e of her own power and will; yet we see how
frequently, with all this resolution and pride of temper, she became a
mere instrument in the hands of others, and a victim to the superior
craft or power of her enemies. The inference is unavoidable; there must
have existed in the mind of Constance, with all her noble and amiable
qualities, a deficiency somewhere, a want of firmness, a want of
judgment or wariness, and a total want of self-control.

* * * * *

In the play of King John, the three principal characters are the King,
Falconbridge, and Lady Constance. The first is drawn forcibly and
accurately from history: it reminds us of Titian's portrait of Caesar
Borgia, in which the hatefulness of the subject is redeemed by the
masterly skill of the artist,--the truth, and power, and wonderful
beauty of the execution. Falconbridge is the spirited creation of the
poet.[85] Constance is certainly an historical personage; but the form
which, when we meet it on the record of history, appears like a pale
indistinct shadow, half melted into its obscure background, starts
before us into a strange relief and palpable breathing reality upon the
page of Shakspeare.

Whenever we think of Constance, it is in her maternal character. All the
interest which she excites in the drama turns upon her situation as the
mother of Arthur. Every circumstance in which she is placed, every
sentiment she utters, has a reference to him, and she is represented
through the whole of the scenes in which she is engaged, as alternately
pleading for the rights, and trembling for the existence of her son.

The same may be said of the Merope. In the four tragedies of which her
story forms the subject,[86] we see her but in one point of view,
namely, as a mere impersonation of the maternal feeling. The poetry of
the situation is every thing, the character nothing. Interesting as she
is, take Merope out of the circumstances in which she is placed,--take
away her son, for whom she trembles from the first scene to the last,
and Merope in herself is nothing; she melts away into a name, to which
we can fix no other characteristic by which to distinguish her. We
recognize her no longer. Her position is that of an agonized mother; and
we can no more fancy her under a different aspect, than we can imagine
the statue of Niobe in a different attitude.

But while we contemplate the character of Constance, she assumes before
us an individ