event, is fuddenly ftruck with compaffion and remorfe.

Leontes, Apollo's angry, and the heavens themselves
Do ftrike at my injuftice-How now, there?:

[Hermione faints.

Paulina. This news is mortal to the queen-Look down,
And fee what death is doing.

Leentes. Take her hence;

Her heart is but o'er-charged; she will recover,

[Exeunt Paulina and Ladies with Hermione,

I have too much believed my own fufpicion➡
"Befeech you tenderly apply to her
Some remedies for life. Apollo, pardon
My great prophaneness 'gainft thy oracle!
I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,

New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;
For being transported by my jealoufies,
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chofe
Camillo for the minifter, to poifon

My friend Polixenes; which had been done,
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
My fwift command; tho' I with death, and with
Reward, did threaten, and encourage him,
Not doing it, and being done; he, moft humane,
And filled with honour, to my kingly guest
Unclafped my practice, quit his fortunes here,
Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard
Of all incertainties himself commended,
No richer than his honour-Now he glifters
Through my dark ruft! and now his piety
Does my deeds make the blacker!

Paulina too, being likewife a perfon of strong paffions and an ungovernable temper, fhews as quick a revulfion in the midft of her rage against Leontes, upon finding him repentant, though fhe had even told him, the moment before, that neither penance nor penitence itself could aught avail him.

Lord. Say no more;

Howe'er the bufinefs goes, you have made fault

1 'th' boldness of your speech t.

• Which had vouched the innocence of Hermione.

This fault is reprehended before, by Gonzalez, in the Tempek, AÐ L

Scene I. See the fecond speech there, in this Work.

L

Paulina. Lamofory for't..

All faults I make, when I fhall come to know them,
I do repent-Alas, I've fhewed too much

The rafhness of a woman; he is touched

To the nobler heart. What's gone, and what's paft help.
Should be paft grief. Do not receive affliction

At my petition, I beseech you; rather

Let me be punished, that have minded you

Of what you should forget. Now, good my Liege,
Sir, royal Sir, forgive a foolish woman;
The love I bore your queen-lo, fool again!
Pll fpeak of her no more-ner of your children-
I'll not remember you of my own lard,

Who is lost too-Take you your patience to you,
And I'll fay nothing.

Though I cannot help obferving here, that her vindictive fpirit appears plainly not to have yet fubfided, but only taken a different courfe, by the latter part of her fpeech; for the continues ftill to accumulate her charges against him, as if only by way of enumerating the articles of her forgivenefs.

Our Author, who almost every where manifefts a perfect knowledge in the anatomy of the human mind, proves his fcience more particularly in a paffage of this Scene, by fhewing a property in our natures which might have efcaped any common diffecter of morals; and this is, our fuffering, upon true penitence and contrition, not only all reproach thrown out against us with meeknefs and fubmiffion, but even encouraging and augmenting the abuse, by joining in our own condemnation. This may poffibly arife from a strong wifh, or fanguine hope, that fuch a voluntary penance may in part be accepted, both by heaven and the world, as fome fort of atonement for our crimes.

Leontes, while Paulina is arraigning him with the utmost virulence and feverity, instead of having her caft out from his prefence, cries,

Go on, go on

Thou canst not speak too much; I have deferved
All tongues to talk their bittereft.

Again, when the feems to relent of her severity towards him,

Thou did't fay but well,

When moft the truth; which I receive much better
Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me
To the dead bodies of my queen and fon :
One grave fhall be for both. Upon them shall
The caufes of their deaths appear, unto
Our fhame perpetual; once a day I'll vifit
The chapel where they lie, and tears fhed there
Shall be my recreation. So long as nature
Will bear up with this exercise,

So long I daily vow to use it. Come,
And lead me to thefe forrows.

