HEROINES OF TRAGEDY.
[To TUX EDITOR Or TUB " SPRCTATOR.1 am glad that your correspondent who signs herself "An Elderly Woman" in the Spectator of April 19th has called attention to the unique charm of Shakespeare'a heroines. But is the nature of that charm thoroughly understood ? It is easy to perceive, but seemingly hard to realise, that the heroes and heroines of tragedy are real men and women with a difference. Unlike real men and women, they talk in verse; and akin to this point of dissimilarity, or included in it, are sundry minor points ; insomuch that, when we speak of a tragedian's characters as lifelike, we should mean that they are not obviously or essentially unlike life. Hence it follows that when Macaulay says that the oreatione of Shakespeare are thoroughly lifelike, while those of certain other dramatists are not lifelike at all, he is, after his wont, drawing the line too sharply and too broadly. In fact, e, devil's advocate, commenting on Shakespeare, might put many such questions as the following : Is it credible that Hamlet, when he had but lately discovered that the King haa sought to compass his death, would have written to inform his wicked uncle of his safe arrival in Denmark, and would then, after giving the grossest provocation, have trustfully betaken himself to Court ? But my chief illustration shall be drawn from the conduct of the truly exquisite heroine of The Merchant of Venice. When Portia appeared at the trial of Antonio she held a trump card with which she might at any moment have quashed Shylock. But instead of at once using her advantage, she deliberately kept the spectators, including her own husband, in cruel suspense. Will it be said that her object was to give Shylock the chance of repenting ? Such a plea might have some weight with reference to her beautiful speech in praise of "the quality of mercy." But in other parts of the scene she plays with the fears of Antonio and his friends in a manner which, though dramatically most effective, was surely a little heartless. Would not this delay of hers in succouring the afflicted, this prolonged keeping silence from good words, be censured rather than admired if the whole scene were rendered into the prose of real life ? In speaking thus, however, I am merely contending that it is not by the standard of real life, but by the conventional standard of the drama, that Portia is to be judged ; and so judging her, I agree with my lamented friend Romanes in regarding her as perhaps the most fascinating woman in all fiction.—I am,
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