people, and the honor and happiness of the nation reviving as she pleads for them; and her state seems secure, because it stands on nothing but virtue, and aims at nothing but the good of all within her reach, and because of her simple modesty and uprightness which no flatteries can surprise or beguile: yet even now the hypocritical king is cherishing in secret the passion that has already supplanted her from his heart, and his base crafty mind is plotting the means of divorcing her from his side; while at the same time he is weaving about her such a net of intrigue and conspiracy as may render her virtues, her very strength and beauty of character, powerless in her behalf, so that before she feels the meditated wrong all chance of redress is foreclosed. Then we have the overgreat cardinal who, from his plenitude of inward forces, cuts his way and carries himself upward over whatsoever offers to stop him; who walks most securely when dangers are thickest, and is sure to make his purpose so long as there is any thing to hinder him, because he has the gift of turning all that would thwart him into the ministry, of a new strength; whose cunning hand quietly steals and gathers in from others the elements of power, because he best knows how to use it and wherein the secret of it lies; who at length has the king for his pupil and dependent, because his strange witchcraft of tongue is never at loss for just the right word at just the right time; and gets the keeping and control of his will, because he alone has the wit to make a way for it: yet his very power of rising against all opposers serves, apparently, but to ag gravate and assure his fall, when there is no further height for him to climb; and he at last, by his own mere oversight and oblivion, loses all he has gained, because he has nothing more to gain.

Yet in all these cases, because the persons have their greatness inherent, and not adventitious, therefore they carry it with them in their reverses; or rather, in seeming to lose it, they augment it. For it is then seen, as it could not be before, that the greatness which was in their

circumstances only served to cripple or obscure that which was in themselves; their nobler and better qualities shining out afresh when they are brought low, so that from their fall we learn the real causes of their rising. Buckingham is something more and better than the gifted and accomplished nobleman, when he stands before us unpropped and simply as "poor Edward Bohun"; his innate nobility being set free by the hard discipline of adversity, and his mind falling back on its naked self for the making good his title to respect. And Wolsey towers far above the all-powerful cardinal and chancellor who "bore his blushing honors thick upon him," when, stripped of every thing that fortune and favor can give or take away, he bestows his great mind in parting counsel upon Cromwell; when he comes, "an old man broken with the storms of state," to beg "a little earth for charity"; and when

"His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little."

Nor is the change in our feelings towards them, after their fall, merely an effect passing within ourselves: it proceeds in part upon a real disclosure and outcoming of somewhat in them that was before hidden or stifled beneath the superinducings of place and circumstance; it is the seeing what they really are, and not merely the considering what they have lost, that now moves us to do them reverence. For those elements which, stimulated into an usurped predominance by the subtly-working drugs of flattery and pride, before made them hateful and repulsive, are now overmastered by the stronger elements of good that have their dwelling in them. And because this real and true exaltation springs up as the natural consequence of their overthrow, therefore it is that from the ruins of their fallen state the Poet builds "such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow."

Katharine, it is true, so nobly meek, so proudly submissive, maintains the same simple, austere, and solid sweet

ness of mind and manners through all the changes of fortune. Yet she, too, rises by her humiliation and is made perfect by suffering, if not in herself, at least to us; for it gives her full sway over those deeper sympathies which are necessary to a just appreciation of the profound and venerable beauty of her character. She has neither great nor brilliant parts; and of this she is herself aware, for she knows herself most thoroughly; yet she is truly great, -and this is the only truth about her which she does not know, and that, because she will not,—from the wonderful symmetry and composure wherein all the elements of her being stand and move together: so that she presents a very remarkable instance of greatness in the whole, with the absence of it in the parts. How clear and piercing and exact her judgment and discrimination! yet we scarce know whence it comes, or how. She exemplifies, more than any other of Shakespeare's historical portraits, the working

"Of that fine sense, which to the pure in heart,
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness,
Reveals the approach of evil."

