ambition, dreaded the mother of Arthur as her
rival in power, and for that reason only opposed the claims of the son:
but I conceive, that in a woman yet in the prime of life, and endued
with the peculiar disposition of Constance, the mere love of power would
be too much modified by fancy and feeling to be called a _passion_.

In fact, it is not pride, nor temper, nor ambition, nor even maternal
affection, which in Constance gives the prevailing tone to the whole
character; it is the predominance of imagination. I do not mean in the
conception of the dramatic portrait, but in the temperament of the woman
herself. In the poetical, fanciful, excitable cast of her mind, in the
_excess_ of the ideal power, tinging all her affections, exalting all
her sentiments and thoughts, and animating the expression of both,
Constance can only be compared to Juliet.

In the first place, it is through the power of imagination that when
under the influence of excited temper, Constance is not a mere incensed
woman; nor does she, in the style of Volumnia, "lament in anger,
Juno-like," but rather like a sibyl in a fury. Her sarcasms come down
like thunderbolts. In her famous address to Austria--

O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame
That bloody spoil! thou slave! thou wretch! thou coward! &c.

it is as if she had concentrated the burning spirit of scorn, and dashed
it in his face: every word seems to blister where it falls. In the
scolding scene between her and Queen Elinor, the laconic insolence of
the latter is completely overborne by the torrent of bitter contumely
which bursts from the lips of Constance, clothed in the most energetic,
and often in the most figurative expressions.

ELINOR.

Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

CONSTANCE.

Let me make answer; Thy usurping son.

ELINOR.

Out insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
That thou may'st be a queen, and check the world!

CONSTANCE.

My bed was ever to thy son as true,
As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
Liker in feature to his father Geffrey,
Than thou and John in manners: being as like
As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
His father never was so true begot;
It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.

ELINOR.

There's a good mother, bo