is a
mere common-place "all-for-love" heroine, full of constancy and fine
sentiments. For instance:--

My love's so true,
That I can neither hide it where it is,
Nor show it where it is not. Nature meant me
A wife--a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit.
But fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wild world, unfurnished
Of falsehood to be happy.

Is this Antony's Cleopatra--the Circe of the Nile--the Venus of the
Cydnus? _She_ never uttered any thing half so mawkish in her life.

In Fletcher's "False One," Cleopatra is represented at an earlier period
of her history: and to give an idea of the aspect under which the
character is exhibited, (and it does not vary throughout the play,) I
shall give one scene; if it be considered out of place, its extreme
beauty will form its best apology.

Ptolemy and his council having exhibited to Caesar all the royal
treasures in Egypt, he is so astonished and dazzled at the view of the
accumulated wealth, that he forgets the presence of Cleopatra, and
treats her with negligence. The following scene between her and her
sister Arsinoe occurs immediately afterwards.

ARSINOE.

You're so impatient!

CLEOPATRA.

Have I not cause?
Women of common beauties and low births,
When they are slighted, are allowed their angers--
Why should not I, a princess, make him know
The baseness of his usage?

ARSINOE.

Yes, 'tis fit:
But then again you know what man--

CLEOPATRA.

He's no man!
The shadow of a greatness hangs upon him,
And not the virtue; he is no conqueror,
Has suffered under the base dross of nature;
Poorly deliver'd up his power to wealth.
The god of bed-rid men taught his eyes treason.
Against the truth of love he has rais'd rebellion
Defied his holy flames.

EROS.

He will fall back again
And satisfy your grace.

CLEOPATRA.

Had I been old,
Or blasted in my bud, he might have show'd
Some shadow of dislike: but to prefer
The lustre of a little trash, Arsinoe,
And the poor glow-worm light of