Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/281

Rh As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, And so he'll die; and rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heav'n, I shall not know him; therefore never, never Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. K. Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child. Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child: Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts; Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. Then have I reason to be fond of grief."

The contrast between the mild resignation of Queen Katherine to her own wrongs, and the wild, uncontroulable affliction of Constance for the wrongs which she sustains as a mother, is no less naturally conceived than it is ably sustained throughout these two wonderful characters.

The accompaniment of the comic character of the Bastard was well chosen to relieve the poignant agony of suffering, and the cold, cowardly policy of behaviour in the principal characters of this play. Its spirit, invention, volubility of tongue, and forwardness in action, are unbounded. Aliquando sufflaminandus erat, says Ben Jonson of Shakespear. But we should be sorry if Ben Jonson had been his licenser. We prefer the heedless magnanimity of his wit infinitely to all Jonson's laborious caution. The character of the Bastard's comic humour is the