Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/412

 *ism, of desire to govern England. She was in a frame of constant pique at the influence and reputation of Elizabeth. The Scottish reformers kept her skirmishing talent well employed. Defending her amusements or her mass against John Knox, she braved him till his bitter speech gathered into brine in her eyes. But, as it flowed, the lines of resolution upon her face were etched more clearly. She could lend her person to Bothwell with the hope of consolidating a party. With power and beauty at command, she lavished every wile to control the transitional epoch into which she was born. Her life was a series of shifts and dramatic surprises. But no dark recollections ever disturbed her sleep; nor did she carry a candle through the midnight of a shattered mind, to throw light upon suspected murders.

In love she was less constant than Macbeth's wife, who felt but one great passion, and had no art nor culture to lavish in retaining its object. She might have said,—

"I am as true as truth's simplicity, And simpler than the infancy of truth."

We shall find this sun-lighted heart less capable of endurance than the other blondes of history.

LADY MACBETH.

To make and share a husband's fortune was her only motive, and the only driving-power she could supply to that was love: her character was most inartificially con