uses the word vulgar as the reverse of poetical. If you would see how Shakspeare has discriminated, not only different degrees, but different kinds of plebeian vulgarity in women, you have only to compare the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet with Mrs. Quickly. On the whole, if there are people, who, taking the strong and essential distinction of sex into consideration, still maintain that Shakspeare's female characters are not, in truth, in variety, in power, equal to his men-I think I shall prove the contrary. MEDON. I observe that you have divided your illustratrations into classes; but shades of character so melt into each other, and the various faculties and powers are so blended and balanced, that all classification must be arbitrary. I am at a loss to conceive where you have drawn the line; here at the head of your first chapter I find "Women of Intellect"-do you call Portia intellectual, and Hermione and Constance not so? ALDA. I know that Schlegel has said that it is impossible to arrange Shakspeare's characters in classes: yet some classification was necessary for my purpose. I have therefore divided them into characters, in which intellect and wit predominate; characters in which passion and fancy predominate; and characters in which the moral sentiments and affections predominate. The historical characters I have considered apart, as requiring a different mode of illustration. Portia I regard as a perfect model of an intellectual woman, in whom wit is tempered by sensibility, and fancy regulated by strong reflection. It is objected to her, to Beatrice, and others of Shakspeare's women, that the display of intellect is tinged with a coarseness of manner belonging to the age in which he wrote. To remark that the conversation and letters of highbred and virtuous women of that time were more bold and frank in expression than any part of the dialogue appropriated to Beatrice and Rosalind, may excuse it to our judgment, but does not reconcile it to our taste. Much has been said, and more might be said, on this subject-but I would rather not discuss it. It is a mere difference of manner which is to be regretted, but has nothing to do with the essence of the character. MEDON. I think you have done well in avoiding the topic altogether; but between ourselves, do you really think that the refinement of manner, the censorious, hypocritical, verbal scrupulosity, which is carried so far in this "picked age" of ours, is a true sign of superior refinement of taste, and purity of morals? Is it not rather a whiting of the sepulchre? I will not even allude to individual instances whom we both know, but does it not remind you, on the whole, of the tone of French mannners previous to the revolution—that “décence,” which Horace Walpole so admired,* veiling the moral degradation, the inconceivable profligacy, of the higher classes?—Stay—I have not yet done-not to you, but for you, I will add thus much :—our modern idea of delicacy appaCorrespondence, vol. iii. rently attaches more importance to words than to things-to manners than to morals. You will hear people inveigh against the improprieties of Shakspeare, with Don Juan, or one of those infernal French novels-I beg your pardon-lying on their toilet table. Lady Florence is shocked at the sallies of Beatrice, and Beatrice would certainly stand aghast to see Lady Florence dressed for Almack's; so you see that in both cases the fashion makes the indecorum. Let her ladyship new-model her gowns! ALDA. Well, well, leave Lady Florence-I would rather hear you defend Shakspeare. MEDON. I think it is Coleridge who so finely observes, that Shakspeare ever kept the high-road of human life, whereon all travel, that he did not pick out bye-paths of feeling and sentiment; in him we have no moral highwaymen, and sentimental thieves and rat-catchers, and interesting villains, and amiable, elegant adultresses — â-la-mode Germanorum-no delicate entanglements of situation, in which the grossest images are presented to the mind, disguised under the superficial attraction of style and sentiment, as in the fashionable novels of that ALDA. Hush! MEDON. You have stopped me in good time; for I would not willingly abuse any woman in your presence. I was going on to say that he flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just and generous principle. He can make us laugh at folly, and shudder at crime, yet still preserve our love for our fellow beings, and our reverence for ourselves. He has a lofty and a fearless trust in his own powers, and in the beauty and excellence of virtue; and, with his eye fixed on the lode-star of truth, steers us triumphantly among shoals and quicksands, where |