the Poet with so much art and so little appearance of
art, that Franz Horn is the only critic, so far as I know, that seems
to have thought of it.

I must not dismiss Miranda without remarking the sweet union of
womanly dignity and childlike simplicity in her character, she not
knowing or not caring to disguise the innocent movements of her heart.
This, too, is a natural result of her situation. The instance to which
I refer is when Ferdinand, his manhood all alive with her, lets her
hear his soul speak; and she, weeping at what she is glad of,
replies,--

"Hence, bashful cunning!
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!--
I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no."

Equally fine is the circumstance that her father opens to her the
story of his life, and lets her into the secret of her noble birth and
ancestry, at a time when she is suffering with those that she saw
suffer, and when her eyes are jewelled with "drops that sacred pity
hath engender'd"; as if on purpose that the ideas of rank and dignity
may sweetly blend and coalesce in her mind with the sympathies of the
woman.

* * * * *

In Ferdinand is portrayed one of those happy natures, such as we
sometimes meet with, who are built up all the more strongly in truth
and good by contact with the vices and meannesses of the world.
Courage, piety, and honour are his leading characteristics; and these
virtues are so much at home in his breast, and have such an easy,
natural ascendant in his conduct, that he thinks not of them, and
cares only to prevent or remove the stains which affront his inward
eye. The meeting of him and Miranda is replete with magic indeed,--a
magic higher and more potent even than Prospero's; the riches that
nestle in their bosoms at once leaping forth and running together in a
stream of poetry which no words of mine can describe. So much of
beauty in so few words, and those few so plain and simple,--"O,
wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man!"

Shakespeare's genius is specially venerable in that he makes piety and
honour go hand in hand with love. It seems to have been a fixed
principle with him, if indeed it was not rather a genial instinct,
that where the heart is rightly engaged, there the highest and
tenderest thoughts of religion do naturally cluster and converge