Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. William Hazlitt

you,

       So please you entertain me.

      Now this is the very religion of love. She all along relies little on her personal charms, which she fears may have been eclipsed by some painted jay of Italy; she relies on her merit, and her merit is in the depth of her love, her truth and constancy. Our admiration of her beauty is excited with as little consciousness as possible on her part. There are two delicious descriptions given of her, one when she is asleep, and one when she is supposed dead. Arviragus thus addresses her:

      —With fairest flowers,

       While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

       I'll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack

       The flow'r that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor

       The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins, no, nor

       The leaf of eglantine, which not to slander,

       Out-sweeten'd not thy breath.

      The yellow Iachimo gives another thus, when he steals into her bed-chamber:

      —Cytherea,

       How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! Fresh lily,

       And whiter than the sheets I That I might touch—

       But kiss, one kiss—Tis her breathing that

       Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o' th' taper

       Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids,

       To see th' enclosed lights now canopied

       Under the windows, white and azure, laced

       With blue of Heav'ns own tinct—on her left breast

       A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops

       I' the bottom of a cowslip.

      There is a moral sense in the proud beauty of this last image, a rich surfeit of the fancy—as that well—known passage beginning, 'Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained, and prayed me oft forbearance,' sets a keener edge upon it by the inimitable picture of modesty and self-denial.

      The character of Cloten, the conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with great humour and knowledge of character. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her—'Whose love-suit hath been to me as fearful as a siege'—is enough to cure the most ridiculous lover of his folly. It is remarkable that though Cloten makes so poor a figure in love, he is described as assuming an air of consequence as the Queen's son in a council of state, and with all the absurdity of his person and manners, is not without shrewdness in his observations. So true is it that folly is as often owing to a want of proper sentiments as to a want of under-standing! The exclamation of the ancient critic, 'O Menander and Nature, which of you copied from the other?' would not be misapplied to Shakespeare.

      The other characters in this play are represented with great truth and accuracy, and as it happens in most of the author's works, there is not only the utmost keeping in each separate character; but in the casting of the different parts, and their relation to one another, there is an affinity and harmony, like what we may observe in the gradations of colour in a picture. The striking and powerful contrasts in which Shakespeare abounds could not escape observation; but the use he makes of the principle of analogy to reconcile the greatest diversities of character and to maintain a continuity of feeling throughout, has not been sufficiently attended to. In Cymbeline, for instance, the principal interest arises out of the unalterable fidelity of Imogen to her husband under the most trying circumstances. Now the other parts of the picture are filled up with subordinate examples of the same feeling, variously modified by different situations, and applied to the purposes of virtue or vice. The plot is aided by the amorous importunities of Cloten, by the tragical determination of Iachimo to conceal the defeat of his project by a daring imposture: the faithful attachment of Pisanio to his mistress is an affecting accompaniment to the whole; the obstinate adherence to his purpose in Bellarius, who keeps the fate of the young princes so long a secret in resentment for the ungrateful return to his former services, the incorrigible wickedness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious confidence of Cymbeline, are all so many lines of the same story, tending to the same point. The effect of this coincidence is rather felt than observed; and as the impression exists unconsciously in the mind of the reader, so it probably arose in the same manner in the mind of the author, not from design, but from the force of natural association, a particular train of feeling suggesting different inflections of the same predominant principle, melting into, and strengthening one another, like chords in music.

      The characters of Bellarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, and the romantic scenes in which they appear, are a fine relief to the intrigues and artificial refinements of the court from which they are banished. Nothing can surpass the wildness and simplicity of the descriptions of the mountain life they lead. They follow the business of huntsmen, not of shepherds; and this is in keeping with the spirit of adventure and uncertainty in the rest of the story, and with the scenes in which they are afterwards called on to act. How admirably the youthful fire and impatience to emerge from their obscurity in the young princes is opposed to the cooler calculations and prudent resignation of their more experienced counsellor! How well the disadvantages of knowledge and of ignorance, of solitude and society, are placed against each other!

      Guiderius. Out of your proof you speak: we poor unfledg'd

       Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest; nor know not

       What air's from home. Haply this life is best,

       If quiet life is best; sweeter to you

       That have a sharper known; well corresponding

       With your stiff age: but unto us it is

       A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed,

       A prison for a debtor, that not dares

       To stride a limit.

      Arviragus. What should we speak of

       When we are old as you? When we shall hear

       The rain and wind beat dark December! How,

       In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse

       The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.

       We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,

       Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat:

       Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage

       We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird,

       And sing our bondage freely.

      The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardly satisfactory; for nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passion of the mind for unknown good, but experience.—The forest of Arden in As You Like It can alone compare with the mountain scenes in Cymbeline: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one from the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in the other! Shakespeare not only lets us into the minds of his characters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describes from the feelings of their imaginary inhabitants. He at the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant sportsmen in Cymbeline have to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer in Cymbeline are only regarded as objects of prey, 'The game's a-foot', &c.—with Jaques they are fine subjects to moralize upon at leisure, 'under the shade of melancholy boughs'.

      We cannot take leave of this play, which is a favourite with us, without noticing some occasional touches of natural piety and morality. We may allude here to the opening of the scene in which Bellarius instructs the young princes to pay their orisons to heaven:

      —See, Boys! this gate

       Instructs you how t' adore the Heav'ns; and bows you

       To morning's holy office.

      Guiderius. Hail, Heav'n!

      Arviragus.