In the First Scene of the Fifth Act, the same subject is renewed, where Leontes manifefts the fame humiliation and contrition for his crime, that he did before: but as an interval of fixteen years, fpent in forrow and repentance, had paffed between these two æras, he, as would be natural then, fhews an uneafinefs at the reproach, and intreats to be relieved from it for the future; but this in a manner fo gentle and fubmiffive, as none but Shakespeare himJelf could have conceived. The whole paffage is worthy of being quoted.

Leontes, Cleomines, and Paulina.

Cleomines. Sir, you have done enough, and have performed
A faint-like forrow: no fault you could make,

Which you have not redeemed indeed; paid down
More penitence, than done trefpafs. At the laft,
Do as the Heavens have done, forget your evil;
With them, forgive yourself.

Leontes. Whilft I remember

Her and her virtues, I cannot forget

My blemishes in them, and so still think of
The wrong I did myfelf; which was fo much,
That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and
Deftroyed the fweet'ft companion that e'er man
Bred his hopes out of.

Paulina. True, too true, my lord;

If one by one you wedded all the world,
Or, from the All that are, tcok fomething good,

Τα

To make a perfect woman; fbe, you killed...
Would be unparalleled.

Leontes. I think fo. Killed?.

Killed? She I killed? I did fo-But thou ftrik't me
Sorely, to fay I did-It is as bitter

Upon thy tongue, as in my thought. Now, good now
Say fo but feldom.

There is a poetical hiftory of love given here, which closes with a beautiful defcription of a chaste and pure paffion in a lover.

Florizel. The gods themselves,

* A

Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beafts upon them. Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptune
Aram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,"
Golden Apollo, a poor humble fwain,

As I feem now. Their transformations :
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
Nor in a way so chafte; fince my defires
Run not before mine honour, nor my tufts
Burn botter than my faith.

Here is a paffage that I am particularly fond of, because it vindicates the rights of Nature, even over thofe arts which feem to vie and co-operate with her; for her general laws can never be controlled but by bye ones of her own-making.

Perdita and Polixenes.

Perdita. The fairest flowers o' th' feafon

Are our carnations, and streaked gilly-flowers,
Which fome call Nature's baftards; of that kind
Our ruftic garden's barren, and I care not

To get flips of them.

Polixenes. And wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

Perdita.

For I have heard it faid,

There is an art, which in their piedness shares
With great creating Nature *.

I have been told that different coloured filk threads, inferted in the roots, would have this effect.

Polixenes.

Polixenes. Say there be,

Yet Nature is made better by no mean,
But Nature makes that mean; fo over that art
Which, you fay, adds to Nature, is an art,
That Nature makes; you fee, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler fcyon to the wildeft ftock,

And make conceive a bark of 'bafer kind
By bad of nobler race. This is an art,

Which does mend Nature-change it, rather-but
The art itself is nature.

Perdita. So it is.

Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers,
And do not call them baftards.

Perdita. I'll not put

The dibble in earth, to fet one flip of them;

No more than were I painted, I would wish

This youth fhould say, 'twere well; and only, therefore,
Defire to breed by me.

I have continued the above dialogue beyond the philofophy of its subject, in order to treat my reader with one of the moft refined fentiments of a chafte and delicate mind, that can poffibly be conceived. Perdita fhews a charming genuinenefs of nature in her latter fpeech; for though the confeffes the truth of Polixenes' pofition, yet is the fo jealous of the honour of our great parent, that even the appearance of a violation against her rights offends her. And the parallel fhe makes upon the occafion, is beautiful. Readers fee not half the greatness of Shakespeare, who

overlook his minutia.

In the same scene, the praise that Florizel bestows on Perdita is equally fond and beautiful.

What you do,

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I'd have you do it ever; when you fing,

I'd have you buy and fell fo; fo give alms;

Pray fo; and for the ord'ring your affairs,

To fing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' th' fea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that; move ftill, ftill fo,

And own no other function. Each your doing,
So fingular in each particular,

Crowns what your doing in the prefent deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

† A felling flick.

‡ Florizel standing by.