CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN.
[The elegantly embellished volumes by Mrs. Jamieson, with the above attractive title, present the prettiest code of ladye-philosophy we have ever witnessed on paper. They aim at illustrating the characters of Intellect, Passion, and Imagination, the Affections, and what are purely Historical Characters, in the females of Shakspeare's Plays. Such is the design: of its beautiful execution we can give the reader but a faint idea by extracting from Passion and Imagination, part of the Character of Juliet:—]
It is not without emotion, that I attempt to touch on the character of Juliet. Such beautiful things have already been said of her—only to be exceeded in beauty by the subject that inspired them!—it is impossible to say any thing better; but it is possible to say something more. Such in fact is the simplicity, the truth, and the loveliness of Juliet's character, that we are not at first aware of its complexity, its depth, and its variety. There is in it an intensity of passion, a singleness of purpose, an entireness, a completeness of effect, which we feel as a whole; and to attempt to analyze the impression thus conveyed at once to soul and sense, is as if while hanging-over a half-blown rose, and revelling in its intoxicating perfume, we should pull it asunder, leaflet by leaflet, the better to display its bloom and fragrance. Yet how otherwise should we disclose the wonders of its formation, or do justice to the skill of the divine hand that hath thus fashioned it in its beauty?
All Shakspeare's women, being essentially women, either love, or have loved, or are capable of loving; but Juliet is love itself. The passion is her state of being, and out of it she has no existence. It is the soul within her soul; the pulse within her heart; the life-blood along her veins, "blending with every atom of her frame." The love that is so chaste and dignified in Portia—so airy-delicate, and fearless in Miranda—so sweetly confiding in Perdita—so playfully fond in Rosalind—so constant in Imogem—so devoted in Desdemona—so fervent in Helen—so tender in Viola,—is each and all of these in Juliet. All these remind us of her; but she reminds us of nothing but her own sweet self: or if she does, it is of the Grismunda, or the Lisetta, or the Fiamminetta of Boccaccio, to whom she is allied, not in the character or circumstances, but in the truly Italian spirit, the glowing, national complexion of the portrait.[6]
There was an Italian painter who said that the secret of all effect in colour consisted in white upon black, and black upon white. How perfectly did Shakspeare understand this secret of effect! and how beautifully he has exemplified it in Juliet!
So shews a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her follows shews!
Thus she and her lover are in contrast with all around them. They are all love, surrounded with all hate; all harmony, surrounded with all discord; all pure nature, in the midst of polished and artificial life. Juliet, like Portia, is the foster-child of opulence and splendour: she dwells in a fair city—she has been nurtured in a palace—she clasps her robe with jewels—she braids her hair with rainbow-tinted pearls; but in herself she has no more connexion with the trappings around her, than the lovely exotic transplanted from some Eden-like climate, has with the carved and gilded conservatory which has reared and sheltered its luxuriant beauty.
But in this vivid impression of contrast, there is nothing abrupt or harsh. A tissue of beautiful poetry weaves together the principal figures and the subordinate personages. The consistent truth of the costume, and the exquisite gradations of relief with which the most opposite hues are approximated, blend all into harmony. Romeo and Juliet are not poetical beings placed on a prosaic background; nor are they, like Thekla and Max in the Wallenstein, two angels of light amid the darkest and harshest, the most debased and revolting aspects of humanity; but every circumstance, and every personage, and every shade of character in each, tends to the developement of the sentiment which is the subject of the drama. The poetry, too, the richest that can possibly be conceived, is interfused through all the characters; the splendid imagery lavished upon all with the careless prodigality of genius, and all is lighted up into such a sunny brilliance of effect, as though Shakspeare had really transported himself into Italy, and had drunk to intoxication of her genial atmosphere. How truly it has been said, that "although Romeo and Juliet are in love, they are not love-sick!" What a false idea would any thing of the mere whining amoroso, give us of Romeo, such as he is really in Shakspeare—the noble, gallant, ardent, brave, and witty! And Juliet—with even less truth could the phrase or idea apply to her! The picture in "Twelfth Night" of the wan girl dying of love, "who pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy," would never surely occur to us, when thinking on the enamoured and impassioned Juliet, in whose bosom love keeps a fiery vigil, kindling tenderness into enthusiasm, enthusiasm into passion, passion into heroism! No, the whole sentiment of the play is of a far different cast. It is flushed with the genial spirit of the south; it tastes of youth, and of the essence of youth; of life, and of the very sap of life. We have indeed the struggle of love against evil destinies and a thorny world; the pain, the grief, the anguish, the terror, the despair:—the aching adieu; the pang unutterable of parted affection; and rapture, truth, and tenderness trampled into an early grave: but still an Elysian grace lingers round the whole, and the blue sky of Italy bends over all!
Lord Byron's Haidée is a copy of Juliet in the Oriental costume, but the development is epic, not dramatic.
I remember no dramatic character, conveying the same impression of singleness of purpose, and devotion of heart and soul, except the Thekla of Schiller's Wallenstein: she is the German Juliet; far unequal, indeed, but conceived, nevertheless, in a kindred spirit. I know not if critics have ever compared them, or whether Schiller is supposed to have had the English, or rather the Italian, Juliet in his fancy when he portrayed Thekla; but there are some striking points of coincidence, while the national distinction in the character of the passion leaves to Thekla a strong cast of originality.
With regard to the termination of the play, which has been a subject of much critical argument, it is well-known that Shakspeare, following the old English versions, has departed from the original story of Da Porta;[7] and I am inclined to believe that Da Porta, in making Juliet waken from her trance while Romeo yet lives, and in his terrible final scene between the lovers, has departed from the old tradition, and as a romance, has certainly improved it: but that which is effective in a narrative is not always calculated for the drama; and I cannot but agree with Schlegel, that Shakspeare has done well and wisely in adhering to the old story.[8] Can we doubt for a moment that Shakspeare, who has given us the catastrophe of Othello, and the tempest scene in Lear, might also have adopted these additional circumstances of horror in the fate of the lovers, and have so treated them as to harrow up our very souls—had it been his object to do so? But apparently it was not. The tale is one,
Such, as once heard, in gentle heart destroys
All pain but pity.
It is in truth a tale of love and sorrow, not of anguish and terror. We behold the catastrophe afar off with scarcely a wish to avert it. Romeo and Juliet must die: their destiny is fulfilled: they have quaffed off the cup of life, with all its infinite of joys and agonies, in one intoxicating draught. What have they to do more upon this earth? Young, innocent, loving, and beloved, they descend together into the tomb: but Shakspeare has made that tomb a shrine of martyred and sainted affection consecrated for the worship of all hearts,—not a dark charnel vault, haunted by spectres of pain, rage, and desperation.
The poem, which opened with the enmity of the two families, closes with their reconciliation over the breathless remains of their children; and no violent, frightful, or discordant feeling, is suffered to mingle with that soft impression of melancholy left within the heart, and which Schlegel compares to one long, endless sigh.
"A youthful passion," says Goëthe, (alluding to one of his own early attachments), "which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell for a moment, with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls—it bursts—consuming and destroying all around even as itself expires."