In such a story, where virtue's self is made to shine, other characters must of necessity suffer. Posthumus, Imogen's husband, appears weak and impulsive, foolish in making his wife's constancy a matter for wagers, and absurdly quick to believe the worst of her. His weakness is, however, in part atoned for by his gallant fight in defense of his native Britain, and by his {201} outburst of genuine shame and remorse when perception of his unjust treatment of Imogen comes to him. Cymbeline, the aged king, has all the irascibility of Lear, with none of his tenderness. The wicked Queen and her son are purely wicked. Only the faithful servant, Pisanio, a minor figure, has our sympathy in this court group. But in the exiled noble Belarius, and the two sons of Cymbeline whom he has stolen in infancy and brought up with him in a wild life in the mountains, single-hearted nobility rules. When Imogen, disguised as a page, in her flight from the court to Posthumus comes upon them, there is the instant sympathy of noble minds, and there is a brief respite from her misfortunes. They rid her of the troublesome Cloten, and their victory over Rome brings to book the intriguing Iachimo and accomplishes her final recovery of love and honor. A reading of the play leaves as the brightest picture upon the memory their joy at meeting Imogen, and their grief when the potion she drinks robs them of her. In them we find expressed that noble simplicity which romanticists have always associated with true children of nature. To Imogen, who has a far longer part to play than any other of Shakespeare's heroines, the poet has also given a completer characterization, in which every charm of the highest type of woman is delineated. The one trait which a too censorious audience might criticize, that meekness in unbearable affliction which makes Chaucer's patient Griselda almost incomprehensible to modern readers, is in Imogen completely redeemed by her resolution in the face of danger, and by a certain {202} imperiousness which well becomes the daughter of a king. +Authorship+.--Some later hand probably made up the vision of Posthumus (V, iv, 30-90), where a series of irregular stanzas of inferior poetical merit are inserted to form "an apparition." +Date+.--Simon Forman, the writer of a diary, who died in 1611, describes the performance of _Cymbeline_ at which he was present. The entry occurs between those telling of _Macbeth_ (April 20, 1610) and _The Winter's Tale_ (May 15, 1611). The tests of verse assign it also to this period. The first print was that of the First Folio, 1623.