If Portia had been a Christian, and lived in later times, she might have been another Lady Russel; but she made a poor stoic. No factitious or external control was sufficient to restrain such an exuberance of sensibility and fancy: and those who praise the philosophy of Portia and the heroism of her death, certainly mistook the character altogether. It is evident, from the manner of her death, that it was not deliberate self-destruction, "after the high Roman fashion," but took place in a paroxysm of madness, caused by overwrought and suppressed feeling, grief, terror, and suspense. Shakspeare has thus represented it:—
BRUTUS.
O Cassius! I am sick of many griefs!
CASSIUS.
Of your philosophy you make no use,
If you give place to accidental evils.
BRUTUS.
No man bears sorrow better; Portia's dead.
CASSIUS.
Ha!—Portia?
BRUTUS.