coloring of
the character; all these contradictory elements has Shakspeare seized,
mingled them in their extremes, and fused them into one brilliant
impersonation of classical elegance, Oriental voluptuousness, and gipsy
sorcery.

What better proof can we have of the individual truth of the character
than the admission that Shakspeare's Cleopatra produces exactly the same
effect on us that is recorded of the real Cleopatra? She dazzles our
faculties, perplexes our judgment, bewilders and bewitches our fancy;
from the beginning to the end of the drama, we are conscious of a kind
of fascination against which our moral sense rebels, but from which
there is no escape. The epithets applied to her perpetually
by Antony and others confirm this impression: "enchanting
queen!"--"witch"--"spell"--"great fairy"--"cockatrice"--"serpent of old
Nile"--"thou grave charm!"[68] are only a few of them; and who does not
know by heart the famous quotations in which this Egyptian Circe is
described with all her infinite seductions?

Fie! wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes--to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:--
For vilest things
Become themselves in her.

And the pungent irony of Enobarbus has well exposed her feminine arts,
when he says, on the occasion of Antony's intended departure,--

Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly: I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer
moment.

ANTONY.

She is cunning past man's thought.

ENOBARBUS.

Alack, sir, no! her passions are made of nothing but the
finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and
waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and
tempests than almanacs can report; this cannot be cunning
in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as
Jove.

The whole secret of her absolute dominion over the facile Antony may be
found in one little speech:--

See where he is--who's with him--what he does--
(I did not send you.) If you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick! Quick! and return.

CHARMIAN.

Madam, methinks if you did love him dearly,