SCENE III-The same. A Room in Paulina's

House.

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA, Lords, and Attendants.

Leon. O grave and good Paulina, the great

comfort

That I have had of thee!

Paul.

What, sovereign sir, I did not well, I meant well: All my services You have paid home: but that you have vouchsaf'd

With your crown'd brother, and these your contracted

Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit;
It is a surplus of your grace, which never
My life may last to answer.

Leon.

O Paulina, We honour you with trouble: But we came To see the statue of our queen: your gallery Have we pass'd through, not without much content In many singularities; but we saw not That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother.

Paul. As she liv'd peerless, So her dead likeness, I do well believe, Excels whatever yet you look'd upon, Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it Lonely, apart: But here it is: prepare To see the life as lively mock'd, as ever Still sleep mock'd death: behold; and 't is say, well. [PAULINA undraws a curtain, and discovers a statue. I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder: But yet speak;-first, you, my liege. Comes it not something near?

Leon. Her natural posture!— Chide me, dear stone; that I may say, indeed, Thou art Hermione: or, rather, thou art she, In thy not chiding; for she was as tender As infancy, and grace.-But yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so much wrinkled; nothing So aged, as this seems.

O, not by much.

Pol. Paul. So much the more our carver's excellence; Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her

As she liv'd now.

Leon. As now she might have done, So much to my good comfort, as it is Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty, (warm life, As now it coldly stands,) when first I woo'd her! I am asham'd: Does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it ?-O, royal piece,

Do not draw the curtain. Paul. No longer shall you gaze on 't; lest your fancy May think anon it moves.

Leon. Let be, let be. Would I were dead, but that, methinks, alreadya— What was he that did make it ?-See, my lord, Would you not deem it breath'd? and that those veins Did verily bear blood?

Pol.

Masterly done: The very life seems warm upon her lip. Leon. The fixure of her eye has motion in 't, As we are mock'd with art.

Paul. I'll draw the curtain; My lord's almost so far transported that He'll think anon it lives.

Leon. O sweet Paulina, Make me to think so twenty years together; No settled senses of the world can match The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone. Paul. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but

a It is scarcely necessary to conjecture how Leontes would have closed the sentence; for the abrupt breaking off is one of those touches of nature with which Shakspere knew how to give passion an eloquence beyond words. Mr. Collier's Corrector supplies an additional line:"I am but dead, stone looking upon stone." Twenty-five lines earlier Leontes has previously expressed "Does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it!"

a similar idea:

No foot shall stir. Paul.

Proceed;

Music; awake her strike.
[Music.

'Tis time; descend; be stone no more: approach;
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;
I'll fill your grave up: stir; nay, come away;
Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
Dear life redeems you.-You perceive she stirs ;

[HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal. Start not her actions shall be holy, as, You hear, my spell is lawful: do not shun her, Until you see her die again; for then You kill her double: Nay, present your hand : When she was young you woo'd her; now, in age, Is she become the suitor?

But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her, As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many A prayer upon her grave: I'll not seek far (For him, I partly know his mind,) to find thee An honourable husband:-Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand; whose worth, and honesty,

Is richly noted; and here justified

By us, a pair of kings.-Let's from this place.— What?-Look upon my brother:- both your pardons,

That e'er I put between your holy looks
My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,
And son unto the king, (whom heavens directing,)
Is troth-plight to your daughter.-Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely
Each one demand, and answer to his part
Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first
We were dissever'd: Hastily lead away.

385

[Exeunt.

1 SCENE II.- Weather-bitten conduit."

THE old stone conduits were in Shakspere's time very numerous in London, and allusions to them are frequent in the dramatists. We give a representation of the "Little Conduit" in Westcheap, built in 1442.

2 SCENE III." The ruddiness upon her lip is wet." We have shown in a note to the Two Gentlemen of Verona that the words statue and picture were often used without distinction. In the passage before us we have the mention of "oily painting;"

and the clown talks of going to see "the queen's picture." But it is clear from other passages that a statue, in the modern sense of the word, was intended. Leontes says,

"Does not the stone rebuke me For being more stone than it?"

It is clear, therefore, from all the context, that the statue must have been painted. Sir Henry Wotton calls this practice an English barbarism; but it is well known that the ancients had painted statues. The mention of Julio Romano is generally desig nated as "a strange absurdity." We have touched upon this in the Introductory Notice.