Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/73

Rh them all the slip, with as much hurry as though dunned by a posse comitatus of his bride's creditors, each armed with a "little account," and vigorously plying a steam leg a-piece. He goes to court, and becomes the observed of all observers—the glass of fashion and the mould of form—and but for the rooted memory of that mésalliance with Kate the cursed, would be a happy as he is a prosperous gentleman. Rumour says, the empress, having. enfranchised him, and laden him with many honours, is about to make him conclusively and in toto her own. The poor countess is hereupon in "a state;" a crisis is hastened by the advent of the empress to attend a tournament, the victor at which, according to the will of the now deceased duke, is to have Lady Catherine for better, for worse: but the crisis has a happy turn; the fever of the patients abates by the seasonable "exhibition" (as doctors phrase it) of a plenary éclaircissement, and when the green baize descends, it is amid a shower of nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, upon a set of worthy people who have just learned by heart that all's well that ends well. The countess is certainly portrayed with delicacy and vigour; the delineation and development of her character testify notably to our author's study of the human heart, and insight into its highways and by-ways. Her struggle is the old one between love and pride, and ends—as all such struggles do—on the boards. Pride of herself, intolerance of all equality, makes her a proverb among her peel's, who mark with an evil eye how sheHow can such as she, they argue, stoop to one of low degree, to one despised alike in hall and hamlet, a social pariah, an outcast of the people? More loftily the stateliest of all her ancestors ne'er wore his rank, than she. The serf—what is he but a creature made for her pride to vent its mood upon, that insufferable pride, which alone seems fruit of her capricious womanhood! Be the problem hard of solution as it may, to the chopping logic of good society, it is forthwith solved by the title of the play; for, as Ulrick has it,Nor has Mr. Knowles failed to avail himself of several highly effective situations in the conduct of this doctrine, in the conjugation of this verb amare. Such is the scene of the thunderstorm, when Huon is struck by lightning, and Catherine's pent-up affection overpasses every boundary, oblivious of all artificial restraint, and blind to the presence of others—a faithful illustration of the truth, that by fits and starts rather than by habits is the heart revealed—habits being put on, and subject to a science of calculation, whereas sudden outbreaks "so take the judgment off its guard, that inmost thoughts are shown"—Whence, when the serf lay stricken beneath the forest trees,