to the last. She would be seen even in death only as a queen, crown and all. Her command is: "Go fetch my best attires; I am again for Cydnus to meet MARC ANTONY.” She who boasted in the presence of "the case of that huge spirit"

"It were for me

To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods,
To tell them that this world did equal theirs,
Till they had stolen our jewel,"

might indeed be said to look in deathlike sleep as

"She would catch another ANTONY

In her strong toil of grace."

Cymbeline.

There is

CYMBELINE is the most romantic and imaginative of all SHAKSPEARE's plays. It seems to give birth to every wave of thought, of feeling and reflection. Every excellence in woman is delineated in the character of the heroine, Imogen. She is the very soul of purity, of honor and goodness. Every word she utters sounds like a sweet note of music from some undiscovered orb of song. Her intellect is almost as wonderful as her beauty, and her beauty is the most perfect dream of luxuriant loveliness. nothing vain, or haughty, or selfish about her. She is as peerless in the innate delicacy and majesty of her charms as a goddess. She moves through an atmosphere of corl ruption and deceit like a breath of summer, a glimpse of sunshine. She has the deepest and most exquisite sensibilities and the purest and loftiest affections. She combines in herself all the grace and tenderness and innocence and simplicity of youth, and all the strength and firmness and constancy of mature womanhood.

The plot of CYMBELINE is derived from various sources. SHAKSPEARE found in Hollingshead's Chronicles of England and Scotland some of the material of the play, including the names of CYMBELINE and his sons, together with some account of the King's reign, and the tribute demanded by the Romans. It is said that he also derived the beautiful name of Imogen from the same source, and that in the old

black-letter it is scarcely distinguished from Innogen, the wife of Brute, King of Britain. The story of the discovery of the mole upon Imogen's breast is taken either from Boccaccio's beautiful novel of "Zeneura" in the Decameron, or from a French romance entitled De La Violette, first published in the thirteenth century.

The hero of La Violette is Gerard de Nevers, called the false Paridel of French romance. He is described as being young and handsome, and graced with many accomplishments. He obtains by stealth the knowledge of a secret mark upon the breast of the heroine.

"Et vit sur sa destre mamele,

Une violete novele,

Ynde parut sous la char blanche.”

The above lines, Verplanc says, bear some resemblance to the description of the same incident in CYMBELINE; but adds, it is probable the English poet never read the story, and what seems to be an adaptation should be regarded only as a remarkable coincidence.

Collier, in his "Shakspeare's Library," gives an account of a French miracle-play, published in 1639, which contains. some of the incidents of CYMBELINE, the wager on the chastity of the heroine, her flight in the disguise of a page, the proof of her innocence, and her final restoration to her husband. Mr. Collier says that the French play contains two circumstances introduced into CYMBELINE not found in any other version of the story, viz., the method of assailing the heroine's virtue by exciting her anger and jealousy, and the boast of one of the characters that "if he were allowed the opportunity of speaking to her but twice he should be able to accomplish his design."

SHAKSPEARE was doubtless acquainted with this play, but it is evident that he made use of Boccaccio's novel.

He was doubtless sufficiently versed in the Italian to read it in the original. We can imagine the impression Boccaccio's charming story made upon his mind. It is the most exquisite creation in the Decameron. The Griseldis will not begin to compare with it. It is even more fascinating than the "Giletta di Narbonna." Each and all the incidents are related with singular sweetness, and power, and beauty and clearness. We deeply sympathise with the trials and sufferings, the long and patient wanderings of the fair Zeneura, and rejoice at the punishment of the fiend who boasted, "Woman only is pure who has never been asked, or she who herself has asked and been refused."

But beautiful as is Boccaccio's story, Zeneura cannot be compared with Imogen. We see in the former only a rugged outline of the depths and soundings of the human passions, of the delicate and tender and confiding loveliness of the soul so wonderfully and eloquently portrayed. in the latter. There are so many beauties in Imogen's character that it is almost impossible to analyse them or describe them.

In the parting scene in the first act we have the following inimitable description of unselfish love:

"Nay, stay a little.

Were you but riding forth to air yourself,

Such parting were too petty. Look here, love :
This diamond ring was my mother's; take it, heart,

But keep it till you woo another wife,

When Imogen is dead."

How deeply she feels the reproaches of her father against her husband when she says,

"There cannot be a pinch in death

More sharp than this!"

She is compelled to submit to the unexampled tyranny of "a father governed by a step-dame hourly coining plots,"

and to the serpent-like approaches of the "yellow Iachimo," who is destitute of any redeeming traits whatever. This fiend, armed with audacity from head to foot, like Iago, only lives to assail virtue and destroy happiness. His moral constitution is utterly incapable of digesting anything but poison. And yet he is introduced to IMOGEN as one of the noblest note," as one to whom her husband is "most infinitely tied." When this base slanderer insinuates that Posthumus is a renegade from her bed, and indulges in vaulting variable ramps" at her expense, she believes nothing in haste, and offers no other reproach than

"My Lord, I fear, has forgotten Britain."

The more we study her the more we love and admire her. She ever presents the most complete and perfect idea of womanhood. Even in the most trying scenes she never loses her self-possession. SHAKSPEARE has nowhere given a wider scope to his imagination than in the delineation of her character. And yet none of his heroines are more lifelike and natural. She charms all who behold her. Even in her male attire we are constantly impressed with the inborn delicacy and refinement and purity of her principles. She is indeed the embodiment of love and innocence, the sweetest, fairest lily. No wonder Guiderius exclaims when seeing her disguised as a page, "Were you a woman, youth, I should woo hard but be your groom, in honesty," and that Lucius, the Roman General, should call her "the page, so kind, so duteous, diligent."

Perhaps the most luxurious display of the personal. charms of woman in SHAKSPEARE is the description of Imogen in the sleeping scene. It is unequaled for the gorgeous richness of its coloring, and the variety and splendor of its imagery.

"The crickets sing, and man's o'erlabor'd sense
Repairs itself by rest; our Tarquin thus