culiar character of
Hermione, who is precisely the woman who could and would have acted in
this manner. In such a mind as hers, the sense of a cruel injury,
inflicted by one she had loved and trusted, without awakening any
violent anger or any desire of vengeance, would sink deep--almost
incurably and lastingly deep. So far she is most unlike either Imogen or
Desdemona, who are portrayed as much more flexible in temper; but then
the circumstances under which she is wronged are very different, and far
more unpardonable. The self-created, frantic jealousy of Leontes is very
distinct from that of Othello, writhing under the arts of Iago: or that
of Posthumus, whose understanding has been cheated by the most damning
evidence of his wife's infidelity. The jealousy which in Othello and
Posthumus is an error of judgment, in Leontes is a vice of the blood;
he suspects without cause, condemns without proof; he is without
excuse--unless the mixture of pride, passion, and imagination, and the
predisposition to jealousy with which Shakspeare has portrayed him, be
considered as an excuse. Hermione has been openly insulted: he to whom
she gave herself, her heart, her soul, has stooped to the weakness and
baseness of suspicion; has doubted her truth, has wronged her love, has
sunk in her esteem, and forfeited her confidence. She has been branded
with vile names; her son, her eldest hope, is dead--dead through the
false accusation which has stuck infamy on his mother's name; and her
innocent babe, stained with illegitimacy, disowned and rejected, has
been exposed to a cruel death. Can we believe that the mere tardy
acknowledgment of her innocence could make amends for wrongs and agonies
such as these? or heal a heart which must have bled inwardly, consumed
by that untold grief, "which burns worse than tears drown?" Keeping in
view the peculiar character of Hermione, such as she is delineated, is
she one either to forgive hastily or forget quickly? and though she
might, in her solitude, mourn over her repentant husband, would his
repentance suffice to restore him at once to his place in her heart: to
efface from her strong and reflecting mind the recollection of his
miserable weakness? or can we fancy this high-souled woman--left
childless through the injury which has been inflicted on her, widowed in
heart by the unworthness of him she loved, a spectacle of grief to
all--to her husband a continual reproach and humiliation--walking
throu