Not a little of the awe with which we justly regard her seems owing to the fact, or rather, perhaps, the impression we take, that she sees through her husband perfectly, yet never in the least betrays to him, and hardly owns to herself, what mean and wicked qualities she knows or feels to be in him. It is not possible to overstate her simple artlessness of mind, yet her simplicity is of such a texture and make as to be an overmatch for all the resources of unscrupulous cunning by which she is beset. Her betrayers, with all their dark craft, can neither keep from her the secret of their thoughts, nor turn her knowledge of it into any blemish of her innocence; and she is as brave to face and even to outface their purpose, as she is penetrating to discover it. And when her resolution is fixed, that "nothing but death shall e'er divorce her dignities, it is not, and we feel it is not, that she anywise over-val

ues the accidents of her position, or holds them for one iota more than they are worth; the reverse of this is rather true: but to her they are the necessary symbols of her honor as a wife, and the inseparable garments of her delicacy as a woman; and as such, (to say nothing how her thoughts of duty, of ancestral reverence, and of self-respect, are associated with them,) they have so grown in with her life, that she cannot part with them and live. Moreover, many hard, hard trials have made her conscious of her sterling virtue; she has borne too much, and borne it too well, to be ignorant what she is, and how much better things she has deserved; she knows, as she alone can know, that patience has had its perfect work with her: and this knowledge of her most solid and true worth, so sorely tried, so fully proved, enhances to her sense the insult and wrong that are put upon her, and make them eat like rust into her soul; in short, her one absorbing sentiment is that of the profoundest grief at meeting with such hardhearted injustice and indignity, where she had done and suffered so much to make good her claims as a woman and a wife.

One instance deserves to be specially noted, where by the peculiar use of a single word the Poet illustrates very pregnantly, how Katharine "guides her words with discretion," and at the same time makes her suggest the long and hard ordeal of temper and judgment which she has nobly stood through. It is in the conversation that passes between her and the two cardinals, when they come to visit her at Bridewell:

"Bring me a constant woman to her husband,

One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure,
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honor,-a great patience."

How much more is here understood to be meant than is allowed to meet the ear! By the cautious and wellguarded, but prolific hint conveyed in the words italicized, the mind is thrown back and set at work upon the long

course of trials she has suffered, yet still kept her suffering secret, lest the knowledge thereof should defeat the hope that has possession of her heart; with what considerate forbearance and reserve she has borne with and struggled against the worst parts of her husband's character; how she has wisely and thoughtfully ignored his base and cruel sins against her, that so she might still keep in action with him the proper motives to amendment; thus endeavoring by conscientious art and policy to make the best that could be out of his strong, but hard, selfish, groveling nature. And yet all this is so intimated as not to compromise the quick and apprehensive delicacy which befits her relation to him, and belongs to her character.

The scope of the suggestion in hand is well shown by a passage in the Life of Wolsey, referring to things that took place some time before the question of divorce was openly broached. The writer, having just spoken of Anne Boleyn's "privy grudge" against the cardinal for breaking the contract between Lord Percy and her, goes on thus: "But after she knew the king's pleasure and the bottom of his secret stomach, then she began to look very haughty and stout, lacking no manner of jewels or rich apparel that might be gotten for money. It was therefore judged bye-and-bye through the court of every man, that she being in such favor might work masteries with the king, and obtain any suit of him for her friend. All this while, it is no doubt but good Queen Katharine, having this gentlewoman daily attending upon her, both heard by report and saw with her eyes how it framed against her good ladyship: although she showed neither unto Mistress Anne Boleyn nor unto the king any kind or spark of grudge or displeasure; but accepted all things in good part, and with wisdom and great patience dissembled the same, having Mistress Anne in more estimation for the king's sake, than she was before; declaring herself to be a very perfect Grissel, as her patient acts shall hereafter more evidently be declared."

As regards the characterization of this play, perhaps