y her tongue.

ANTIGONES.

Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
Hardly one subject.

LEONTES.

Once more, take her hence.

PAULINA.

A most unworthy and unnatural lord
Can do no more.

LEONTES.

I'll have thee burn'd.

PAULINA.

I care not:
It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in't.

Here, while we honor her courage and her affection, we cannot help
regretting her violence. We see, too, in Paulina, what we so often see
in real life, that it is not those who are most susceptible in their own
temper and feelings, who are most delicate and forbearing towards the
feelings of others. She does not comprehend, or will not allow for the
sensitive weakness of a mind less firmly tempered than her own. There
is a reply of Leontes to one of her cutting speeches, which is full of
feeling, and a lesson to those, who, with the best intentions in the
world, force the painful truth, like a knife, into the already lacerated
heart.

PAULINA.

If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
Or, from the all that are, took something good
To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd
Would be unparallel'd.

LEONTES.

I think so. Kill'd!
She I kill'd? I did so: but thou strik'st me
Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter
Upon thy tongue, as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.

CLEOMENES.

Not at all, good lady:
You might have spoken a thousand things that would
Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
Your kindness better.

We can only excuse Paulina by recollecting that it is a part of her
purpose to keep alive in the heart of Leontes the remembrance of his
queen's perfections, and of his own cruel injustice. It is admirable,
too, that Hermione and Paulina, while sufficiently approximated to
afford all the pleasure of contrast, are never brought too nearly in
contact on the scene or in the dialogue;[50] for this would have been a
fault in taste, and have necessarily weakened the effect of both
characters:--either the serene grandeur of Hermione would have subdued
and overawed the fiery spirit of Paulina, or the impetuous temper of the
l