Rousseau, having composed his Julie of the commonest clay of the earth,
does not animate her with fire from heaven, but breathes his own spirit
into her, and then calls the "impetticoated" paradox a _woman_. He makes
her a peg on which to hang his own visions and sentiments--and what
sentiments! but that I fear to soil my pages, I would pick out a few of
them, and show the difference between this strange combination of youth
and innocence, philosophy and pedantry, sophistical prudery, and
detestable _grossierete_, and our own Juliet. No! if we seek a French
Juliet, we must go far--far back to the real Heloise, to her eloquence,
her sensibility, her fervor of passion, her devotedness of truth. She,
at least, married the man she loved, and loved the man she married, and
more than died for him; but enough of both.

[21] Constant describes her beautifully--"Sa voix si douce au travers le
bruit des armes, sa forme delicate au milieu de cet hommes tous couverts
de fer, la purete de son ame opposee leurs calculs avides, son calme
celeste qui contraste avec leurs agitations, remplissent le spectateur
d'une emotion constante et melancolique, telle que ne la fait ressentir
nulle tragedie ordinaire."

[22] Coleridge--preface to Wallenstein.

[23] In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona."

[24] There is an allusion to this court language of love in "All Well
that Ends Well," where Helena says,--

There shall your master have a thousand loves--
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign;
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear,
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcut,
His faith, his sweet disaster, with a world
Of pretty fond adoptious Christendoms
That blinking Cupid gossips.--ACT I SCENE 1

The courtly poets of Elizabeth's time, who copied the Italian
sonnetteers of the sixteenth century, are full of these quaint conceits.

[25] Since this was written, I have met with some remarks of a similar
tendency in that most interesting book, "The Life of Lord E.
Fitzgerald."

[26] Juliet, courageously drinking off the potion, after she has placed
before herself in the most fearful colors all its possible consequences,
is compared by Schlegel to the famous story of Alexander and his
physician.

[27]

Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no h