assion, forms the groundwork of the drama. Now, admitting
the axiom of Rochefoucauld, that there is but one love, though a
thousand different copies, yet the true sentiment itself has as many
different aspects as the human soul of which it forms a part. It is not
only modified by the individual character and temperament, but it is
under the influence of climate and circumstance. The love that is calm
in one moment, shall show itself vehement and tumultuous at another. The
love that is wild and passionate in the south, is deep and
contemplative in the north; as the Spanish or Roman girl perhaps poisons
a rival, or stabs herself for the sake of a living lover, and the German
or Russian girl pines into the grave for love of the false, the absent,
or the dead. Love is ardent or deep, bold or timid, jealous or
confiding, impatient or humble, hopeful or desponding--and yet there are
not many loves, but one love.

All Shakspeare's women, being essentially women, either love or have
loved, or are capable of loving; but Juliet is love itself. The passion
is her state of being, and out of it she has no existence. It is the
soul within her soul; the pulse within her heart; the life-blood along
her veins, "blending with every atom of her frame." The love that is so
chaste and dignified in Portia--so airy-delicate and fearless in
Miranda--so sweetly confiding in Perdita--so playfully fond in
Rosalind--so constant in Imogen--so devoted in Desdemona--so fervent in
Helen--so tender in Viola,--is each and all of these in Juliet. All
these remind us of her; but she reminds us of nothing but her own sweet
self; or if she does, it is of the Gismunda, or the Lisetta, or the
Fiammetta of Boccaccio, to whom she is allied, not in the character or
circumstances, but in the truly Italian spirit, the glowing, national
complexion of the portrait.[17]

There was an Italian painter who said that the secret of all effect in
color consisted in white upon black, and black upon white. How perfectly
did Shakspeare understand this secret of effect! and how beautifully he
has exemplified it in Juliet?

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows!

Thus she and her lover are in contrast with all around them. They are
all love, surrounded with all hate; all harmony, surrounded with all
discord: all pure nature, in the midst of polished and artificial life.
Juliet, like Portia, is the foster child of opulence a