not stuck up, like the cardinal virtues, all in a row, for us to
admire and wonder at--they are not mere poetical abstractions--nor (as
they have been termed) mere abstractions of the affections,--

But common clay ta'en from the common earth.
Moulded by God, and tempered by the tears
Of angels, to the perfect form of--_woman_.

MEDON.

Beautiful lines!--Where are they?

ALDA.

I quote from memory, and I am afraid inaccurately, from a poem of Alfred
Tennyson's.

MEDON.

Well, between argument, and sentiment, and logic, and poetry, you are
making out a very plausible case. I think with you that, in the
instances you have mentioned, (as Lady Macbeth and Richard, Juliet, and
Othello, and others,) the want of comparative power is only an
additional excellence; but to go to an opposite extreme of delineation,
we must allow that there is not one of Shakspeare's women that, as a
dramatic character, can be compared to Falstaff.

ALDA.

No; because any thing like Falstaff in the form of woman--any such
compound of wit, sensuality, and selfishness, unchecked by the moral
sentiments and the affections, and touched with the same vigorous
painting, would be a gross and monstrous caricature. If it could exist
in nature, we might find it in Shakspeare; but a moment's reflection
shows us that it would be essentially an impossible combination of
faculties in a female.

MEDON.

It strikes me, however, that his humorous women are feebly drawn, in
comparison with some of the female wits of other writers.

ALDA.

Because his women of wit and humor are not introduced for the sole
purpose of saying brilliant things, and displaying the wit of the
author; they are, as I will show you, real, natural women, in whom _wit_
is only a particular and occasional modification of intellect. They are
all, in the first place, affectionate, thinking beings, and moral
agents; and _then_ witty, as if by accident, or as the Duchesse de
Chaulnes said of herself, "par la grace de Dieu." As to humor, it is
carried as far as possible in Mrs. Quickly; in the termagant Catherine;
in Maria, in "Twelfth Night;" in Juliet's nurse; in Mrs. Ford and Mrs.
Page. What can exceed in humorous naivete, Mrs. Quickly's upbraiding
Falstaff, and her concluding appeal--"Didst thou not kiss me, and bid me
fetch thee thirty shillings?"