Before the end of Navarre's first interview with the Princess, Boyet has discovered that he is "infected." At the end of the next act, we learn from Biron himself that he is in the same condition. Away then goes the vow with the King and Biron. In the fourth act we find that the infection has spread to all the lords; but the love of the King and his courtiers is thoroughly characteristic. It may be sincere enough, but it is still love fantastical.—It hath taught Biron “to rhyme and to be melancholy." The King drops his paper of poesy; Longaville reads his sonnet, which makes flesh "a deity;" and Dumain, in his most beautiful anacreontic, -as sweet a piece of music as Shakspere ever penned-shows "how love can vary wit." The scene in which each lover is detected by the other, and all laughed at by Biron, till he is detected himself, is thoroughly dramatic; and there is perhaps nothing finer in the whole range of the Shaksperean comedy than the passage where Biron casts aside his disguises, and rises to the height of poetry and eloquence. The burst when the "rent lines" discover "some love" of Biron is incomparably fine : to King and Princess, lords and ladies, must make way for the great pedants. The form of affectation is now entirely changed. It is not the cleverness of rising superior to all other men by despising the "affects which every man is born-it is not the cleverness of labouring at the most magnificent phrases to express the most common ideas; but it is the cleverness of two persons using conventional terms, which they have picked up from a common source, and which they believe sealed to the mass of mankind, instead of employing the ordinary colloquial phrases by which ideas are rendered intelligible. This is pedantry-and Shakspere shows his excellent judgment in bringing a brace of pedants upon the scene. In O'Keefe's Agreeable Surprise,' and in Colman's ' Heir at Law,' we have a single pedant—the one talking Latin to a milk-maid, and the other to a tallow-chandler. This is farce. But the pedantry of Holofernes and the curate is comedy. They each address the other in their freemasonry of learning. They each The famous speech of Biron, which follows, flatter the other. But for the rest of the is perhaps unmatched as a display of poetical world, they look down upon them. "Sir," rhetoric, except by the speeches of Ulysses saith the curate, excusing the "twice-sod to Achilles in the third act of 'Troilus and simplicity" of Goodman Dull, "he hath Cressida.' Coleridge has admirably de- never fed of the dainties that are bred in a scribed this speech of Biron. "It is logic book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; clothed in rhetoric ;-but observe how Shak- he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not spere, in his twofold being of poet and phi- replenished." But Goodman Dull has his losopher, avails himself of it to convey pro-intellect stimulated by this abuse. He has found truths in the most lively images-the heard the riddles of the "ink-horn" men, whole remaining faithful to the character and he sports a riddle of his own :supposed to utter the lines, and the expressions themselves constituting a further de "Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?" *Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 105. "You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?" 66 The ladies have received verses and jewels from their lovers; but they trust not to the versess—they think them "bootless rhymes," —the effusions of "prodigal wits :" "Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As foolery in the wise." When Boyet discloses to the Princess the scheme of the mask of Muscovites, she is more confirmed in her determination to laugh at the laughers "They do it but in mocking merriment; And mock for mock is only my intent." The affectation of "speeches penn'd" is overthrown in a moment by the shrewdness of the women, who encounter the fustian harangue with prosaic action. Moth comes in crammed with others' affectations : "All hail, the richest beauties on the earth! A holy parcel of the fairest dames" "That ever turn'd their-backs-to mortal views!" ---- The answer of Holofernes is the very quin- 66 Biron in vain gives him the cue-" their eyes, villain, their eyes :' -“the pigeon-egg of discretion" has ceased to be discreet-he is out, and the speech is ended. The maskers will try for themselves. They each take a masked lady apart, and each finds a wrong mistress, who has no sympathy with him. The keen breath of "mocking wenches" has puffed out all their fine conceits :— "Well, better wits have worn plain statutecaps." The sharp medicine has had its effect. The King and his lords return without their disguises; and, being doomed to hear the echo of the laugh at their folly, they come down from their stilts to the level ground of common sense:-from "taffeta phrases and "figures pedantical" to "Russet yeas, and honest kersey noes." But the Worthies are coming; we have not yet done with the affectations and the mocking merriment. Biron maliciously desires "to have one show worse than the King's and his company." Those who have 66 been laughed at now take to laughing at others. Costard, who is the most natural of the Worthies, comes off with the fewest hurts. He has performed Pompey marvellously well, and he is not a little vain of his performance "I hope I was perfect." When the learned curate breaks down as Alexander, the apology of Costard for his overthrow is inimitable : There, an 't shall please you; a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth; and a very good bowler; but, for Alisander, alas! you see how 't is ; a little o'erparted." Holofernes comes off worse than the curate—“ Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited!" We feel, in spite of our inclination to laugh at the pedant, that his remonstrance is just "This is not generous, not gentle, not humble." We know that to be generous, to be gentle, to be humble, are the especial virtues of the great; and Shakspere makes us see that the schoolmaster is right. Lastly, comes Armado. His discomfiture is still more signal. The malicious trick that Biron suggests to Costard shows that Rosaline's original praise of him was not altogether deserved—that his merriment was not always "Within the limit of becoming mirth." The affectations of Biron are cast aside, but he has a natural fault to correct, worse than any affectation; and beautifully does Rosaline hold up to him the glass which shows him how "To choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace The affectations are blown into thin air. The King and his courtiers have to turn from speculation to action-from fruitless vows to deeds of charity and piety. Armado is about to apply to what is useful: "I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years." The voices of the pedants are heard no more in scraps of Latin. They are no longer "singled from the barbarous." But, on the contrary, "the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo," is full of the most familiar images, expressed in the most homely language. Shakspere, unquestionably, to our minds, brought in this most characteristic song-(a song that he might have written and sung in the chimney-corner of his father's own kitchen, long before he dreamt of having a play acted before Queen Elizabeth)—to mark, by an emphatic close, the triumph of simplicity over false refinement. CHAPTER IV. ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. IN Dr. Farmer's 'Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,' we find this passage:-"The story of All's Well that Ends Well' or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, 'Love's Labour Wonne"" (and here Farmer inserts a reference to Meres' 'Wits' Trea- | sury,' where 'Love's Labour Wonne' is mentioned amongst plays by Shakspere,) "is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's 'Giletta of Narbon."" Mr. Hun no kind of argument or evidence; and I cannot find that any persons who have repeated it after him have shown any probable grounds for the opinion." 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; yet it must be acknowledged that the present title is inserted in the body of the play : All's well that ends well: still the fine 's the crown.' This line, however, might certainly have suggested the alteration of what has been thought the first title, and affords no decisive proof that this piece was originally called 'All's Well that Ends Well.'" When Coleridge describes this play as "originally intended as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost,””—when Mrs. Jameson, with reference to the nature of the plot and the suitableness of the title found in Meres, states, complainingly, "Why the title was altered, or by whom, I cannot discover,"and when Tieck says, "The poet probably first called this play 'Love's Labour Won,' -we may add the opinions of these eminent writers on Shakspere to the original opinion of Malone, in opposition to the opinion of Mr. Hunter, that "the leading features of the story in 'All's Well' cannot be said to be aptly represented by the title in Meres' list." Coleridge described this play as the counterpart of ‘Love's Labour's Lost.' Shakspere's titles, in the judgment of our philosophical critic, always exhibit "great significancy." 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 penn'd," and their most sincere declarations are thus only received as "mocking merriment.” The concluding speeches of the ladies to their lovers show clearly that Shakspere meant to mark the cause why their labour was lost-it was 66 labour hastily taken up, pursued in a light temper, assuming the character of "pleasant jest and courtesy." The Princess and her ladies would not accept it as labour" without a year's probation. It was offered, they thought, "in heat of blood;”—theirs was a love which only bore "gaudy blossoms." 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?' When Helena, in the first scene, so beautifully describes the hopelessness of her love "It were all one That I should love a bright particular star, could she propose to come within "his "The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose What hath been cannot be." Inferior natures, that estimate their labours by a common standard-"that weigh their pains in sense❞—that are not supported in their labours by a spirit which rejects all fear and embraces all hope,-confound the difficult with the impossible: they know that courage has triumphed over difficulty, but they still think "what hath been cannot be" again. Helena is not of their mind :— 'My project may deceive me, But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me." This is the purpose avowed from the commencement of the dramatic action; which marks every stage of its progress; which is essentially 'Love's Labour,' whether it be won or be lost. How beautifully does Shakspere relieve us from the feeling that it is unsexual for the labour to be undertaken by Helena, through the compassion which she inspires in the good old Countess : The reward, however, which she seeks is avowed without hesitation. Her will was too strong to admit of that timidity which might have clung to a feebler mind :— "Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand, What husband in thy power I will command." Up to this point all has been "labour"the conception of a high and dangerous pur "It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impress'd in pose-the carrying it through without shrink youth." How delicately, too, does he make Helena hold to her determination, even whilst she confesses to the Countess the secret of her ambitious love : "My friends were poor but honest; so's my love: Be not offended; for it hurts not him That he is loved of me: I follow him not Be any token of presumptuous suit; Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him." Again : “There's something hints, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest Of his profession, that his good receipt not for the cure of the King only, but for the winning of her labour. To obtain the full advantage of her legacy no common qualities were required in Helena. "Wis dom and constancy" are her characteristics, as Lafeu truly describes. The "constancy with which she enforces her power upon the mind of the incredulous King is prominently exhibited by the poet. Her modesty never overcomes the ruling purpose of her soul. She indeed says, "I will no more enforce mine office on you;" but she immediately after presses her "fix'd intents:" "What I can do can do no hurt to try." She succeeds : "Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak." these expressions sufficiently give the key to what passes within her. Her feelings amount almost to agony when Bertram refuses her, and for a moment she abandons her fix'd intent : "That you are well restor'd, my lord, I 'm glad; Let the rest go." "But shall she weakly relinquish the golden opportunity, and dash the cup from her lips at the moment it is presented? Shall she cast away the treasure for which she has ventured both life and honour, when it is just within her grasp ? Shall she, after compromising her feminine delicacy by the public disclosure of her preference, be thrust back into shame, 'to blush out the remainder of her life,' and die a poor, lost, scorned thing? This would be very pretty and interesting and characteristic in Viola or Ophelia, but not at all consistent with that high determined spirit, that moral energy, with which Helena is portrayed." 59* Helena suffers Bertram to be forced upon her-and this is the greatest "labour" of all. After the marriage and the desertion "Love's labour" is still most untiringly tasked. Love next assumes the sweet and Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics,' vol. i. p. 212. |