There is much to suggest a comparison of Perdita and Miranda; yet how shall I compare them?  Perfectly distinct indeed as individuals, still their characters are strikingly similar; only Perdita has perhaps a sweeter gracefulness, the freedom, simplicity, and playfulness of nature being in her case less checked by external restraints; while Miranda carries more of a magical and mysterious charm woven into her character from the supernatural influences of her whereabout.  So like, yet so different, it is hard saying which is the better of the two, or rather one can hardly help liking her best with whom he last conversed.  It is an interesting fact also, for such it seems to be, that these two glorious delineations were produced very near together, perhaps both the same year; and this too when Shakespeare was in his highest maturity of poetry and wisdom; from which it has been not unjustly argued that his experience both in social and domestic life must have been favourable to exalted conceptions of womanhood.  The Poet, though in no sort a bigot, was evidently full of loyal and patriotic sentiment; and I have sometimes thought that the government of Elizabeth, with the grand national enthusiasm which clustered round her throne and person, may have had a good deal to do in shaping and inspiring this part of his workmanship.  Be that as it may, with but one great exception, I think the world now finds its best ideas of moral beauty in Shakespeare’s women.

* * * * *

Florizel’s character is in exquisite harmony with that of the Princess.  To be sure, it may be said that if he is worthy of her, it is mainly her influence that makes him so.  But then it is to be observed, on the other hand, that as in such cases men find only what they bring the faculties for finding, so the meeting with her would not have elicited such music from him, had not his nature been originally responsive to hers.  For he is manifestly drawn and held to her by a powerful instinct of congeniality.  And none but a living abstract and sum-total of all that is manly could have so felt the perfections of such a woman.  The difference between them is, that she was herself before she saw him, and would have been the same without him; whereas he was not and could not be himself, as we see him, till he caught inspiration from her; so that he is but right in saying,—­

                          “I bless the time
    When my good falcon made her flight across
    Thy father’s ground.”

Nevertheless it is a clear instance of the pre-established harmony of souls:  but that his spirit were akin to hers, he could not have recognized his peer through such a disguise of circumstances.  For any one to be untouched and unsweetened by the heavenly purity of their courtship, were indeed a sin almost too great to be forgiven.