You are as fond of grief as of your child.
Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child:
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
The contrast between the mild resignation of Queen Katherine to her
own wrongs, and the wild, uncontrollable affliction of Constance for
the wrongs which she sustains as a mother, is no less naturally
conceived than it is ably sustained throughout these two wonderful
characters.
The accompaniment of the comic character of the Bastard was well
chosen to relieve the poignant agony of suffering, and the cold,
cowardly policy of behaviour in the principal characters of this
play. Its spirit, invention, volubility of tongue, and forwardness
in action, are unbounded. Aliquando sufflaminandus erat, says Ben
Jonson of Shakespeare. But we should be sorry it Ben Jonson had been
his licenser. We prefer the heedless magnanimity of his wit
infinitely to all Jonson's laborious caution. The character of the
Bastard's comic humour is the same in essence as that of other comic
characters in Shakespeare; they always run on with good things and
are never exhausted; they are always daring and successful.
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