iant of a moral and spiritual grace
which the lowest and ugliest situation cannot obscure.

There certainly needs no scruple that the delineation is one of
extraordinary power: perhaps, indeed, it may stand as Shakespeare's
masterpiece in the conquest of inherent difficulties. And it is
observable that here, for once, he does not carry his point without
evident tokens of exertion. He does not outwrestle the resistance of
the matter without letting us see that he is wrestling. Of course the
hardness of the task was to represent the heroine as doing what were
scarce pardonable in another; yet as acting on such grounds, from such
motives, and to such issues, that the undertaking not only is, but is
felt to be, commendable in her. Lamb puts it just right: "With such
exquisite address is the dangerous subject handled, that Helena's
forwardness loses her no honour: delicacy dispenses with its laws in
her favour; and nature, in her single case, seems content to suffer a
sweet violation." And the Poet seems to have felt that something like
a mysterious, supernatural impulse, together with all the reverence
and authority of the old Countess, and also the concurring voice of
all the wise and good about her in hearty approval of her course and
eloquent admiration of her virtue,--that all these were needful to
bring her through with dignity and honour. Nor, perhaps, after all,
could any thing but success fully vindicate her undertaking; for such
a thing, to be proper, must be practicable: and who could so enter
into her mind as to see its practicability till it is done? At the
last we accept it as a sort of inspiration,--authenticated to us as
such in the result,--when she frames her intent in the meditation,--

"Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
What hath not been can't be."

Before leaving the subject, I am moved to add that, though Helena is
herself all dignity and delicacy, some of her talk with Monsieur Words
the puppy in the first scene is neither delicate nor dignified: it is
simply a foul blot, and I can but regret the Poet did not throw it out
in the revisal; sure I am that he did not retain it to please himself.

* * * * *

Almost everybody falls in love with the Countess. And, truly, one so
meek and sweet and venerable, who can help loving her? or who, if he
can resist her, will dare to own it? I can almost find it in my