is betrayed in every word of her speech,
though so calmly characteristic. When she enumerates the unmerited
insults which have been heaped upon her, it is without asperity or
reproach, yet in a tone which shows how completely the iron has entered
her soul. Thus, when Leontes threatens her with death:--

Sir, spare your threats;
The bug which you would fright me with, I seek.
To me can life be no commodity;
The crown and comfort of my life, your favor,
I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,
But know not how it went. My second joy,
The first-fruits of my body, from his presence
I am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort--
Starr'd most unluckily!--is from my breast,
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,
Haled out to murder. Myself on every post
Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred,
The childbed privilege denied, which 'longs
To women of all fashion. Lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i' the open air, before
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die. Therefore, proceed,
But yet hear this; mistake me not. No! life,
I prize it not a straw:--but for mine honor.
(Which I would free,) if I shall be condemned
Upon surmises; all proof sleeping else,
But what your jealousies awake; I tell you,
'Tis rigor and not law.

The character of Hermione is considered open to criticism on one point.
I have heard it remarked that when she secludes herself from the world
for sixteen years, during which time she is mourned as dead by her
repentant husband, and is not won to relent from her resolve by his
sorrow, his remorse, his constancy to her memory; such conduct, argues
the critic, is unfeeling as it is inconceivable in a tender and virtuous
woman. Would Imogen have done so, who is so generously ready to grant a
pardon before it be asked? or Desdemona, who does not forgive because
she cannot even resent? No, assuredly; but this is only another proof of
the wonderful delicacy and consistency with which Shakspeare has
discriminated the characters of all three. The incident of Hermione's
supposed death and concealment for sixteen years, is not indeed very
probable in itself, nor very likely to occur in every-day life. But
besides all the probability necessary for the purposes of poetry, it has
all the likelihood it can derive from the pe