Helena in Shakspeare is a young woman seeking a man in marriage.

The ordinary rules of courtship are reversed, the habitual feelings are crossed.

Yet with such exquisite address this dangerous subject is handled, that Helena's forwardness loses her no honor; delicacy dispenses with its laws in her favor, and nature, in her single case, seems content to suffer a sweet violation.

Aspatia, in the Maid's Tragedy, is a character equally difficult with Helena, of being managed with grace.

She too is a slighted woman, refused by the man who had once engaged to marry her.
Yet it is artfully contrived, that while we pity we respect her, and she descends without degradation.