ted, she
nevertheless clearly indicates, the food of place and climate,
insomuch that the dignities of the princely and the simplicities of
the pastoral character seem striving which shall express her
goodliest. We can hardly call her a poetical being; she is rather
poetry itself, and every thing lends and borrows beauty at her touch.
A playmate of the flowers, when we see her with them, we are at a loss
whether they take more inspiration from her or she from them; and
while she is the sweetest of poets in making nosegays, the nosegays
become in her hands the richest of crowns. If, as Schlegel somewhere
remarks, the Poet is "particularly fond of showing the superiority of
the innate over the acquired," he has surely nowhere done it with
finer effect than in this unfledged angel.

There is much to suggest a comparison of Perdita and Miranda; yet how
shall I compare them? Perfectly distinct indeed as individuals, still
their characters are strikingly similar; only Perdita has perhaps a
sweeter gracefulness, the freedom, simplicity, and playfulness of
nature being in her case less checked by external restraints; while
Miranda carries more of a magical and mysterious charm woven into her
character from the supernatural influences of her whereabout. So like,
yet so different, it is hard saying which is the better of the two, or
rather one can hardly help liking her best with whom he last
conversed. It is an interesting fact also, for such it seems to be,
that these two glorious delineations were produced very near together,
perhaps both the same year; and this too when Shakespeare was in his
highest maturity of poetry and wisdom; from which it has been not
unjustly argued that his experience both in social and domestic life
must have been favourable to exalted conceptions of womanhood. The
Poet, though in no sort a bigot, was evidently full of loyal and
patriotic sentiment; and I have sometimes thought that the government
of Elizabeth, with the grand national enthusiasm which clustered round
her throne and person, may have had a good deal to do in shaping and
inspiring this part of his workmanship. Be that as it may, with but
one great exception, I think the world now finds its best ideas of
moral beauty in Shakespeare's women.

* * * * *

Florizel's character is in exquisite harmony with that of the
Princess. To be sure, it may be said that if he is worthy of her, it
is mainly her influenc