How different a being from this is the ill-fated fair who slumbers in 'the tomb of the Capulets.' She is all gentleness and mildness, all hidden passion and silent suffering; yet her love is as ardent, her sorrows are as overwhelming, and her death as melancholy. The gentle lady wedded to the Moor' is another sweet, still picture, which we contemplate with admiration, until death drops his curtain over it. Imogen and Miranda, Perdita and Ophelia, Cordelia, Helen and Viola, need only to be mentioned to recall to mind the most fascinating pictures of female character that have ever been delineated. The last is, indeed, a mere sketch, but it is a most charming one; and its best description is that exquisite paraphrase, in which the character is so beautifully summed up :

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,

And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat, like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at Grief.

Of Shakspeare's comic female characters we need mention only Rosalind and Beatrice. In the first we find an admirable compound of wit, gayety, and good-humor, blended, at the same time, with deep and strong passion, with courage and resolution; with unshaken affection to her father, and constant and fervid love for Orlando. How extraordinary and romantic is the character if we contemplate it in the abstract, yet how beautiful and true to nature, if we examine it in all its details. Beatrice is a character of a very different order from Rosalind, and yet she resembles her in some particulars. She has all her wit; but it must be confessed, without her goodhumor. Her arrows are not merely piercing, but poisoned. Rosalind's is cheerful raillery, Beatrice's satirical bitterness; Rosalind is not only afraid to strike, but unwilling to wound: Beatrice is careless of the effect of her wit, if she can but find an opportunity to utter it. But we must forbear.

The difficulty of making selections from such a poet as Shakspeare must be obvious to all. His characters are as various and diversified as those in human life; he has exhausted all styles, and has one for each description of poetry and action; his wit, humor, satire, and pathos, are spread throughout his entire works. We have felt our task, therefore, to be something like being deputed to search in some magnificent forest for a handful of the finest leaves or plants, and as if we were diligently exploring the world of woodland beauty to accomplish faithfully this hopeless adventure. Happily Shakspeare is in all hands, and a single leaf will recall the fertile and majestic scenes of his inspiration.

We shall make our selections, as nearly as possible, in the order already indicated, beginning with the much neglected play of Pericles. This was, doubtless, a production of the immortal bard's youth, and therefore contains many imperfections; but the following passages alone, are sufficient to identify its origin :-

PERICLES' SOLILOQUY ON A SHIP AT SEA.

Thou God of the great vast! rebuke these surges

Which wash both heaven and hell; and Thou, that hast

Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,

Having call'd them from the deep! Oh! still thy deaf'ning,

Thy dreadful thunders! gently quench the nimble,

Sulphureous flashes! Thou storm! thou, venomously,

Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman's whistle

Is as a whisper in the ears of death,

Unheard.

The following description of the recovery of Thaisa from a state of suspended animation, is also powerfully eloquent:

Nature wakes; a warmth

Breathes out of her; she hath not been entranced

Above five hours. See how she 'gins to blow

Into life's flower again!-She is alone; behold,
Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels
Which Pericles hath lost,

Begin to part their fingers of bright gold,
The diamonds of a most praised water
Appear to make the world twice rich.

Marina, the daughter of Pericles, and heroine of the play, is born at sea, during a storm; and Shakspeare, in this drama, as in the Winter's Tale,' leaps over the intervening years, and shows her, in the fourth act, on the eve of womanhood;' where her first speech, on the death of her nurse, is sweetly plaintive and poetical:

No, no; I will rob Tellus of her weed

To strew thy grave with flowers! the yellows, blues,

The purple violets, and marygolds,

Shall as a chaplet hang upon thy grave,

While summer-days do last. Ah me! poor maid,

Born in a tempest, when my mother died,

This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.

In the course of the play Marina undergoes a variety of adventures, in all of which the mingled gentleness and dignity of her character is admirably developed. The interview with her father in the fifth act, is, indeed, one of the most powerful and affecting passages in the whole range of the English drama. The extracts, from other dramas, which follow, are introduced without comment, because they are all wen known.

DESCRIPTION OF A MOONLIGHT NIGHT, WITH MUSIC.

Lor. The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan's wall,

And sigh'd his soul towards the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.

Jes. In such a night

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,

And ran dismay'd away.

Lor. In such a night

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Upon the wide sea-banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage.

Jes. In such a night

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs
That did renew old son.

Lor. In such a night

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
As far as Belmont.

Jes. And in such a night

Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well;
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
And ne'er a true one.

Lor. And in such a night

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica; look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ;

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But while this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it.
Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

Jes. I'm never merry when I hear sweet music.
Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive;
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,

Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, (Which is the hot condition of their blood;)

If they perchance but hear a trumpet sound,

Or any air of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand;

Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods:
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.

The man that hath not music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affection dark as Erebus :

Let no such man be trusted

THE ATTRIBUTES OF MERCY.

[Merchant of Venice.]

The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal pow'r,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above the sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

[Merchant of Venice.]

LOVE SCENE BY NIGHT IN A GARDEN.

Romeo. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound--But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks; It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

[Juliet appears above at a windov.]

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she;

Be not her maid since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it: cast it off

It is my lady; 0! it is my love;

What of that?

O that she knew she were!-
She speaks, yet she says nothing.
Her eye discourses; I will answer it—
I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks :
Two of the fairest stars of all the heav'n,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes,
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp: her eyes in heav'n
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

Oh, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this sight, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heav'n,

Unto the white-upturned, wond'ring eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,

And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Jul. O Romeo, Romeo-wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name:

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Rom. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face-nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes,
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Rom. I take thee at thy word:

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd;

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Jul. What man art thou, that thus, bescreen'd in night,

So stumblest on my counsel ?

Rom. By a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am:

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.

Had I it written, I would tear the word.

Jul. My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words Of that tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound.

Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.

Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?

The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb;

And the place death, considering who thou art,

If any of my kinsmen, find thee here.

Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls, For stony limits can not hold love out;

And what love can do, that dares love attempt:

Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.

Jul. If they do see thee, they will murder thee. Rom. Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.