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The gentleness, the grace, the "grief and patience," of the helpless Fidele, producing at once the deepest reverence and affection in the bold and daring mountaineers, still carry forward the character of Imogen under the same aspects. Belarius has beautifully described the brothers :

"They are as gentle

As zephyrs, blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his sweet head: and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale."

It was in their gentleness that Imogen found a support for her gentleness;-it was in their rough. ness that the roughness of Cloten met its punishment. Imogen is still saved from the dangers with which craft and violence have surrounded her. When she swallows the supposed medicine

of the queen, we know beforehand that the evil intentions of her step-mother have been counteracted by the benevolent intentions of the physician :

"I do know her spirit,

And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn'd nature."

"The bird is dead;" she was sick, and we almost fear that the words of the dirge are true :—

"Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art pass'd the tyrant's stroke."

But she awakes, and she has still to endure the last and the worst evil-her husband, in her apprehension, lies dead before her. She has no wrongs to think of "O my lord, my lord," is all, in connexion with Posthumus, that escapes amidst her tears. The beauty and innocence which saved her from Iachimo,-which conquered Pisanio,-which won the wild hunters,-commend her to the Roman general—she is at once protected. But she has holy duties still to perform :—

"I'll follow, sir. But, first, an 't please the gods,

I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep

As these poor pickaxes can dig and when

With wild wood-leaves and weeds I have strew'd his grave,

And on it said a century of prayers,

Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh,

And, leaving so his service, follow you,

So please you entertain me."

It is the unconquerable affection of Imogen which makes us pity Posthumus even while we blamo him for the rash exercise of his revengeful will. But in his deep repentance we more than pity him. We see only another victim of worldly craft and selfishness :—

"Gods! if you

Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never

Had liv'd to put on this; so had you saved

The noble Imogen to repent; and struck
Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance."

In the prison scene his spirit is again united with hers :

I'll speak to thee in silence."

"O Imogen,

The contest we now feel is over between the selfish and the unselfish, the crafty and the simple, the proud and the meek, the violent and the gentle.

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It is scarcely within our purpose to follow the unravelling of the incidents in the concluding Steevens has worthily endeavoured to make amends for the injustice of the criticism which Cymbeline has received from his associate commentator:-"Let those who talk so confidently about the skill of Shakspeare's contemporary, Jonson, point out the conclusion of any one of his plays which is wrought with more artifice, and yet a less degree of dramatic violence, than this. In the scene before us, all the surviving characters are assembled; and at the expense of whatever incongruity the former events may have been produced, perhaps little can be discovered on this occasion to offend the most scrupulous advocate for regularity: and, I think, as little is found wanting to satisfy the spectator by a catastrophe which is intricate without confusion, and not more rich in ornament than in nature."

The conclusion of Cymbeline has been lauded because it is consistent with poetical justice. Those who adopt this species of reasoning look very imperfectly upon the course of real events in the moral world. It is permitted, for inscrutable purposes, that the innocent should sometimes fall before the wicked, and the noble be subjected to the base. In the same way, it is sometimes in the course of events that the pure and the gentle should triumph over deceit and outrage. The perishing of Desdemona is as true as the safety of Imogen; and the poetical truth involves as high a moral in the one case as in the other. That Shakspere's notion of poetical justice was not the hackneyed notion of an intolerant age, reflected even by a Boccaccio, is shown by the difference in the lot of the offender in the Italian tale and the lot of Iachimo. The Ambrogiolo of the novelist, who slanders a virtuous lady for the gain of a wager, is fastened to a stake, smeared with honey, and left to be devoured by flies and locusts. The close of our dramatist's story is perfect Shakspere :

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STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF OTHELLO.

Oy the 6th of October, 1621, Thomas Walkley entered at Stationers' Hall The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice.' In 1622, Walkley published the edition for which he had thus claimed the copy. It is, as was usual with the separate plays, a small quarto, and it bears the following title:"The Tragedy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diverse times acted at the Globe, and at the Black-Friars, by his Majesties Servants. Written by William Shakespeare.' It contains, also, a prefatory address, which is curious:-"The Stationer to the Reader. To set forth a book without an Epistle were like to the old English proverb, a blue coat without a badge; and the author being dead, I thought good to take that piece of work upon me: to commend it I will not for that which is good, I hope every man will commend, without entreaty and I am the bolder, because the author's name is sufficient to vent his work. Thus leaving every one to the liberty of judgment, I have ventured to print this play, and leave it to the general censure. Yours, Thomas Walkley."

'The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice,' commences on page 310 of the Tragedies in the first folio collection. It extends to page 339; and after it follow, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline. It is not entered at Stationers' Hall by the proprietors of the folio edition, which affords some presumption that Walkley was legally entitled to his copy. But it is by no means certain to our minds that Walkley's edition was published before the folio. The usual date of that edition is, as our readers know, 1623; but there is a copy in existence bearing the date of 1622. We have, however, no doubt, that the copy of Othello in the folio was printed from a manuscript copy, without reference to the quarto; for there are typographical errors in the folio, arising, no doubt, from illegibility in the manuscript, which would certainly have been avoided had the copy been compared with an edition printed from another manuscript. The fair inference, therefore, is, that the Othello of the folio was printed off before the quarto of 1622 appeared. Had it been the last play in the book we should have retained the same opinion, from internal evidence. As two plays succeed it in the volume, we are strengthened in the belief that the original quarto and folio editions were printing at one and the same time.

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