ous, vain, contemptible, and variable, till
the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude, and a sense of the sublime
spring from the very elements of littleness,--to do this, belonged only
to Shakspeare that worker of miracles. Cleopatra is a brilliant
antithesis, a compound of contradictions, of all that we most hate,
with what we most admire. The whole character is the triumph of the
external over the innate; and yet like one of her country's
hieroglyphics, though she present at first view a splendid and
perplexing anomaly, there is deep meaning and wondrous skill in the
apparent enigma, when we come to analyze and decipher it. But how are we
to arrive at the solution of this glorious riddle, whose dazzling
complexity continually mocks and eludes us? What is most astonishing in
the character of Cleopatra is its antithetical construction--its
_consistent inconsistency_, if I may use such an expression--which
renders it quite impossible to reduce it to any elementary principles.
It will, perhaps, be found on the whole, that vanity and the love of
power predominate; but I dare not say it _is_ so, for these qualities
and a hundred others mingle into each other, and shift and change, and
glance away, like the colors in a peacock's train.

In some others of Shakspeare's female characters, also remarkable for
their complexity, (Portia and Juliet, for instance,) we are struck with
the delightful sense of harmony in the midst of contrast, so that the
idea of unity and simplicity of effect is produced in the midst of
variety; but in Cleopatra it is the absence of unity and simplicity
which strikes us; the impression is that of perpetual and irreconcilable
contrast. The continual approximation of whatever is most opposite in
character, in situation, in sentiment, would be fatiguing, were it not
so perfectly natural: the woman herself would be distracting, if she
were not so enchanting.

I have not the slightest doubt that Shakspeare's Cleopatra is the real
historical Cleopatra--the "Rare Egyptian"--individualized and placed
before us. Her mental accomplishments, her unequalled grace, her woman's
wit and woman's wiles, her irresistible allurements, her starts of
irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovernable temper, her vivacity of
imagination, her petulant caprice, her fickleness and her falsehood, her
tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility to flattery, her
magnificent spirit, her royal pride, the gorgeous eastern