_not_
illusion--the manner in which the feelings of the spectators become
entangled between the conviction of death and the impression of life,
the idea of a deception and the feeling of a reality; and the exquisite
coloring of poetry and touches of natural feeling with which the whole
is wrought up, till wonder, expectation, and intense pleasure, hold our
pulse and breath suspended on the event,--are quite inimitable.

The expressions used here by Leontes,--

Thus she stood,
Even with such life of majesty--_warm life_.
The fixture of her eye has motion in't.
And we are mock'd by art!

And by Polixines,--

The very life seems warm upon her lip,

appear strangely applied to a statue, such as we usually imagine it--of
the cold colorless marble; but it is evident that in this scene Hermione
personates one of those images or effigies, such as we may see in the
old gothic cathedrals, in which the stone, or marble, was colored after
nature. I remember coming suddenly upon one of these effigies, either at
Basle or at Fribourg, which made me start: the figure was large as life;
the drapery of crimson, powdered with stars of gold; the face and eyes,
and hair, tinted after nature, though faded by time: it stood in a
gothic niche, over a tomb, as I think, and in a kind of dim uncertain
light. It would have been very easy for a living person to represent
such an effigy, particularly if it had been painted by that "rare
Italian master, Julio Romano,"[49] who, as we are informed, was the
reputed author of this wonderful statue.

The moment when Hermione descends from her pedestal, to the sound of
soft music, and throws herself without speaking into her husband's arms,
is one of inexpressible interest. It appears to me that her silence
during the whole of this scene (except where she invokes a blessing on
her daughter's head) is in the finest taste as a poetical beauty,
besides being an admirable trait of character. The misfortunes of
Hermione, her long religious seclusion, the wonderful and almost
supernatural part she has just enacted, have invested her with such a
sacred and awful charm, that any words put into her mouth, must, I
think, have injured the solemn and profound pathos of the situation.

There are several among Shakspeare's characters which exercise a far
stronger power over our feelings, our fancy, our understanding, than
that of Hermione; but not one,--unless perhaps Co