obsolete, is drawn with great humour and knowledge of character. The
description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her--
'Whose love-suit hath been to me as fearful as a siege'--is enough
to cure the most ridiculous lover of his folly. It is remarkable
that though Cloten makes so poor a figure in love, he is described
as assuming an air of consequence as the Queen's son in a council of
state, and with all the absurdity of his person and manners, is not
without shrewdness in his observations. So true is it that folly is
as often owing to a want of proper sentiments as to a want of under-
standing! The exclamation of the ancient critic, 'O Menander and
Nature, which of you copied from the other?' would not be misapplied
to Shakespeare.

The other characters in this play are represented with great truth
and accuracy, and as it happens in most of the author's works, there
is not only the utmost keeping in each separate character; but in
the casting of the different parts, and their relation to one
another, there is an affinity and harmony, like what we may observe
in the gradations of colour in a picture. The striking and powerful
contrasts in which Shakespeare abounds could not escape observation;
but the use he makes of the principle of analogy to reconcile the
greatest diversities of character and to maintain a continuity of
feeling throughout, has not been sufficiently attended to. In
Cymbeline, for instance, the principal interest arises out of the
unalterable fidelity of Imogen to her husband under the most trying
circumstances. Now the other parts of the picture are filled up with
subordinate examples of the same feeling, variously modified by
different situations, and applied to the purposes of virtue or vice.
The plot is aided by the amorous importunities of Cloten, by the
tragical determination of Iachimo to conceal the defeat of his