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than Shakespeare inculcated, upon the subjects of the Tudors and Stuarts, over and over, alike in the groundwork of his fable, and in weighty apothegms, that

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone

Is good, without a name; etc.

He has, perhaps, as a poet, even sacrificed something of his dramatic interest to this purpose, by making the noble and accomplished Bertram inferior to the low-born Helena, in every truly honourable quality; so that most readers will concur in Johnson's honest regret that "this man noble without generosity, and young without truth,” should be at last "dismissed to happiness;"'—an impression which could have been prevented, by giving to the noble soldier a few redeeming touches of shame and penitence.

Besides this prominent and conspicuous moral lesson, other brief, sententious observations, filled with profound sense and truths humbling to human pride, are scattered through the drama, more in the shape of general reflection than as the utterance of individual emotion or sentiment, as is elsewhere the Poet's wont.

Paradoxical as the criticism may seem, the result of all this is that this is one of the least pleasing of the author's comedies, and yet one that does as much honour as any of his works to his mind and his heart.

The language approaches in many places to the style of MEASURE FOR MEASURE, as if much of it had been written in that season of gloom which imparted to the Poet's style something of the darkness that hung over his soul. In addition to these inherent difficulties, there are several indications of an imperfect revision, as if words and lines intended to be rejected, had been left in the manuscript, together with these written on the margin or interlined, for the purpose of being substituted for them. We have not the means afforded in several other plays where similar misprints have been found, of correcting them, by the collation of the old editions, as there is no other than that in the folio, which is less carefully printed than usual, not being even divided into scenes. From all these concurring causes, there are many passages of obscure or doubtful meaning, some of which would perhaps remain so, even if we had them as the author left them; while others are probably darkened by typographical errors. Some of these difficulties have been perfectly cleared up, by the ingenuity or antiquarian industry of the later commentators; as to others, we must be content with explanations and conjectural corrections, which are only probable until something more satisfactory can be presented.

SOURCE OF THE PLOT.

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The story is drawn from Boccaccio's "Decameron," which was the great storehouse of romantic and humorous narrative for the poets and dramatists of his own and the succeeding age. But though it cannot well be doubted that Shakespeare, at the time when this play received its present form, could read Italian, and was probably well acquainted with the "Decameron," as we know him to have been with the less attractive and less popular novels of Cinthio and Bandello; yet as this play seems to have been originally sketched in his younger days of authorship, when it is less likely that he had any knowledge of the Italian language, I agree with Dr. Farmer and others, that he probably used the very literal version of the tale contained in The Palace of Pleasure," by William Painter, of which the first volume was published in 1566, and the second in 1567. In the “Decameron," it bears this title:-"Giglietta of Narborn cures the King of France of a fistula, (a painful swelling on the breast, as it is explained in the tale,) and in reward claims Beltramo of Rousillon, for her husband. He having married her by compulsion goes off in anger to Florence; there falling in love with a young lady, he cohabits with Giglietta, personating her. She bears him twin boys. In consequence of this she becomes dear to him, and he receives her as his wife." The English version by Painter may be read in Collier's Shakespeare's Library. The Poet, says Mr. Collier, was only indebted to Boccaccio for the mere outline of his plot, as regards Helena, Bertram, the Widow, and Diana. All that belongs to the characters of the Countess, the Clown, and Parolles, and the comic business in which the last is engaged, were the invention of Shakespeare. The only names Boccaccio (and after him Painter) gives are Giglietta and Beltramo: the latter Shakespeare anglicised to Bertram, and he changed Giglietta to Helena, probably because he had already made Juliet the name of one of his heroines. Shakespeare much degrades the character of Bertram, towards the end of the drama, by the duplicity, and even falsehood, he makes him display: Coleridge (Literary Remains, ii. 121) was offended by the fact, that in act iii. scene 5, Helena, "Shakespeare's loveliest character," speaks that which is untrue under the appearance of necessity; but Bertram is convicted by the King of telling a deliberate untruth, and of persisting in it, in the face of the whole court of France. In Boccaccio the winding up of the story occurs at Rousillon, as in SHAKESPEARE, but the King is no party to the scene."

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He has moreover varied from his original, whether in Italian or English, in making Helena poor and dependant, instead of being as Boccaccio represents her, though fatherless, yet rich, and courted by many lovers acceptable to her friends. Could this variation have been for any other purpose than to make the story convey the moral instruction he has himself indicated, in the contrast of humble virtue, and high-born profligacy? It may be on the same account that the Poet keeps up Bertram's wayward and heartless falsehood to the last, whilst in the original the husband is overcome by his own better feelings, and receives and acknowledges his wife without compulsion.

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SCENE 1.-Rousillon. A Room in the COUNTESS's || wanted, rather than lack it where there is such

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

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 'tis !-whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of 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.

Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek.-No more of this, Helena: go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have. Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed; but I have it

too.

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?

Count. Be thou blest, Bertram; and succeed thy father

In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more
will,

That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head!-Farewell, my lord:
'Tis an unseason'd courtier: good my lord,
Advise him.

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[Exit COUNTESS.

Ber. [To HELENA.] The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father.

[Exeunt BERTRAM, and LAFeu. Hel. O, were that all!-I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries no favour in't but Bertram's. I am undone there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one,

That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. Twas pretty, though a plague.
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
Enter PAROLles.

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake,
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.
Hel. And you, monarch.

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Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity being blown down, man wil quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion: away with't.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in't: 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of vir ginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself, and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not: you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't: within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with't Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Par. Let me see: marry, ill; to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss

with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible: answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable : just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears it looks ill, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear. Will you any thing with it? Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-

I know not what he shall:-God send him well!-
The court's a learning-place ;-and he is one-
Par. What one, i'faith?

Hel. That I wish well.-'Tis pity-
Par. What's pity?

Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think; which never
Returns us thanks.

Enter a Page.

Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. [Exit Page. Par. Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

Hel. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

Par. Under Mars. I.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.

Par. Why under Mars?

Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.

Par. When he was predominant.

Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
Par. Why think you so?

Hel. You go so much backward when you fight.
Par. That's for advantage.

Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety but the composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee,|| so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: so farewell. [Exit.

Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. What power is it which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

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As when thy father, and myself, in friendship
First tried our soldiership. He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father. In his youth
He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour:
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride, or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and at this time
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
He us'd as creatures of another place,
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times,

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