, but that awe of the crown restrains them.

Her last speech at the trial is, I am apt to think, the solidest piece
of eloquence in the language. It is like a piece of the finest
statuary marble, chiselled into perfect form; so compact of grain,
that you cannot crush it into smaller space; while its effect is as
wholesome and bracing as the atmosphere of an iced mountain when
tempered by the Summer sun. The King threatens her with death, and she
replies,--

"Sir, spare your threats:
The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
To me can life be no commodity:
The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,
But know not how it went: my second joy,
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence
I'm barr'd, like one infectious: my third comfort,
Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,
Hal'd out to murder: myself on every post
Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred,
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
To women of all fashion: lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i' the open air, before
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die. Therefore, proceed.
But yet hear this; mistake me not: My life,
I prize it not a straw; but for mine honour,
Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
'Tis rigour, and not law."

Noble simplicity of the olden time, when the best and purest of women,
with the bravest men in presence, thought no shame to hear themselves
speaking such plain honest words as these!

The Queen's long concealing of herself has been censured by some as
repugnant to nature. Possibly they may think it somewhat strained and
theatrical, but it is not so: the woman is but true to herself, in
this matter, and to the solid and self-poised repose in which her
being dwells. So that the thing does not seem repugnant to nature as
individualized by her reason and will; nor is her character herein
more above or out of nature than the proper ideal of art abundantly
warrants. For to her keen sensibility of honour the King's treatment
is literally an _infinite_ wrong; nor does its cruelty more wound her
affection, than its meanness alienates her respect; and one so stro