ains, throughout, perfect order and fitness and proportion in act
and speech: the charge, so dreadful in itself, and so cruel in its
circumstances, neither rouses her passions, as it would Paulina's, nor
stuns her sensibilities, as in the case of Desdemona; but, like the
sinking of lead in the ocean's bosom, it goes to the depths without
ruffling the surface of her soul. Her situation is indeed full of
pathos,--a pathos the more deeply-moving to others, that it stirs no
tumults in her; for her nature is manifestly fitted up and furnished
with all tender and gentle and womanly feelings; only she has the
force of mind to control them, and keep them all in the right place
and degree. "They are the patient sorrows that touch nearest." And so,
under the worst that can befall, she remains within the region of
herself, calm and serenely beautiful, stands firm, yet full of grace,
in the austere strengths of reason and conscious rectitude. And when,
at her terrible wrongs and sufferings, all hearts are shaken, all eyes
wet, but her own, the impression made by her stout-hearted fortitude
is of one whose pure, tranquil, deep-working breast is the home of
sorrows too big for any eye-messengers to report:

"Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains."

The delineation keeps the same tone and texture through all its parts,
but the sense of it is specially concentrated in what she says when
the King winds up his transport of insane fury by ordering her off to
prison:

"Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodg'd here which burns
Worse than tears drown. 'Beseech you all, my lords,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me;--and so,
The King's will be perform'd!--'Beseech your Highness,
My women may be with me; for, you see,
My plight requires it.--Do not weep, good fools;
There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress
Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears,
As I come out.--.... Adieu, my lord:
I never wish'd to see you sorry; now
I trust, I shall."

And her character is answerably reflected in the minds of the King's
chief counsellors, whose very swords seem stirring with life in the
scabbards, and yearning to leap forth and vindicate the honour of
their glorious Queen