As once our mother; use like note and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.”

Then follows an exquisite touch of natural pathos; Guiderius in answer says:

66

'Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee;
For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
Than priests and fanes that lie."

And to this succeeds one of those observances in the primitive church which the poet (true to his own nature) chose to honour; having already put the axiom into the mouth of Imogen, "The breach of custom is the breach of all;" and so here one of the brothers, when they are proceeding to lay the body in the earth, objects :

"Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;

Our father hath a reason for 't."

Having once given us a clue to the prevailing quality in their dispositions ("gentle as zephyrs blowing below the violet") the poet never loses the thread. They are punctually observant-even in the absence of their father-of his minutest wish and injunction. Is not this absolute consistency in character delineation? Never were obsequies perform'd with more graceful pathos than those at the funeral of the "fair Fidele ;" and, surely, never was parting hymn more aptly appropriated to its subject and primitive occasion. No rural poet of the old world could have surpassed it in simple, natural dignity and tender regret. There is music in the words, and the music of the heart breathes like wafted odours through the entire composition. And the closing farewell, in undiminished beauty of sentiment, closes the scene:

"Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight more.
The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night,
Are strewings fitt'st for graves. Upon their faces.

You were as flowers, now wither'd; even so
These herbs shall, which we upon you strew.-

The ground that gave them first has them again;
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain."

I know of no composition to surpass in exquisite taste and tenderness the ceremony and the obsequies performed at the funeral of the divine little pilgrim to Milford-Haven. Let it be borne in mind that the predominance of rich extracts quoted in these essays are lavished upon the second and third rate characters of our poet; "The greatest is yet behind." Be it repeated again and again that, to come at something like an estimate of the wealth of his mind, we have but to notice its prodigality, as heaped upon the less consequential, and even the insignificant, members of his dramatis personæ.

No being that ever lived studied less than Shakespeare the art of reserving his strength for the purpose of "making points," as the actors term it. He had no occasion to do this, and he must have known it; for his strength was ever at the flood; and as the event arose, so he grappled with and overcame it; like a mighty river that rolls on, resistless, now bearing all before it-rocks, trees, and spars whirled aloft in its mountain foam-or equally prevailing when it meanders through some flowery dale, calm as its own face,

"And makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

It overtaketh in its pilgrimage;

And so, by many winding nooks it strays
With willing sport to the wild ocean."

Such was the genius of Shakespeare. In other plays he has doubtless manifested sublimer bursts of passion; but in no one of them has he set forth the prevailing power of his own bland and sweet disposition in the omnipotence of meek forbearance and untiring affection as in the play of Cymbeline.

CYMBELINE.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

CYMBELINE, King of Britain.

CLOTEN, Son to the Queen by a former husband.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, a gentleman, husband to Imo-

gen.

BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of

Morgan.

GUIDERIUS,

ARVIRAGUS,

sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the names of Polydore and Cadwal, supposed sons to Morgan.

PHILARIO, friend to Posthumus,

IACHIMO, friend to Philario,

Italians.

CAIUS LUCIUS, general of the Roman forces.

PISANIO, servant to Posthumus.

CORNELIUS, a physician.

A Roman Captain.

Two British Captains.

A Frenchman, friend to Philario.

Two Lords of Cymbeline's court.

Two Gentlemen of the same.

Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators. Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a Dutchman, a Spaniard, Musicians, Officers, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

Apparitions.

SCENE: Britain; Rome.

I Gentleman. You do not meet a man but frowns; our

bloods

No more obey the heavens than our courtiers

Still seem as does the king.

2 Gentleman.

But what 's the matter?

I Gentleman. His daughter, and the heir of 's kingdom,

whom

He purpos'd to his wife's sole son-a widow

That late he married-hath referr'd herself