very fortunately—andOrlando stands before her at the very nick of time. She had just been saying, you know, "Let me see; what think you of falling in love?" We know Orlandohe has told us that "the spirit of my · father grows strong within me," and we feel already that the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois may be no unworthy lover of the sole daughter of the Duke. Ought she to have remained to see the wrestling-after having been told by Le Beau that Charles had thrown the three sons of the old man, and left them lying on the ground with broken ribs and little hope of life? ss wise. The promptings of a pure heart are as the intuitions of a clear intellect; and in the bosom and brow of Rosalind emotion and thought come and go together with a sweet serious smile. Celia cautions her coz on the affair of love, because her coz had chosen very abruptly to introduce the subject-a very singular one, it must be confessed, for retired talk between two young girls. Not that she thought her coz stood in need of advice or warning-oh! not she indeed-for they had slept together from childhood, and Celia knew that they were both pure alike as two dewdrops quivering on one leaf. Rosalind thinks it not worth her while to make any remark on the pretty preacher's homily-but starts away, like a self-willed bird from one bush to another, a goldfinch choosing a sunnier spot of greenery," for a livelier song. Her fine thoughts breathe themselves into lovely language. Celia calls rich Fortune "the good housewife;" but Rosalind still better, "the bountiful blind woman." She corrects coz too, like a sound philosopher as she is, in that false doctrine confusing the offices of Fortune and Nature. Rosalind gently rates Fortune, with whom she has cause of quarrel, but with Nature none; she knows and feels in her youth, beauty, and virtue, that Nature has been kind to her; and she vindicates her against the charge of having any thing to do with the "housewife and her wheel." Fortune did not give her that face, which was to rule Fortune. "The bountiful blind woman" had nought to do in these "lineaments of Nature." These were the traces of a diviner touch-and now, even in her sadness, her own beauty gladdens her with gratitude slightly coloured with unconscious pride. While Rosalind is thus "shewing more mirth than she is mistress of," opportunely enter, for her amusement, Touchstone, "a natural sent by nature for their whetstone," and Le Beau, "with his mouth full of news." The ladies laugh with the professional fool, for he is truly entertaining at all times-and they laugh at the amateur fool-aye, they banter Le Beau till he cries, "You amaze me, ladies!" The wrestling-scene is introduced On hearing of the rib-breaking, Rosalind only said, "alas!" Probably she would not have gone to see the wrestling, for she asks Celia's advice; but Celia replies, "Yonder, sure, they are coming; let us now stay and see it." And there is Orlando. "Is yonder the man ?" asks Rosalind; and would you have had her to leave him, who, "alas! is too young, but looks successfully," in the hold of the Duke's wrestler, without sending strength to all his sinews from the sympathy shining in her troubled eyes? As for the vulgarity of wrestling, 'tis a pretty pastime; and then Orlando could do nothing vulgar. Both ladies beseech him to give up this attempt-but his noble sentiments inspire silence; they but wish their little strengths were his-and during the tussle Rose ejaculates, "Oh excellent young man!" She saw Orlando had him; and 'twas a fair back-fall, "Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might; He never loved that loved not at first sight." So said Kit Marlow, whom Will Shakspeare hath by one line graciAnd well ously made immortal loveth the Swan of swans to sing of love at first sight; therefore must it be pleasing to the eyes of Nature, and agreeable to her holy laws. Giving him a chain from her neck! How much worthier of a woman such frankness, not unaccompanied with reserve, than the pride that sat in the eyes of high-born beauty, as with half-averted face she let drop glove or scarf to her kneeling knight, with silent permission to dye it for her sake in his heart's blood! Not for all the world would Rosalind have sent her wrestler to the wars. But believe us, she said aside to Celia, and in an under-tone, though looking on Orlando "Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown More than your enemies." She felt it was so, and could not help saying it; but she intended not that Orlando should hear the words, nor did he. All he heard was“Did you call, sir?" So far "she urged conference," and no farther; and 'twas the guileless hypocrisy of an unsuspecting heart! For our own parts, we see no reason in nature, had circumstances allowed it, why they should not have been married on the spot. Why, on this wrestling-match hangs the whole story of-" As You Like it," and "Do You Like it." For his brother Oliver's hatred grows deadly, and he plans burning Örlando alive in his house. So the brave youth flies to the Forest. The Duke, too, generally incensed, looks angrily on his niece, and fearing the influence of her graces and virtues on the hearts of his discontented subjects, can no longer bear her pre sence. "Of late this Duke Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece; Founded upon no other argument, But that the people praise her for her virtues, And pity her for her good father's sake; It does break forth. Duke Frederick pronounces sentence of banishment on Rosalind; and then her "6 eloquent blood mounts to her face," and she shews herself her father's daughter. True, that all at once she has loved Orlando. But though to Celia she confesses her love, and in her sudden sadness says -"O how full of briers is this working-day world!" yet her proud spirit is not subdued but by Orlando-not by the usurper and tyrant. There it nobly rebels. "Ros. Never so much as in a thought Did I offend your highness. Thus do all traitors; If their purgation did consist in words, They are as innocent as grace itself: Let it suffice thee, that I trust thee not. Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor : Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. Duke F. Thou art thy father's daughter, there's enough. Ros. So was I, when your highness took his dukedom; There was no descent either from decorum or dignity in " giving him a chain from her neck," for Rosalind saw, at a glance, that Orlando was noble-and. he deserved the chain. In the giving of that gift, with the tenderness of new-born love doubtless blended even the pride of birth. She gave it with a beating heart, but with stately measure of step, and graceful motion of arm-she to whom state and grace were native as to the lily. Now she seems like the haughty blush-rose. And how beautiful the bold friendship of the cousins-the sisters! In what imagery has it pleased the delighted spirit of Shakspeare to clothe its expression! "Wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable." "For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee." For a while, after the first burst of indignation, Rosalind remains al most mute. But Celia, inspired by her generous resolution to go with her beloved friend into banishment, is eloquent-is poetical; and the effect on our hearts of her eloquence, and the poetry in which she here pours out her devoted affection, is so touching and permanent, that, inferior though she be in personal and mental endowments to Rosalind, yet walks she always uneclipsed by her side-Rosalind the larger and more lustrous star, but Celia, too, a luminary, both bathed in the same dew, and loving the same spot of sky. The Cousins know they are beautiful. Rosalind, at the thought of seeking her father in the Forest of Arden, says, "Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far? Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold." And Celia will "with a kind of um- * The Licenser is shocked at the worse than impropriety of the word-thigh. We beg to solicit his attention to the following sentences from one of Walter Savage Landor's Dialogues: : "Porson.-Yet so it was. A friend who happened to be there, although I did not see him, asked me afterwards what I thought of the naked necks of the ladies. "To tell you the truth,' replied I, 'the women of all countries, and the men in most, have usually kept their necks naked.' "You appear not to understand me, or you quibble,' said he; 'I mean their bosoms.' "I then understood, for the first time, that neck signifies bosom when we speak of women, although not so when we speak of men or other creatures. But if bosom is neck, what, according to the same scale of progression, ought to be bosom ? The usurped dominion of neck extends from the ear downwards to where the mermaids become fish. This conversation led me to reflect that I was born in the time when people had thighs-long before your memory, I imagine, Mr Southey. At present there is nothing but leg from the hip to the instep. My friend Mr Small of Peterhouse, a very decent man, and fond of fugitive pieces, such as are collected or written by our Pratts, and Mavors, and Valpys, read before a lady and her family, from under the head of des criptive, some charming verses about the spring and the bees. Unluckily the honied thighs of our European sugar-slaves caught the attention of the mother, who coloured excessively at hearing the words, and said, with much gravity of reproof, 'Indeed, Mr Small, I never could have thought it of you;' and added, waving her hand with matronly dignity toward the remainder of the audience, Sir, I have daughters.'" 4 No unfitting conjecture for a second lord and first chambermaid; but though not wide amiss of the mark, as it happened, yet vile. Hesperia would have left her couch, at one tap at the window, and gone with the Wrestler whom she overheard the young ladies most commend, (though we suspect, notwithstanding his mishap, that she would have preferred Charles,) but Hesperia did not at all understand their commendation; and had she been called on to give a report of it for the Court Journal, would not merely have mangled it sadly, but imbued it with her own notions of " parts and graces." The doves flew not away, either with or for mates-yet, like others of their kind, they found what they did not seek; and erelong there was indeed billing and cooing in the woods. Gisborne's " Walks in a Forest!" Gilpin's "Forest Scenery !". Strutt's "Forest Scenes!"Good poetry, painting and engraving all. But all forests have fled away from our imagination-all but one-Shak speare's Forest of Arden. the Romance, request may be called "The Tuft of Olives." Far away is the noisy world-but still are we in the midst of human life. That noble Recluse speaks well to his "comrades and brothers in exile ;" and well does the melancholy Jaques moralize each spectacle. Philosophers are they all in that silvan court, and feel happy as his Grace Henceforth we are all Foresters"under the shade of melancholy boughs" or near the "cottage, pasture and the flock," the Cottage which Rosalind and Celia buy from the churl; and which we, singling out a picturesque expression that is dropped somewhere by somebody-we think by Rosalind-in "Who can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style." We are at a loss to know-we wish somebody would tell us-how long they have been living in the Forest. When Oliver asks Charles the wrestler "what's the new news at the court," Charles replies, "There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news, that is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the Duke."-"Old news" is an expression that gives us an indefinite notion of time. Yet "old news" are still "news;" and an "old infant" would be but a young child. Duke Senior himself says to his brothers in exile, "Under the greenwood tree, No enemy But winter and rough weather!" A few touches give the glimmer and gloom of old trees "Under an oak whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along the wood." And we see glimpsing by, with « forked heads," the poor dappled fools," the "native burghers of the desert city," that they may hide themselves among the little hills, "whose hairy sides with thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, access deny" to the quivered hunters. Yes! it is summer. The Board is spread below "a boundless contiguity of shade." Nothing can be finer than Orlando's sudden and desperate intrusion on the gallant company at their fruit-feast in "the desert inaccessible," and when he re-enters with old Adam, the hospitable and humane Duke wins our heart by a few words "I remember, when I was in love, I him take that for coming a'night to Jane broke my sword upon a stone, and bid Smile and I remember the kissing of her batlet, and the cow's dugs that her pretty chop'd hands had milk'd; and I remember the wooing of a peasecod instead of her; from whom I took two cods, and, giving her them again, said with weeping tears, Wear these for my sake.' We, that are true lovers, run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in folly."" nature, so is all nature in love mortal in How fortunate that the prettiest cottage in or about the Forest is on sale! No occasion for a conveyancer. price-and it matters not whether There shall be no haggling about simple business as in Arcadia of old, or no there be any title-deeds. A is buying and selling in Arden. True that it is not term day. But termday is past, for mind ye not that it is mid-summer? "The Tuft of Olives,"is to be sold just as it stands? with all the furniture-and the purchaser must take too the live-stock. "Ros. I pr'ythee, shepherd, if that love, or gold, Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves, and feed: Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd, And faints for succour. Cor. Fair sir, I pity her, |