my views as to the different philosophical points of view whence men regard history, at the same time showing why I do not load these light leaves with any peculiar philosophy of English history.
For I will not, above all things, analyse or dogmatically elucidate that in which Shakespeare has ennobled the great events of English chronicle, but only decorate with a few arabesques of words the portraits of the women who bloom in those poems. And as in these English historical dramas the women play anything but chief parts, and as the poet never lets them appear as female characters and figures, as we generally see them in other plays, but simply because the plot requires their presence, so will I speak the more sparingly of them.
Constance begins the dance, or is first in the procession, and that sorrowfully enough. She bears her child, like a Mater dolorosa, on her arm—the oppressed boy
" Who is not plagued for her sin,[1]
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
Of this removed issue."
I once saw the part of this mourning queen admirably acted on the Berlin stage by Madame Stich. Much less brilliant was the queen, Maria
- ↑ That of Queen Elinor. King John, act i. sc. 2.
