Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits, Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits. Her sentiments in the same manner are remarkable for the union of profound sense with the most passionate feeling; and when her language is figurative, which is seldom, the picture presented to us is invariably touched either with a serious, a lofty, or a melancholy beauty. For instance:-- It were all one That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it--he's so far above me. And when she is brought to choose a husband from among the young lords at the court, her heart having already made its election, the strangeness of that very privilege for which she had ventured all, nearly overpowers her, and she says beautifully:-- The blushes on my cheeks thus whisper me, "We blush that thou shouldst choose;--but be refused, Let the white death sit on that cheek for ever We'll ne'er come there again!" In her soliloquy after she has been forsaken by Bertram, the beauty lies in the intense feeling, the force and simplicity of the expressions. There is little imagery, and wherever it occurs, it is as bold as it is beautiful, and springs out of the energy of the sentiment, and the pathos of the situation. She has been reading his cruel letter. _Till I have no wife I have nothing in France._ 'Tis bitter! Nothing in France, until he has no wife! Thou shalt have none, Roussillon, none in France, Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't I That chase thee from thy country, and expose Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of the none-sparing war? And is it I That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, That ride upon the violent speed of fire, Fly with false aim! move the still-piercing air, That sings with piercing, do not touch my lord! Whoever shoots at him, I set him there; Whoever charges on his forward breast, I am the caitiff that do hold him to it; And though I kill him not, I am the cause His death was so effected; better 'twere I met the ravin lion when he roared With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere That all the miseries which nature owes, Were mine at once. No, no, although The air of paradise did fan the house, And angels officed all; I will be gone.