Identifier: characteristicso00jame (find matches)
Title: Characteristics of women : moral, poetical, and historical
Year: 1853 (1850s)
Authors: Jameson, Mrs. (Anna), 1794-1860
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 Women in literature
Publisher: Boston : Phillips, Sampson
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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sition,and by the perseverance Avith ^vhich she had asserted it,—remaining the last strong feeling upon her mind, to the very lasthorn- of existence. When I am dead, good wench,Let me be used with honor: strew me overWith maiden flowers, that all the world may knowI was a chaste wife to my grave; embalm me,Then lay me forth: although unqueend, yet likeA queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.I can no more— In the epilogue to this play,* it is recommended— To the merciful construction of good women,For such a one we showd them: alluding to the character of Queen Katherine. Shakspeare has, infact, placed before us a queen and a heroine, who in the firstplace, and above all, is a good woman; and I repeat, that indoing so, and in trustmg for all his effect to truth and virtue, hehas given a sublime proof of his genius and his wisdom;—forwhich, among many other obligations, we Avomen remain his debtors • Written (as the commentators suppose), not by Shakspeare, but by Ben Jonson
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^ r/y?/yr ^//rZ./y. LADY MACBETH I DOUBT whether the epithet historical can properly apply to thecharacter of Lady Macbeth; for though the subject of the playbe taken from history, we never think of her with any referenceto historical associations, as we do with regard to Constance,Volumnia, Katherine of Arragon, and others. I remember readingsome critique, in which Lady Macbeth was styled the Scottishqueen; and methought the title, as apphed to her, sounded likea vulgarism. It appears that the real wife of I^Iacbeth,—she wholives only in the obscure record of an obscure age, bore thevery unmusical appellation of Graoch, and was instigated to themurder of Duncan, not only by ambition, but by motives of vengeance.She was the grand-daughter of Kenneth the Fourth, killed in1003, fighting against Malcolm the Second, the father of Duncan.Macbeth reigned over Scotland from the year 1039 to 105G ;—but what is all this to the purpose-? The sternly magnificentcreation of the poet stands be

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