither fashionable, nor philosophic, but romantic women; and that too in the best and truest sense of the term; for it is the romance of noble sentiment and lofty purpose, not of mere vanity and sentimentality. The vitalities of nature are not stifled in them beneath a load of conventionalities; they are governed by affection and conscience, not by the force of custom and public opinion.

They plainly were not educated under our modern forcing and freezing system, which suppresses the pas sions instead of subduing them to higher faculties; which makes them go right by taking from them the power to go wrong; which leaves them to be kept erect by the pressure of outward appliances, not by the inward strength of virtuous principle; and which secures them against the perils of life by crushing every impulse out of them but vanity and selfishness. They are therefore no mere drawing-room ladies, living altogether in the beau-ideal, whose chief business it is to control their feelings and show off their accomplishments; who are as correct, and nearly as heartless as waxen images with glass eyes; in whom the chaste enamel of nature, and all the free blushes of native grace, have been polished off with the brush of artificial manners; who, in their sleepless self-omniscience, force out conscience and affection by forcing in fashion and prudence; and who seem equally incapable of forgetting themselves and of remembering their duties. Every thing about them is direct, entire, and ingenuous; they are always seeking the happiness of others, not their applause; their actions are inspired by a genuine, self-forgetting love of the beautiful, not by the love of being thought beautiful; and the graces of their minds and persons always come from them involuntarily and unconsciously, like the expiration of their breath. They therefore never seek society for the same reason that they resort to the lookingglass; never put off suitors for the sake of being wooed the harder; are as apt to be overpowered by their own feelings, as to overpower the feelings of others; as ready to be the subjects of affection as the objects of it; and

take no pride or pleasure in making conquests where they do not mean to be conquered, but rather, with the instinct of true modesty and delicacy, shrink from inspiring a passion which they cannot reciprocate, or where they cannot reciprocate it. Secure in their inward truth and innocence, they never try to cover up their own uncouth thoughts with affected frowns at the uncouth words or conduct of others. In their perfect simplicity and freedom from outward pretension, they seem to do nothing but what they feel, and to feel nothing but what they do. Strong in themselves, and in the union of reason with right feeling, their virtue is an attribute of themselves, not an accident of their situation; does not spring from circumstances, and is therefore independent of them. Chance and vanity have no hand in leading them right, and consequently have no power to lead them wrong. Unfortunate and unhappy they may be; untrue and unworthy they cannot be. They are not belles at all. They are not like the heroines of common tragedy. They always have other and higher ends in view, than to win admiration, or figure in poems and histories. If heroines, therefore, at all, they are so without knowing it, or wishing it to be known. Always feeling, and thinking, and speaking as women, moved by the real interests of life, not as authors or actors, moved by playhouse vanities, their heroism springs up of its own free will and accord, and because they cannot help it; and their good actions seem done not to be seen, but in the belief that they are not seen; and therefore we feel assured that they are equally good when out of sight.

LECTURE VI.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR-COMEDY OF ERRORS-TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA-LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST-TAMING OF THE SHREW -MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

HITHERTO I have been chiefly occupied with the general subject of Shakspeare himself, his works, and his critics henceforth I am to speak of his dramas somewhat in detail, giving particular analyses of his leading characters, and, as far as may be, re-producing and representing to the intellect what he has set forth to the feelings and imagination. This is by far the most difficult and most important part of my task. In prosecuting it, however, I shall rarely have occasion to speak without the authority of far abler and wiser men than myself; and whenever I shall venture to differ from them, I trust I shall be able to give such reasons as will excuse my dissent, though they should fail to establish my point. Perhaps I need not say, that, regarding criticism as merely the interpreter, not the lawgiver of art, I shall nowhere attempt to instruct Shakspeare, but shall confine myself to the task of showing what he has done, leaving to other and wiser men the office of showing what he ought to have done. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed, that, because I do not presume to censure any thing, I am therefore bold to approve every thing, in his works. The truth is, there are many things in

them that are not to my taste, and so there are in nature herself; but, surely, this is quite as apt to be my fault as theirs; and I have found too many proofs of his superiority, not only to me but to all the rest of his critics, to venture my judgment against his. The encouraging of others to get more knowledge of his works, or the helping of them to bring forth into a more distinct and available form the knowledge they have already got,-this, and this only, will be my endeavour, as it is assuredly my aim.

I have remarked several times already, that a drama, or any other work of art, is to be viewed as a vital, organic whole; every part being, in fact, vitally related to every other part, and therefore not to be rightly understood or explained apart from those relations. In other words, it is from their connection with the whole that the parts derive their life and significance. As this organic unity and integrity is the highest possible merit of a work of art, considered merely as such, so Shakspeare is the first of all artists except nature, his works being, in the main, so true, so living, so actual, that it is impossible to speak correctly of them without speaking of ourselves, what we all think, feel, and are. Hence the utility, hence also the difficulty of having his works truly and justly interpreted; such interpretation being nothing else than a practical commentary on human nature, and helping us to know ourselves, both as we are and as we ought to be. But the difficulty of right interpretations is commensurate with, and inseparable from the utility thereof; for to see things by themselves is one thing; to see them in all their relations, their reciprocal actings and interworkings, is another, and much