I am not here the apologist of Cleopatra's historical character, nor of such women as resemble her: I am considering her merely as a dramatic portrait of astonishing beauty, spirit, and originality. She has furnished the subject of two Latin, sixteen French, six English, and at least four Italian tragedies;[76] yet Shakspeare alone has availed himself of all the interest of the story, without falsifying the character. He alone has dared to exhibit the Egyptian queen with all her greatness and all her littleness--all her frailties of temper--all her paltry arts and dissolute passions--yet preserved the dramatic propriety and poetical coloring of the character, and awakened our pity for fallen grandeur, without once beguiling us into sympathy with guilt and error. Corneille has represented Cleopatra as a model of chaste propriety, magnanimity, constancy, and every female virtue; and the effect is almost ludicrous. In our own language, we have two very fine tragedies on the story of Cleopatra: in that of Dryden, which is in truth a noble poem, and which he himself considered his masterpiece, Cleopatra is a mere common-place "all-for-love" heroine, full of constancy and fine sentiments. For instance:-- My love's so true, That I can neither hide it where it is, Nor show it where it is not. Nature meant me A wife--a silly, harmless, household dove, Fond without art, and kind without deceit. But fortune, that has made a mistress of me, Has thrust me out to the wild world, unfurnished Of falsehood to be happy. Is this Antony's Cleopatra--the Circe of the Nile--the Venus of the Cydnus? _She_ never uttered any thing half so mawkish in her life. In Fletcher's "False One," Cleopatra is represented at an earlier period of her history: and to give an idea of the aspect under which the character is exhibited, (and it does not vary throughout the play,) I shall give one scene; if it be considered out of place, its extreme beauty will form its best apology. Ptolemy and his council having exhibited to Caesar all the royal treasures in Egypt, he is so astonished and dazzled at the view of the accumulated wealth, that he forgets the presence of Cleopatra, and treats her with negligence. The following scene between her and her sister Arsinoe occurs immediately afterwards. ARSINOE. You're so impatient! CLEOPATRA. Have I not cause? Women of common beauties and low births, When they are slighted, are allowed their angers-- Why should not I, a princess, make him know The baseness of his usage? ARSINOE. Yes, 'tis fit: But then again you know what man-- CLEOPATRA.