ord Byron's own
qualities must always have drawn it out in her. But there is something
far beyond beauty and passion in these noble and heroic creations of his
second manner.

"Where shall we find," says Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, "a purer, higher
character than that of Angiolina, in the 'Doge of Venice?' Among all
Shakspeare's female characters there is certainly not one more true, and
not only true and natural, which would be slight merit, but true as a
type of the highest, rarest order in human nature. Let us stop here for
a moment, we are on no common ground; the character of Angiolina has not
yet been understood."

Bulwer then quotes the scene between Marian and Angiolina, and after
having pointed out its moral beauty, exclaims:--

"What a deep sentiment of the dignity of virtue! Angiolina does not even
conceive that she can be suspected, or that the insult offered her
required any other justification than the indignation of public
opinion."

And Bulwer goes on to quote the verses where Marian asks Angiolina if,
when she gave her hand to a man of age so disproportioned, and of a
character so opposite to her own, she loved this spouse, this friend of
her family; and whether, before marriage, her heart had not beat for
some noble youth more worthy to be the husband of beauty like hers; or
whether since, she had met with some one who might have aspired to her
lovely self. And after Angiolina's admirable reply, Bulwer says:--

"Is not this conception equal at least to that of Desdemona? Is not her
heart equally pure, serene, tender, and at the same time passionate, yet
with love, not material but _actual_, which, according to Plato, gives a
visible form to virtue, and then admits of no other rival. Yet this
sublime noble woman had no cold stiffness in her nature; she forgives
Steno, but not from the cold height, of her chastity.

"'If,' said she to the indignant page, 'oh! if this false and light
calumniator were to shed his blood on account of this absurd calumny,
never from that moment would my heart experience an hour's happiness,
nor enjoy a tranquil slumber.'"

"Here," says Bulwer, "the reader should remark with what delicate
artifice the tenderness of sex and charity heighten and warm the snowy
coldness of her ethereal superiority. What a union of all woman's finest
qualities! Pride that disdains calumny; gentleness that forgives it!
Nothing can be more simply grand than the whole of this character, and
t