Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/234

 marry Sir Toby, so she bends to every breeze of his humor, but is never overset: she could not misrepresent Malvolio even to please Sir Toby who has been so rated for overdrinking. She tells the simple truth of her observation: the steward is "the best persuaded of himself; so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his ground of faith, that all that look on him love him." Sir Toby first sees Malvolio in his true aspect, and exclaims with admiration, "She's a beagle, true bred!" So is every sound woman who is not called off the track by the small game of feminine crotchets and conceits.

Queen Margaret, the wife of Henry VI., has a mind so distempered by a hankering for political distinction that she misreads the grief of the good Duke Humphrey, the king's uncle, when she succeeds in degrading and banishing the Duchess. And she asks the King,—

"Can you not see? or will you not observe The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?"

She interprets the sombre mien, the fixed look, and the stiff gait of the sorrowing Duke into evidence of a rancorous and treasonable purpose. But the King knows better.

"Our kinsman Gloster is as innocent From meaning treason to our royal person, As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove."

He sees in Humphrey's face "the map of honor, truth, and loyalty." The Queen's ambitious discontent with the popularity of Humphrey discolors all his actions, so that she half believes he is at work to win the heart of the