MIRANDA.

WE might have deemed it impossible to go beyond Viola, Perdita, and Ophelia, as pictures of feminine beauty; to exceed the one in tender delicacy, the other in ideal grace, and the last in simplicity,-if Shakspeare had not done this, and he alone could have done it. Had he never created a Miranda, we should never have been made to feel how completely the purely natural and the purely ideal can blend into each other.

The character of Miranda resolves itself into the very elements of womanhood. She is beautiful, modest, and tender, and she is these only; they comprise her whole being, external and internal. She is so perfectly unsophisticated, so delicately refined, that she is all but ethereal. Let us imagine any other woman placed beside Mirandaeven one of Shakspeare's own loveliest and sweetest creations-there is not one of them that could sustain the comparison for a moment, not one that would not appear somewhat coarse or artificial when brought into immediate contact with this pure child of nature, this "Eve of an enchanted Paradise."

What then has Shakspeare done ?—"O wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man!"-he has removed Miranda far from all comparison with her own sex; he has placed her between the demi-demon of earth and the delicate

spirit of air. The next step is into the ideal and supernatural; and the only being who approaches Miranda, with whom she can be contrasted, is Ariel. Besides the subtle essence of this ethereal sprite, this creature of elemental light and air, that "ran upon the winds, rode the curl'd

clouds, and in the colors of the rainbow lived"—Miranda herself appears a palpable reality, a woman, "breathing thoughtful - breath;" a woman, walking the earth in her mortal loveliness, with a heart as frail-strung as passiontouched, as ever fluttered in a female bosom.

I have said that Miranda possesses merely the elementary attributes of womanhood, but each of these stand in her with a distinct and peculiar grace. She resembles nothing upon the earth; but do we therefore compare her, in our own minds, with any of those fabled beings with which the fancy of ancient poets peopled the forest depths, the fountain, or the ocean?—oread or dryad fleet, seamaid, or naiad of the stream? We cannot think of them together. Miranda is a consistent, natural human being. Our impression of her nymph-like beauty, her peerless grace, and purity of soul, has a distinct and individual character. Not only she is exquisitely lovely, being what she is, but we are made to feel that she could not possibly be otherwise than as she is portrayed. She has never beheld one of her own sex; she has never caught from society one imitated or artificial grace. The impulses which have come to her, in her enchanted solitude, are of heaven and nature, not of the world and its vanities. She has sprung up into beauty beneath the eye of her father, the princely magician; her companions have been the rocks and woods, the many-shaped, many-tinted clouds, and the silent stars; her playmates the ocean billows, that stooped their foamy crests, and ran rippling to kiss her feet. Ariel and his attendant sprites hovered over her head, ministered duteous to her every wish, and presented before her pageants of beauty and grandeur. The very air, made vocal by her father's art, floated in music around her. If we can pre-suppose such a situation with all its circumstances,

do we not behold in the character of Miranda not only the credible, but the natural, the necessary results of such a situation? She retains her woman's heart, for that is unalterable and inalienable, as a part of her being; but her deportment, her looks, her language, her thoughts—all these, from the supernatural and poetical circumstances around her, assume a cast of the pure ideal; and to us, who are in the secret of her human and pitying nature, nothing can be more charming and consistent than the effect which she produces upon others, who never having be held any thing resembling her, approach her as "a wonder," as something celestial.

Be sure! the goddess on whom these airs attend!

And again

What is this maid ?

Is she the goddess who hath severed us,
And brought us thus together?

And Ferdinand exclaims, while gazing on her,

My spirits as in a dream are all bound up!
My father's loss, the weakness that I feel,

The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats,

To whom I am subdued, are but light to me

Might I but thro' my prison once a day

Behold this maid: all corners else o' the earth

Let liberty make use, of, space enough
Have I in such a prison.

Contrasted with the impression of her refined and dignified beauty, and its effect on all beholders, is Miranda's own soft simplicity, her virgin innocence, her total ignorance of the conventional forms and language of society. It is most natural that in a being thus constituted, the first

tears should spring from compassion, "suffering with those that she saw suffer;"

O the cry did knock

Against my very heart. Poor souls! they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er
It should the good ship so have swallowed,
And the freighting souls within her !

love at She has

and that her first sigh should be offered to a once fearless and submissive, delicate and fond. no taught scruples of honor like Juliet; no coy concealments like Viola; no assumed dignity standing in its own defence. Her bashfulness is less a quality than an instinct; it is like the self-folding of a flower, spontaneous and unconscious. I suppose there is nothing of the kind in poe try, equal to the scene between Ferdinand and Miranda. In Ferdinand, who is a noble creature, we have all the chivalrous magnanimity with which man, in a high state of civilization, disguises his real superiority, and does humble homage to the being of whose destiny he disposes; while Miranda, the mere child of nature, is struck with wonder at her own new emotions. Only conscious of her own weakness as a woman, and ignorant of those usages of society which teach us to dissemble the real passions and assume (and sometimes abuse) an unreal and transient power, she is equally ready to place her life, her love, her service beneath his feet.

MIRANDA.

Alas, now! Pray you,

Work not so hard: I would the lightning had
Burnt up those logs, that you are enjoin'd to pile!
Pray set it down, and rest you: when this burns,

14**

'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself: He's safe for these three hours.

FERDINAND.

O most dear mistress,

The sun will set before I shall discharge

What I must strive to do.

MIRANDA.

If you'll sit down,

I'll bear your logs the while. Pray give me that, I'll carry it to the pile.

FERDINAND.

No, precious creature;

I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,
Than you should such dishonor undergo,

While I sit lazy by.

MIRANDA.

It would become me

As well as you: and I should do it

With much more ease; for my good will is to it,

And yours against.

MIRANDA.

You look wearily.

FERDINAND.

No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me When you are by at night. I do beseech you, (Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,) What is your name?

MIRANDA.

Miranda. O, my father,

I have broke your hest to say so!

FERDINAND.

Admir'd Miranda!

Indeed the top of admiration; worth

What's dearest in the world; Full many a lady