man to be equal and different at the same time. Hence
the false equality of the sexes which has been of late so often and so
excruciatingly advocated. On this ground, the Poet could not have made
his women equal to his men without unsexing and unsphering them; which
he was just as far from doing as Nature is. The alleged inferiority,
then, of his women simply means, I suppose, that they are women, as
they ought to be, and not men, as he meant they should not be, and as
we have cause to rejoice that they are not. He knew very well that in
this matter equality and diversity are nowise incompatible, and that
the sexes might therefore stand or sit on the same level without
standing in the same shoes or sitting in the same seats. If, indeed,
he had not known this, he could not have given _characters_ of either
sex, but only wretched and disgusting medlies and caricatures of both.

How nicely, on the one hand, Shakespeare discriminates things that
really differ, so as to present in all cases the soul of womanhood,
without a particle of effeminacy; and how perfectly, on the other
hand, he reconciles things that seem most diverse, pouring into his
women all the intellectual forces of the other sex, without in the
least impairing or obscuring their womanliness;--all this is not more
rare in poetry than it is characteristic of his workmanship. Thus
Portia is as much superior to her husband in intellect, in learning,
and accomplishment, as she is in wealth; but she is none the less
womanly for all that. Nor, which is more, does she ever on that
account take the least thought of inverting the relation between them.
In short, her mental superiority breeds no kind of social
displacement, nor any desire of it. Very few indeed of the Poet's men
are more highly charged with intellectual power. While she is acting
the lawyer in disguise, her speech and bearing seem to those about her
in the noblest style of manliness. In her judge-like gravity and
dignity of deportment; in the extent and accuracy of her legal
knowledge; in the depth and appropriateness of her moral reflections;
in the luminous order, the logical coherence, and the beautiful
transparency of her thoughts, she almost rivals our Chief Justice
Marshall. Yet to us, who are in the secret of her sex, all the
proprieties, all the inward harmonies, of her character are
exquisitely preserved; and the essential grace of womanhood seems to
irradiate and consecrate the dress in which