character, except where vanity has been made the ruling motive.

MEDON.

Except! I admire your exception! You make in this case the rule the exception. Look round the world.

ALDA.

You are not one of those with whom that common phrase "the world" signifies the circle, whatever and wherever that may be, which limits our individual experience -as a child considers the visible horizon as the bounds which shut in the mighty universe. Believe me, it is a sorry, vulgar kind of wisdom, if it be wisdom-a shallow and confined philosophy, if it be philosophy -which resolves all human motives and impulses into egotism in one sex, and vanity in the other. Such may be the way of the world, as it is called-the result of a very artificial and corrupt state of society, but such is not general nature, nor female nature. Would you see the kindly, self

sacrificing affections developed under their most honest but least poetical guise-displayed without any mixture of vanity, and unchecked in the display by any fear of being thought vain?-you will see it, not among the prosperous, the high-born, the educated, "far, far removed from want, and grief, and fear," but among the poor, the miserable, the perverted-among those habitually exposed to all influences that harden and deprave.

MEDON.

I believe it-nay, I know it; but how should you know it, or anything of the strange places of refuge which truth and nature have found in the two extremes of society?

ALDA.

It is no matter what I have seen or known; and for the two extremes of society, I leave them to the author of Paul Clifford, and that most exquisite painter of living manners, Mrs. Gore. St. Giles's is no more nature than St. James's. I wanted

character in its essential truth, not modified by particular customs, by fashion, by situation. I wished to illustrate the manner in which the affections would naturally display themselves in women-whether combined with high intellect, regulated by reflection, and elevated by imagination, or existing with perverted dispositions, or purified by the moral sentiments. I found all these in Shakspeare; his delineations of women, in whom the virtuous and calm affections predominate, and triumph over shame, fear, pride, resentment, vanity, jealousy, particularly worthy of consideration, and perfect in their kind, because so quiet in their effect.

MEDON.

are

Several critics have remarked in general terms on those beautiful pictures of female friendship, and of the generous affection of women for each other, which we find in Shakspeare. Other writers, especially dramatic writers, have found ample food for wit and satiric delineations in the littleness of feminine spite and rivalry, in the

mean spirit of competition, the petty jealousy of superior charms, the mutual slander and mistrust, the transient leagues of folly or selfishness miscalled friendshipthe result of an education which makes vanity the ruling principle, and of a false position in society. Shakspeare, who looked upon women with the spirit of humanity, wisdom, and deep love, has done justice to their natural good tendencies and kindly sympathies. In the friendship of Beatrice and Hero, of Rosalind and Celia; in the description of the girlish attachment of Helena and Hermia, he has represented truth and generous affection rising superior to all the usual sources of female rivalry and jealousy; and with such force and simplicity, and obvious self-conviction, that he absolutely forces the same conviction

on us.

ALDA.

Add to these the generous feeling of Viola for her rival Olivia; of Julia for her rival Sylvia; of Helena for Diana; of the old Countess for Helena, in the same play;

and even the affection of the wicked queen in Hamlet for the gentle Ophelia, which prove that Shakspeare thought-(and when did he ever think other than the truth?)— that women have by nature "virtues that are merciful," and can be just, tender, and true to their sister women, whatever wits and worldlings, and satirists and fashionable poets, may say or sing of us to the contrary. There is another thing which he has most deeply felt and beautifully representedthe distinction between masculine and feminine courage. A man's courage is often a mere animal quality, and in its most elevated form a point of honour. But a woman's courage is always a virtue, because it is not required of us, it is not one of the means through which we seek admiration and applause; on the contrary, we are courageous through our affections and mental energies, not through our vanity or our strength. A woman's heroism is always the excess of sensibility. Do you remember Lady Fanshawe putting on a sailor's jacket, and his "blue thrum cap,"