The innocent and beauteous Arthur, rendered doubly attractive by the sweetness of his disposition and the severity of his fate, is thus described by his doating mother:—
"But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and fortune join'd to make thee great:
Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with lillies boast,
And with the half-blown rose."[420:B]
When he is captured, therefore, and imprisoned by John, and, consequently, sealed for destruction, who but Shakspeare could have done justice to the agonising sorrows of the parent? Her invocation
to death, and her address to Pandulph, paint maternal despair with a force which no imagination can augment, and of which the tenderness and pathos have never been exceeded:—
"Death, death:—O amiable lovely death!—
Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st,—
—————————————— Misery's love,