Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/153

Rh with the ejaculation from her left in the Tower, where she has waited on his last moments,

While history makes her transfer her attachment to Pym, who must have been, in her eyes, Strafford’s murderer, on the score of her love of intellectual power, in which all other considerations were merged. This is a character so odious, and in a woman, so unnatural, that we are tempted rather to suppose it was hatred of the king for his base and treacherous conduct towards Strafford, that induced her to betray to Pym the counsels of the court, as the best means of revenge. Such a version of her motives would not be inconsistent with the character assigned her in the play. It would be making her the agent to execute her own curse, so eloquently spoken after she finds the king willing to save himself by the sacrifice of Strafford’s life.