than that; and this it does when, taking the form of
religion, it sweetly and silently embodies itself in deeds. And this
is the love that Southey had in mind when he wrote,--

"They sin who tell us love can die."

In Viola, divers things that were else not a little scattered are
thoroughly composed; her character being the unifying power that draws
all the parts into true dramatic consistency. Love-taught herself, it
was for her to teach both Orsino and Olivia how to love: indeed she
plays into all the other parts, causing them to embrace and cohere
within the compass of her circulation. And yet, like some subtile
agency, working most where we perceive it least, she does all this
without rendering herself a special prominence in the play.

It is observable that the Poet has left it uncertain whether Viola was
in love with the Duke before assuming her disguise, or whether her
heart was won afterwards by reading "the book even of his secret soul"
while wooing another. Nor does it much matter whether her passion
were the motive or the consequence of her disguise, since in either
case such a man as Olivia describes him to be might well find his way
to tougher hearts than Viola's. But her love has none of the
skittishness and unrest which mark the Duke's passion for Olivia:
complicated out of all the elements of her being, it is strong without
violence; never mars the innate modesty of her character; is deep as
life, tender as infancy, pure, peaceful, and unchangeable as truth.

Mrs. Jameson--who, with the best right to know what belongs to woman,
unites a rare talent for taking others along with her, and letting
them see the choice things which her apprehensive eye discerns, and
who, in respect of Shakespeare's heroines, has left little for others
to do but quote her words--remarks that "in Viola a sweet
consciousness of her feminine nature is for ever breaking through her
masquerade: she plays her part well, but never forgets, nor allows us
to forget, that she is playing a part." And, sure enough, every thing
about her save her dress "is semblative a woman's part": she has none
of the assumption of a pert, saucy, waggish manhood, which so delights
us in Rosalind in _As You Like It_; but she has that which, if not
better in itself, is more becoming in her,--"the inward and spiritual
grace of modesty" pervading all she does and says. Even in her
railleries with the comic characters there is all the while an
instinc