e mysterious and
inexorable fates.

"For it is the property of crime to extend its mischiefs over innocence,
as it is of virtue to extend its blessings over many that deserve them
not, while frequently the author of one or the other is not, as far as
we can see, either punished or rewarded."[45] But there's a heaven above
us!

MIRANDA.

We might have deemed it impossible to go beyond Viola, Perdita, and
Ophelia, as pictures of feminine beauty; to exceed the one in tender
delicacy, the other in ideal grace, and the last in simplicity,--if
Shakspeare had not done this; and he alone could have done it. Had he
never created a Miranda, we should never have been made to feel how
completely the purely natural and the purely ideal can blend into each
other.

The character of Miranda resolves itself into the very elements of
womanhood. She is beautiful, modest, and tender, and she is these only;
they comprise her whole being, external and internal. She is so
perfectly unsophisticated, so delicately refined, that she is all but
ethereal. Let us imagine any other woman placed beside Miranda--even one
of Shakspeare's own loveliest and sweetest creations--there is not one
of them that could sustain the comparison for a moment; not one that
would not appear somewhat coarse or artificial when brought into
immediate contact with this pure child of nature, this "Eve of an
enchanted Paradise."

What, then, has Shakspeare done?--"O wondrous skill and sweet wit of the
man!"--he has removed Miranda far from all comparison with her own sex;
he has placed her between the demi-demon of earth and the delicate
spirit of air. The next step is into the ideal and supernatural; and the
only being who approaches Miranda, with whom she can be contrasted, is
Ariel. Beside the subtle essence of this ethereal sprite, this creature
of elemental light and air, that "ran upon the winds, rode the curl'd
clouds, and in the colors of the rainbow lived," Miranda herself appears
a palpable reality; a woman, "breathing thoughtful breath," a woman,
walking the earth in her mortal loveliness, with a heart as
frail-strung, as passion-touched, as ever fluttered in a female bosom.

I have said that Miranda possesses merely the elementary attributes of
womanhood, but each of these stand in her with a distinct and peculiar
grace. She resembles nothing upon earth; but do we therefore compare
her, in our own minds, with any of those fabled beings with which the