calls upon the peer whom she has so insolently and cause lessly abused, to assist in her vituperations: “Tell me, thou fellow, is not France foresworn ?
Envenom him with words; or get thee gone, And leave those woes alone, which I alone Am bound to under-bear.”
She will not go with Salisbury to the Kings. Did they know her truly they would never send for her. She is in an ecstasy of passion, which she miscalls grief and sorrow. The idea that she will make the huge firm earth the throne of this great emotion carries one beyond the earth in its grandeur. The intensity of her passion is almost Satanic. Her humanity is alone vindicated by her subjection to its powers. Such passion in a questionable cause, moving a strong nature, would excite only fear and abhorrence; endured by a weak one it excites our extremest pity. Insanity alone redeems such passion to the kindred of womanhood, and is already foreshadowed in that culminating point where the extremes of pride and grief meet in the dust. “I will instruct my sorrows to be proud : For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.
To me, and to the state of my great grief, Let kings assemble ; for my grief's so great That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up : here I and sorrows sit ; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.” There is one word in the above quotations which must not pass without comment. Constance avows herself in ill health. “For I am sick.” This point of physical disturbance is rarely omitted by Shakspeare, in the development of in sanity. It may be referred to in this instance in the most casual and careless manner, for the drama can take little
cognizance of the physical imperfections of our nature. Still,
however skilfully and imperceptible, the point is made. In a sick frame, passion like that of Constance would have
