lished? It is certain that when he dealt with the same subject in his fine description of the painting of the siege of Troy in The Rape of Lucrece, 1. 1366-1568, his tone is far different from what it is in his play. There is no mention there of Cressid; the only wanton noticed and condemned is Helen, "the strumpet that began this stir," whose beauty Lucrece wants to tear with her nails, as Hermia does Helena's in Midsummer-Night's Dream. Troilus has only three words, "here Troilus swounds." The pathetic figure of the sad shadow of Hecuba's beauty is touchingly dwelt on, as in Hamlet, and Shakspere, like Lucrece," weeps feelingly Troy's painted woes." On the other side, in Ajax's eyes are only "blunt rage and rigour " (1. 1398), "while the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent, Show'd deep regard and smiling government" (1. 1399). Grave Nestor, with his sober action, and wagging beard, all silver-white, calms the quarrels of his Greeks, with golden words. And "for Achilles' image stood his spear, Grip'd in an armed hand; himself, behind, Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind." Here is the gallant warrior, not the selfish coward, of the play. . . . Troilus is

no doubt a young fool in his first love for Cressid, yet note his admiration of Helen's beauty, and his superb metaphors in expressing it. Her

"Youth and freshness

Wrinkles Apollo's and makes stale the morning."

"She is a pearl, whose price has launch'd above a thousand ships, And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants."

In the latter of these, Shakspere but quotes his dead shepherd Marlowe's magnificent apostrophe to Helen, as before, his "love at first sight" in As You Like It, and as in speaking of Cressid's hand, to "whose soft seizure the cygnet's down is harsh,” he no doubt again quotes Marlowe's likening Margaret to the "downy cygnets" in 1 Henry VI. But that Troilus deserves Ulysses' most favourable opinion of him, as given in his answer to Agamemnon, is evident. Troilus

takes the lead, and his opinion prevails in the council in act ii. as to whether Helen shall be given up. He is the Trojan's "second hope;" and it would seem that he's cured at last of his fondness for Cressid, for he calls on the traitor Diomede to turn and fight for his horse and not for his love. Hector, noble figure though he is, is yet made to prefer a schoolboy notion of honour to the earlier wisdom and patriotism of the man. Achilles is turned into at once a snob and a coward; he will not fight Hector single-handed, but waits till he can set his Myrmidons on him; his patriotism he sets under his lust, or love, as he calls it; he will not fight his country's enemies, "honour, or go or stay." He is shown as a mean, big, lubberly, peevish boy, even more contemptible than the vain, bragging fool Ajax. Notwithstanding the gleam of generosity on Nestor's figure, and his pluck in being willing to fight Hector if nobody else will; notwithstanding the fine figure of Agamemnon, great commander, marrow and bone of Greece, and the crafty, wise Ulysses, guiding all the threads of the play, one turns without regret from this repulsive picture of the Trojan and Grecian war.

PARIS, FROM THE ÆGINETAN SCULPTURES.

TROILUS

AND

CRESSIDA

IN Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine, that wore.
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,

With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge