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Long. What says Maria?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Mar. At the twelvemonth's end, I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the

Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is plough for her sweet love three years. But, most

long.

Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there;
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Fall of comparisons and wounding flouts;
Which you on all estates will execute,
That le within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,)

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirta cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools: A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,

Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [To the KING.

King. No, madam, we will bring you on your way. Bron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack bath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Mit well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 't will end.

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esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should uave followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.

This side is Hiems, winter: This Ver, the spring: the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG. I.

SPRING. When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer-smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

III.

WINTER. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who:

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt

• Keel--akim.

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THIS comedy was first printed in the folio collection | as a profligate when she is dead by his unkindness of 1623. In the original copy the play is divided into sneaks home to a second marriage is accused by a acts, but not into scenes. There are several examples woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falseof corruption in the text; but, upon the whole, it is hood, and is dismissed to happiness." We have no very accurately printed, both with regard to the me- desire to reconcile our hearts to Bertram; all that we trical arrangement and to punctuation. demand is, that he should not move our indignation beyond the point in which his qualities shall consist with our sympathy for Helena in her love for him. And in this view the poet, as it appears to us, has drawn Bertram's character most skilfully. Without his defects the dramatic action could not have proceeded; without his merits the dramatic sentiment could not have been maintained.

In an early number of the Pictorial Edition' of Shakspere we expressed an opinion as to the date of this comedy:-"Meres has also mentioned, amongst the instances of Shakspere's excellence for comedy, Love's Labour Won.' This is generally believed to be All's Well that Ends Well;' and probably, in some form or other, this was an early play." Malone, in the first edition of his Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays,' assigns the date of this comedy to 1598, upon the authority of the passage in Meres. He says, "No other of our author's plays could have borne that title ('Love's Labour Won') with so much propriety as that before us." This is the real argument in the matter; and Coleridge, therefore, describes this play as "originally intended as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour 's Lost." " Shakspere's titles, in the judgment of that philosophical critic, always exhibit "great siguiticancy." The Labour of Love which is Lost is not a very earnest labour. The King and his courtiers are fantastical lovers. They would win their mistresses by "bootless rhymes" and "speeches peun'd," and their most sincere declarations are thus only received as "mocking merriment." What would naturally be the counterpart of such a story? One of passionate, enduring, all-pervading love,—of a love that shrinks from no difficulty, resents no unkindness, fears no disgrace, but perseveres, under the most adverse circumstances, to vindicate its own claims by its own energy, and to achieve success by the strength of its own will. This is the Labour of Love which is Won. Is not this the story of All's Well that Ends Well'?

Of the characters we may say a few words. Mrs. Jameson quotes a passage from Foster's 'Essays' to explain the general idea of the character of Helena: To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immoveable heart amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity." This "constitution of mind" has been created by Shakspere in his Helena, and who can doubt the truth and nature of the conception?

Bertram, like all mixed characters, whether in the drama or in real life, is a great puzzle to those who look without tolerance on human motives and actions. In a one-sided view he has no redeeming qualities. Johnson says, “I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helena as a coward, and leaves her

"In this piece," says Schlegel, "age is exhibited to singular advantage: the plain honesty of the King, the good-natured impetuosity of old Lafeu, the maternal indulgence of the Countess to Helena's love of her son, seem all, as it were, to vie with each other in endeavours to conquer the arrogance of the young Count." The general benevolence of these characters, and their particular kindness towards Helena, are the counterpoises to Bertram's pride of birth, and his disdain of virtue unaccompanied by adventitious distinctions. The love of the Countess towards Helena is habit, that of the King is gratitude: in Lafeu the admiration which he perseveringly holds towards her is the result of his honest sagacity. He admires what is direct and uupretending, and he therefore loves Helena: he hates what is evasive and boastful, and he therefore despises Parolles.

"Parolles has many of the lineaments of Falstaff.” We think that this opinion of Johnson exhibits a singular want of discrimination in one who relished Falstaff so highly. Parolles is literally what he is described by Helena :

:

"I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward."

Is this crawling, empty, vapouring, cowardly representative of the off-scourings of social life, to be compared for a moment with the unimitable Falstaff? The comparison will not bear examining with patience, and much less with painstaking. But Parolles in his own way is infinitely comic. "The scene of the drum," according to a French critic, "is worthy of Molière." This is the highest praise which a French writer could bestow; and here it is just. The character belongs to the school of which Molière is the head, rather than to the school of Shakspere. And what shall we say of the Clown? He is the "artificial fool;" and we do not like him, therefore, quite so much as dear Launce and dearer Touchstone. To the Fool in Lear' he can no more be compared than Parolles to Falstaff; but he is, nevertheless, great—something that no other artist but Shakspere could have produced. Our poet has used him as a vehicle for some biting satire. no doubt that he is "a witty fool," and an unhappy."

66

a

There can be shrewd knave,

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING OF FRANCE.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3.

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Appear, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 6.
Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3.

Steward, servant to the Countess of Rousillon.
Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 4.

Clown, servant to the Countess of Rousillon. Appears, Act I. se. 3. Act II. sc 2; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 2.

A Page.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1.

COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4 Act IV. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 3.

HELENA, a gentlewoman, protected by the Countess. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3: sc. 4; sc. 5 Act III. sc. 2; sc. 5; sc. 7. Act IV. sc. 4. Act V.sc. 1; sc. 3.

An old Widow of Florence.

Appears, Act III. sc. 5; sc. 7. Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

DIANA, daughter to the Widow.

Appears, Act III. sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1 ; sc. 3.

VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow
Appears, Act III. sc. 5.

MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.
Appears, Act III. sc. 5.

Lords attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, &c. French and Florentine.

SCENE,-IN FRANCE AND IN TUSCANY.

ACT I.

SCENE L-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's

Palace.

would have made nature immortal, and deatn snould have play for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's

Eater BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HE- sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of

LENA, and LAFEU, in mourning.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam; -you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (O, that had! how sad a passage 't is!) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, Passage-what passes.

the king's disease.

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam? Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of? Laf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. I heard not of it before. Laf. I would it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too: in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears

& Would-it would.

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