sorrow, when the approach of evil is manifest and unavoidable. Our reason is then darkened, and the soul, sinking under the apprehension of misery, suffers direful eclipse, and trembles, as at the dissolution of nature. Unable to endure the painful impression, we almost wish for annihilation; and, incapable of averting the threatened danger, we endeavour, though absurdly, to be ignorant of its approach. "Let me hear no more," cries the Princess, convinced of her misfortune, and overwhelmed with anguish.

Iachimo, confident of success, and persuaded that the wrongs of Imogen would naturally excite resentment, urges her to revenge. Skilful to infuse suspicion, he knew not the purity of refined affection. Imogen, shocked and astonished at his infamous offer, is immediately prejudiced against his evidence: her mind recovers vigour by the renovated hope of her husband's constancy, and by indignation against the insidious informer. She therefore vents her displeasure with sudden and unexpected vehemence:

Imo. What ho, Pisanio!

Ia. Let me my service tender on your lips.

Imo. Away! I do condemn mine ears, that have So long attended thee.

This immediate transition from a dejected and desponding tone of mind, to a vigorous and animated exertion, effectuated by the infusion of hope and just indignation, is very natural and striking.

The inquietude of Imogen, softened by affection, and governed by a sense of propriety, exhibits a pattern of the most amiable and exemplary meekness. The emotions she discovers belong to solicitude rather than to jealousy. The features of solicitude. are sorrowful and tender: jealousy is fierce, wrathful, and vindictive. Solicitude is the object of compassion mixed with affection; jealousy excites compassion, combined with

terror.

III. The same meekness and tender dejection that engage our sympathy in the interests of Imogen, and render even her suspicions amiable, preserve their character

and influence, when she suffers actual calamity. Leonatus, deceived by the calumnies of Iachimo, suffers the pangs of a jealous emotion, and, in the heat of his resentment, commissions Pisanio to take away her life. But the sagacious attendant, convinced of the malignity of the accusation, disobeys his master; and, actuated by compassion, reveals his inhuman purpose. The stroke that inflicts the deepest wound on a virtuous and ingenuous nature, is the accusation of guilt. Those who are incapable of criminal acts and intentions, instigated by a stronger abhorrence of a guilty conduct than others less virtuous than themselves, imagine, if, by any unhappy mischance, they are falsely and maliciously accused, that they are the objects of strong abhorrence. Such minds, very easily affected, and susceptible of every feeling, persecuted by malice, or overwhelmed with infamy and the reproach of mankind, (which they feel more severely than those who have less integrity, and, consequently, a worse opinion of others than they have,) are exposed, for a time, to all the torment of conscious turpitude. The blush of guilty

confusion often inflames the complexion of innocence, and disorders her lovely features. To be rescued from undeserved affliction, Imogen flies for relief to the review of her former conduct; and, surprized at the accusation, and indignant of the charge, she triumphs in conscious virtue.

False to his bed! what is to be false?

To lie in watch there, and to think on him?

Το

weep 'twixt clock and clock?—if sleep charge nature, To break it with a fearful dream of him,

And cry myself awake? That's false to his bed!

Yet resentment is so natural in cases of heinous injury, that it arises even in minds of the mildest temper. It arises, however, without any excessive or unseemly agitation: its duration is exceedingly transient. It is governed in its utterance by the memory of former friendship: and, if the blame can be transferred to any insidious or sly seducer, who may have prompted the evil we complain of, we wreak upon them the violence of our displeasure.

I false thy conscience witness Iachimo-
Thou didst accuse him of incontinency:

Thou then look'dst like a villain: Now, methinks,
Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy*,
Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him.

The resentment of Imogen is of short continuance: it is a sudden solitary flash, extinguished instantly in her sorrow.

Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion.

resentment.

* Commentators have been of different opinions concerning the meaning of this passage. The difficulty however, as it appears to me, may easily be removed, if we attend to some particulars connected with the state of mind of the speaker. Imogen is moved by indignation, and even These feelings incline her to aggravate obnoxious qualities in the object of her displeasure. The jay of Italy is not only very unworthy in herself, but is so by transmitted, hereditary, and therefore by inherent wickedness. She derived it from her parents: matri turpi filia turpior: her mother was such as she is ; her picture, her portrait; for the word painting, in old English, was used for portrait. Shakespeare himself so uses it:

Laertes, was your father dear to you?

Or, are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

Perhaps, too, the poet uses that sort of figure which, according to rhetoricians, presents as expressing some strong emotion, the consequent in place of the antecedent; or the effect for the cause. So that, instead of saying the jay of Italy was the picture of her mother, Imogen says, more indignantly and more resentfully, that her mother was such