part of the tragedy of " Edipus Coloneus:" her sisterly affection, and her heroic self-devotion to a religious duty, form the plot of the tragedy called by her name. When her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had slain each other before the walls of Thebes, Creon issued an edict forbidding the rites of sepulture to Polynices, (as the invader of his country,) and awarding instant death to those who should dare to bury him. We know the importance which the ancients attached to the funeral obsequies, as alone securing their admission into the Elysian fields. Antigone, upon hearing the law of Creon, which thus carried vengeance beyond the grave, enters in the first scene, announcing her fixed resolution to brave the threatened punishment: her sister Ismene shrinks from sharing the peril of such an undertaking, and endeavours to dissuade her from it, on which Antigone replies

Wert thou to proffer what I do not ask-
Thy poor assistance—I would scorn it now ;
Act as thou wilt, I'll bury him myself:

Let me perform but that, and death is welcome.

I'll do the pious deed, and lay me down

By my dear brother; loving and beloved,
We'll rest together.

She proceeds to execute her generous purpose:
she covers with earth the mangled corse of Poly-
nices, pours over it the accustomed libations, is de-
tected in her pious office, and after nobly defend-
ing her conduct, is led to death by command of
the tyrant: her sister Ismene, struck with shame
and remorse, now comes forward to accuse her-
self as
a partaker in the offence, and share
her sister's punishment, but Antigone sternly
and scornfully rejects her; and after pouring
forth a beautiful lamentation on the misery of
perishing "without the nuptial song—a virgin and
a slave," she dies a l'antique-she strangles her-
self to avoid a lingering death.

Hemon, the son of Creon, unable to save her life, kills himself upon her grave: but throughout the whole tragedy we are left in doubt whether Antigone does or does not return the affection of this devoted lover.

Thus it will be seen that in the Antigone there is a great deal of what may be called the effect

of situation, as well as a great deal of poetry and character: she says the most beautiful things in the world, performs the most heroic actions, and all her words and actions are so placed before us as to command our admiration. Accord

ing to the classical ideas of virtue and heroism, the character is sublime, and in the delineation there is a severe simplicity mingled with its Grecian grace, a unity, a grandeur, an elegance which appeal to our taste and our understanding, while they fill and exalt the imagination: but in Cordelia it is not the external colouring or form, it is not what she says or does, but what she is in herself, what she feels, thinks, and suffers which continually awaken our sympathy and interest. The heroism of Cordelia is more passive and tender-it melts into our heart; and in the veiled loveliness and unostentatious delicacy of her character there is an effect more profound and artless, if it be less striking and less elaborate than in the Grecian heroine. To Antigone we give our admiration, to Cordelia our tears. Antigone stands before us in her austere and statue-like beauty, like

one of the marbles of the Parthenon. If Cordelia remind us of any thing on earth, it is of one of the Madonnas in the old Italian pictures, "with downcast eyes beneath th' almighty dove: " and as that heavenly form is connected with our human sympathies only by the expression of maternal tenderness, or maternal sorrow, even so, Cordelia would be almost too angelic, were she not linked to our earthly feelings, bound to our very hearts, by her filial love, her wrongs,

HISTORICAL

CHARACTER?

CLEOPATRA

I CANNOT agree with one of the most philosophical of Shakspeare's critics, who has asserted "that the actual truth of particular events, in proportion as we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure, as well as the dignity of tragedy." If this ob..