Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/242

 *duces women in order to make them convey to us impressions of character, traits of mind or heart. They are not so much feminine shapes as persons implicated in the play by the accident of relationship to the men. The parts are not particularized by them. Lady Percy, with one or two light touches of eager inquisitiveness, hints her fond and simple love. Queen Katherine fills out the proportions of a pathetic figure. But in "Henry V." Mrs. Quickly monopolizes all the point and savor: the Queen of France and her daughter are only lay-figures of the plot. In "1, 2 Henry IV.," it is the same. In "Richard II." the Queen seems merely born to this,—

"That my sad look Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke."

And her gardener plants a bank of rue

"In the remembrance of a weeping queen."

But, in "King John" both the grief and the character of Constance are more personally set forth, and we become aware of her distinctive quality. Queen Katherine, in "Henry VIII.," also puts an accent, different from that of Constance, upon her misfortunes; and her grief reveals another mood of the feminine nature; so that she attains to a separate consideration.

None of the women in the historical plays stand by the side of the men so emphasized as the mother of Arthur is: she agitates his claims with an impetuous sincerity that ought to have kept him alive to reign.

A high-minded man who claims his rights, and a high