to the play that are wanting in the novel. The mere story is not productive of more effect in one than in the other, and the drama makes no pretensions to rank in the first order of excellence. But a value is conferred upon Shakspeare's performance beyond its dramatic merit, by its being the repository of much sententious wisdom, and numerous passages of remarkable elegance. A single speech of the King may be referred to as an instance of both, and Helena's description of her hopeless passion may be selected as exquisitely beautiful. SKOTTOWE: Life of Shakspeare.

Shakespeare departed widely from the story in its earlier form by the greater prominence given to the part of Helena and the singular sweetness and devotion which irradiate her whole course. Coleridge thought her Shakespeare's loveliest creation. The portraiture of her character is touched throughout with exquisite delicacy and skill. Helena suffers, however, from the atmosphere of the play, which is distinctly repellent; it is difficult to resist the feeling that, conceding all that the play demands in concentration of interest upon the single end to be achieved, Helena cheapens the love she finally wins by a sacrifice greater than love could ask or could afford to receive. And when the sacrifice is made and the end secured, the victory of love is purely external; there is no inward and deathless unity of passion between the lovers like that which united Posthumus and Imogen in life and Romeo and Juliet in death.

The play must be interpreted broadly in the light of Shakespeare's entire work; in this light it finds its place as the expression of a passing mood of deep and almost cynical distrust; it is full of that searching irony which from time to time finds utterance in the poet's work and was inevitable in a mind of such range of vision. It is well to remember, also, that in this play the poet,

for the sake of throwing a single quality into the highest relief, secured entire concentration of attention by disregarding or ignoring other qualities and relations of equal importance and authority. This was what Browning did in his much misunderstood poem "The Statue and the Bust." It is always a perilous experiment, because it involves so much intelligent coöperation on the part of the reader. It is a triumph of Shakespeare's art that Helena's purity not only survives the dangers to which she exposes it, but takes on a kind of saintly whiteness in the corruption in which she plays her perilous part.

MABIE: William Shakespeare: Poet, Dramatist, and Man.

All's Well that Ends Well.

A Page.

'COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram.

• HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess.

An old Widow of Florence.

DIANA, daughter to the Widow.

.VIOLENTA,

MARIANA,

} neighbours and friends to the Widow.

Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine.

SCENE: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL'

ACT FIRST.

Scene I.

Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, all in black.

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;

ΙΟ

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 'tis !-whose 20