animated them when young'-the Steward, and the Clown, are entirely his own creations.

Duration of Action. The time of the play is elever days, distributed over three months, arranged as follow: by Mr. Daniel (Trans. of New Shakespeare Soc., 1877. 79):

Day 1, Act I. i. Interval. Bertram's journey to Court Day 2, Act I. ii. and iii. Interval. Helena's journey. Day 3, Act II. i. and ii. Interval. Cure of the King's malady. Day 4, Act II. iii., iv. and v. Interval. Helena's return to Rousillon. Bertram's journey to Florence. Day 5, Act III. i. and ii. Day 6, Act III. iii. and iv. Interval-some two months. Day 7, Act III. v. Day 8, Act III. vi. and vii.; Act IV. i., ii. and iii. Day 9, Act IV. iv. Interval. Bertram's return to Rousillon. Helena's return to Marseilles. Day 10, Act IV. v.; Act V. i. Day 11, Act V. ii. and iii.

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Critical Comments.

I.

Argument.

I. Upon the death of a celebrated physician, his daughter Helena is given a home with the Countess of Rousillon, and she there falls desperately in love with the Countess's son, Bertram. His mother discovers the attachment, but is not displeased at it, for Helena, though poor and unknown, is a woman of much worth. Bertram, however, pays no heed to Helena, all his thoughts being turned to active service with the King of France, under whose protection he places himself after the death of his father. The King is suffering at this time from a disease which has been pronounced incurable. Helena, hearing of the King's ailment, secures the Countess's permission to go and offer him a prescription left her by her father.

II. Helena obtains an audience with the King, and after much persuasion induces him to try her remedy, exacting only a royal promise that, in the event of his being cured, the monarch shall bestow upon her the hand of a gentleman of her choosing. The cure is effected, and Helena chooses Bertram. The young Count disdains the match, but is forced to consent to the nuptials, under peril of the King's displeasure. But no sooner is the ceremony performed than Bertram departs for the Florentine war, without so much as kissing his bride.

III. Helena is sent home to the Countess with a letter from Bertram to the effect that he will never recog

nize his wife until she can obtain possession of a ring, a family heirloom, from his finger, and become with child by him to which conditions he subscribes a "never." He also renounces his family estates because of her, which so grieves the young woman that she departs, no one knows whither, in order not to keep him from his home. In Florence, the Duke has made Bertram general of his horse, and the Count distinguishes himself in battle. Helena arrives in the city disguised as a pilgrim, and learns from a widow that Bertram has been making dishonourable proposals to her daughter, Diana. Helena, seeing an opportunity, through Diana, to work out the seemingly impossible conditions imposed by her husband, prevails upon the widow to aid her project.

IV. In furtherance of Helena's plot, Diana obtains from Bertram the much-prized ring, and makes an assignation with him, at which, however, the woman he meets is not Diana, as he supposes, but Helena. Shortly afterwards he returns to his mother, the Countess, who has been mourning Helena as dead.

V. The King, at this time, is visiting at the Countess's palace in Rousillon. He becomes reconciled with Bertram, who had left the court surreptitiously, and is on the point of giving his consent to the young Count's marriage with another lady, when he detects a ring upon Bertram's finger that he himself had formerly given Helena, and which she had placed upon her husband's finger in Florence. Bertram cannot give a satisfactory explanation of its presence, and the King suspects him of having laid violent hands upon his wife, when the lost Helena appears upon the scene, tells the truth concerning the Florentine assignation, and assures her husband that both his conditions have been fufilled. The repentant Bertram gladly acknowledges her as his wife.

MCSPADDEN: Shakespearian Synopses.

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Helena,

In the character of Juliet we have seen the passionate and the imaginative blended in an equal degree, and in the highest conceivable degree as combined with delicate female nature. In Helena we have a modification of character altogether distinct; allied, indeed, to Juliet as a picture of fervent, enthusiastic, self-forgetting love, but differing wholly from her in other respects; for Helena is the union of strength of passion with strength of character.

"To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable 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."

Such a character, almost as difficult to delineate in fiction as to find in real life, has Shakspeare given to us in Helena; touched with the most soul-subduing pathos, and developed with the most consummate skill.

Helena, as a woman, is more passionate than imaginative; and, as a character, she bears the same relation to Juliet that Isabel bears to Portia. There is equal unity of purpose and effect, with much less of the glow of imagery and the external colouring of poetry in the sentiments, language, and details. It is passion developed under its most profound and serious aspect; as in Isabella, we have the serious and the thoughtful, not the brilliant side of intellect. Both Helena and Isabel are distinguished by high mental powers, tinged with a melancholy sweetness; but in Isabella the serious and energetic part of the character is founded in religious principle, in Helena it is founded in deep passion.

There never was, perhaps, a more beautiful picture of a woman's love, cherished in secret, not self-consu

ming in silent languishment-not pining in thought-not passive and "desponding over its idol"-but patient and hopeful, strong in its own intensity, and sustained by its own fond faith. The passion here reposes upon itself for all its interest; it derives nothing from art or ornament or circumstance; it has nothing of the picturesque charm or glowing romance of Juliet; nothing of the poetical splendour of Portia, or the vestal grandeur of Isabel. The situation of Helena is the most painful and degrading in which a woman can be placed. She is poor and lowly; she loves a man who is far her superior in rank, who repays her love with indifference, and rejects her hand with scorn. She marries him against his will; he leaves her with contumely on the day of their marriage, and makes his return to her arms depend on conditions apparently impossible. All the circumstances and details with which Helena is surrounded are shocking to our feelings and wounding to our delicacy, and yet the beauty of the character is made to triumph over all; and Shakspeare, resting for all his effect on its internal resources and its genuine truth and sweetness, has not even availed himself of some extraneous advantages with which Helena is represented in the original story. She is the Giletta di Narbonna of Boccaccio. In the Italian tale, Giletta is the daughter of a celebrated physician attached to the court of Roussillon; she is represented as a rich heiress, who rejects many suitors of worth and rank, in consequence of her secret attachment to the young Bertram de Roussillon. She cures the King of France of a grievous distemper, by one of her father's prescriptions; and she asks and receives as her reward the young Count of Roussillon as her wedded husband. He forsakes her on their wedding day, and she retires, by his order, to his territory of Roussillon. There she is received with honour, takes state upon her in her husband's absence as the "lady of the land," administers justice, and rules her lord's dominions so wisely and so well, that she is uni