end; nor even the knowledge of her
own husband's sudden suspicion of her, and his instructions to have her
slain, shake in the least degree her true affection. Such constancy
cannot fail of its reward, and in the end Imogen wins back both father
and husband.

In such a story, where virtue's self is made to shine, other characters
must of necessity suffer. Posthumus, Imogen's husband, appears weak
and impulsive, foolish in making his wife's constancy a matter for
wagers, and absurdly quick to believe the worst of her. His weakness
is, however, in part atoned for by his gallant fight in defense of his
native Britain, and by his {201} outburst of genuine shame and remorse
when perception of his unjust treatment of Imogen comes to him.
Cymbeline, the aged king, has all the irascibility of Lear, with none
of his tenderness. The wicked Queen and her son are purely wicked.
Only the faithful servant, Pisanio, a minor figure, has our sympathy in
this court group.

But in the exiled noble Belarius, and the two sons of Cymbeline whom he
has stolen in infancy and brought up with him in a wild life in the
mountains, single-hearted nobility rules. When Imogen, disguised as a
page, in her flight from the court to Posthumus comes upon them, there
is the instant sympathy of noble minds, and there is a brief respite
from her misfortunes. They rid her of the troublesome Cloten, and
their victory over Rome brings to book the intriguing Iachimo and
accomplishes her final recovery of love and honor. A reading of the
play leaves as the brightest picture upon the memory their joy at
meeting Imogen, and their grief when the potion she drinks robs them of
her. In them we find expressed that noble simplicity which
romanticists have always associated with true children of nature.

To Imogen, who has a far longer part to play than any other of
Shakespeare's heroines, the poet has also given a completer
characterization, in which every charm of the highest type of woman is
delineated. The one trait which a too censorious audience might
criticize, that meekness in unbearable affliction which makes Chaucer's
patient Griselda almost incomprehensible to modern readers, is in
Imogen completely redeemed by her resolution in the face of danger, and
by a certain {202} imperiousness which well becomes the daughter of a
king.

+Authorship+.--Some later hand probably made up the vision of Posthumus
(V, iv, 30-90), where a series of irregular st