versally loved and reverenced by his subjects. In the mean time, the Count, instead of rejoining her, flies to Tuscany, and the rest of the story is closely followed in the drama. The beauty, wisdom, and royal demeanour of Giletta are charmingly described, as well as her fervent love for Bertram. But Helena, in the play, derives no dignity or interest from place or circumstance, and rests for all our sympathy and respect solely upon the truth and intensity of her affections.

She is indeed represented to us as one

"Whose beauty did astonish the survey

Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;
Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve
Humbly called mistress."

As her dignity is derived from mental power, without any alloy of pride, so her humility has a peculiar grace. If she feels and repines over her lowly birth, it is merely as an obstacle which separates her from the man she loves. She is more sensible to his greatness than her own littleness; she is continually looking from herself up to him, not from him down to herself. She has been bred up under the same roof with him; she has adored him from infancy. Her love is not "th' infection taken in at the eyes," nor kindled by youthful romance: it appears to have taken root in her being; to have grown with her years; and to have gradually absorbed all her thoughts and faculties, until her fancy" carries no favour in it but Bertram's," and "there is no living, none, if Bertram be away."

It may be said that Bertram, arrogant, wayward, and heartless, does not justify this ardent and deep devotion. But Helena does not behold him with our eyes; but as he is "sanctified in her idolatrous fancy." Dr. Johnson says he cannot reconcile himself to a man who marries Helena like a coward, and leaves her like a profligate. This is much too severe; in the first place, there is no necessity that we should reconcile ourselves

to him. In this consists a part of the wonderful beauty of the character of Helena-a part of its womanly truth, which Johnson, who accuses Bertram, and those who so plausibly defend him, did not understand. If it never happened in real life, that a woman, richly endued with heaven's best gifts, loved with all her heart, and soul, and strength, a man unequal to or unworthy of her, and to whose faults herself alone was blind-I would give up the point; but if it be in nature, why should it not be in Shakspeare?

We are not to look into Bertram's character for the spring and source of Helena's love for him, but into her own. She loves Bertram-because she loves him!a woman's reason, but here, and sometimes elsewhere, all-sufficient.

And although Helena tells herself that she loves in vain, a conviction stronger than reason tells her that she does not her love is like a religion, pure, holy, and deep; the blessedness to which she has lifted her thoughts is forever before her; to despair would be a crime-it would be to cast herself away and die. The faith of her affection, combining with the natural energy of her character, believing all things possible, makes them so. It could say to the mountain of pride which stands between her and her hopes, “Be thou removed!" and it is removed. This is the solution of her behaviour in the marriage scene, where Bertram, with obvious reluctance and disdain, accepts her hand, which the King, his feudal lord and guardian, forces on him. Her maidenly feeling is at first shocked, and she shrinks back:

"That you are well restor'd, my lord, I am 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. Pride is the only obstacle opposed to her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared to the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted her heart and truth, her soul, her life, her service, must not one day love her in return; and, once her own beyond the reach of fate, that her cares, her caresses, her unwearied patient tenderness, will not at last "win her lord to look upon her ":

"For time will bring on summer,

When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp."

It is this fond faith which, hoping all things, enables her to endure all things; which hallows and dignifies the surrender of her woman's pride, making it a sacrifice on which virtue and love throw a mingled incense.

MRS. JAMESON: Characteristics of Women.

III.
Bertram.

It undoubtedly lessens the interest of the play that Shakespeare should not have given Bertram some more estimable qualities along with the all too youthful and

unchivalrous ones which he possesses. The Poet has here been guilty of a certain negligence, which shows that it was only to parts of the play that he gave his whole mind. Bertram is right enough in refusing to have a wife thrust upon him against his will, simply because the King has a debt of gratitude to pay. But this first motive for refusing gives place to one with which we have less sympathy: to wit, pride of rank, which makes him look down on Helena as being of inferior birth, though king, courtiers, and his own mother consider her fit to rank with the best. Even this, however, need not lower Bertram irretrievably in our esteem; but he adds to it traits of unmanliness, even of baseness. For instance, he enjoins Helena, through Parolles, to invent some explanation of his sudden departure which will make the King believe it to have been a necessity; and then he leaves her, not, as he falsely declares, for two days, but for ever. His readiness to marry a daughter of Lafeu the moment the report of Helena's death has reached him is a very extraordinary preparation for the reunion of the couple at the end of the play, and reminds us unpleasantly of the exactly similar incident in Much Ado About Nothing. But, worst of all, and an indisputable dramatic mistake, is his entangling himself, just before the final reconciliation, in a web of mean lies with reference to the Italian girl to whom he had laid siege in Tuscany.

It was to make Helena's position more secure, and to avoid any suspicion of the adventuress about her, that Shakespeare invented the character of the Countess, that motherly friend whose affection sets a seal on all her merits. In the same way Parolles was invented with the purpose of making Bertram less guilty. Bertram is to be considered as ensnared by this old " fool, notorious liar, and coward" (as Helena at once calls him), who figures in the play as his evil genius.

BRANDES: William Shakespeare.

Even at the last, Bertram's attainment is but small; he is still no more than a potential piece of worthy manhood. We cannot suppose that Shakspere has represented him thus without a purpose. Does not the Poet wish us to feel that although much remains to be wrought in Bertram, his welfare is now assured? The courageous title of the play, All's Well that Ends Well, is like an utterance of the heart of Helena, who has strength and endurance to attain the end, and who will measure things, not by the pains and trials of the way, not by the dubious and difficult means, but by that end, by the accomplished issue. We need not, therefore, concern ourselves any longer about Bertram; he is safe in the hands of Helena; she will fashion him as he should be fashioned. Bertram is at length delivered from the snares and delusions which beset his years of haughty ignorance and dullness of the heart; he is doubly won by Helena; therefore he cannot wander far, therefore he cannot finally be lost.

IV.

Parolles.

DOWDEN: Shakspere.

Parolles is a counterfoil of Helena, inasmuch as like her he is ambitious of consorting with a higher rank, but unlike her is destitute of claims to honour of any kind. Lafeu characterizes him as an empty upstart, with a distinction worthy the admirer of Helena: "You are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and (note the annexation) virtue gives you heraldry."

The mistake of Bertram, in his estimation of Parolles, is counterpart of his disregard and disdain for Helena, and one error promotes the other, as the vapouring scoundrel is chargeable with some part of the Count's misconduct by encouragement and suggestion. While one error lasts, the other has little chance of being