ACT I]

Count. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you!

Clo. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!-Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.-I am going, forsooth; the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit. Count. Well, now.

Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

:

Count. Faith, I do her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds: there is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her than she'll demand.

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for Her her, they touched not any stranger sense. matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love, no god, that would not extend his might only where qualities were level; Diana, no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight to be surprised, without rescue in the first assault, or ransom afterward: This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I held my duty, speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

Count. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe, nor misdoubt: Pray you, leave me: stall this in for honest you your your bosom, and I thank further anon. care: I will speak with you

Enter HELENA.

[Exit Steward.

Count. Even so it was with me when I was

young:

If ever we are nature's, these are our's; this thorn

a The passage in the original stands thus:-"Love, no god, that would not extend his might only where qualities were level; queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised without rescue," &c. The introduction of "Diana, no," was made by Theobald, and "to be" by Rowe. As the text is corrupt, we prefer a reading that has been generally received to any new conjecture. It would certainly be a less violent alteration to let the description of Fortune and Love terminate without the introduction of Diana; and to suppose the Steward to be translating into narrative an apostrophe of Helena to the Queen of Virgins. C 2

mother

a mother's

To

That this distemper'd messenger of wet, The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye? Why?-that you are my daughter?

Hel.

say,

That I am not. mother. Count. I I am your Pardon, madam; Hel. The count Rousillon cannot be my brother: I am from humble, he from honour'd name; No note upon my parents, his all noble : My master, my dear lord he is: and I His servant live, and will his vassal die : He must not be my brother. Count. Nor I your mother? Hel. You are my mother, madam. ('Would

you were

So that my lord, your son, were not my brother.) Indeed, my mother!-(Or were you both our

mothers,

I care no more for than I do for heaven, So I were not his sister.") Can't be other brother? my But, I your daughter, he must be Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughterin-law:

Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,

That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son :-

My friends were poor but honest; so's my love :

Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;

Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenibleb sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,

a Loneliness-in the original, loueliness. There can be no doubt that loneliness, and not loveliness, is intended.

b Captious and intenible-capable of receiving (taking) but not of retaining.

But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do: but, if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your
Dian

Was both herself and love; O then, give pity
To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose
But lend and give, where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.
Count. Had you not lately an intent, speak
truly,
To go to Paris?
Hei.
Count.

Madam, I had.

Wherefore? tell true. Iel. I will tell truth; by grace itself, I

If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
They, that they cannot help: How shall they

credit

A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself?

Hel.
There's something hints,
More than my father's skill, which was the
greatest

Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified

By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour

But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure,
By such a day and hour.

1 SCENE I.-" To whom I am now in ward."

"IT is now almost forgotten in England," says Johnson, "that the heirs of great fortunes were the king's wards. Whether the same practice prevailed in France it is of no great use to inquire, for Shakspeare gives to all nations the manners of England." The particular expression here used by Shakspere does not necessarily imply that the feudal rights of the sovereign over tenants in chief, during their minority, were assumed to be exercised in the case of Bertram. Those rights, certainly, did not extend to all France, but were confined to Normandy. Our poet seems to have followed, without much regard to the general question of wards, the story of Boccaccio, in which the Bertram of the novel is represented as being left by his father under the guardianship of the king. But in Shakspere's day the rights of wardship were \exercised by the crown very oppressively, and an English audience would quite understand how a sovereign could claim the privilege of disposing of his tenant in marriage. There is a very curious state paper addressed by Lord Cecil to Sir John Savile and others, in 1603, upon the accession of James, in which the king announces his desire to compromise his right of wardship for a pecuniary compensation. The Court of Wards was not abolished till 1656; but James, half a century before the nation got rid of this badge of feudality, thought that the existence of this species of tyranny afforded him a capital opportunity of making a merit of being gracious to his subjects, and of putting a round sum into his pocket at the same time. The scheme, however, failed, although very cleverly set forth. The letter of Cecil is long; but a sentence will show its objects and tone" His Majesty observing, among other things, what power he hath by the ancient laws of the realm to dispose of the marriages of all such subjects as hold their lands of him by tenures in capite, or knights' service, and shall be under ages at the time of their ancestors' death from whom their estates are derived; and conceiving well in his own great judgment what a comfort it would be to give them assurance that those might now be compounded for in the life of such ancestors, upon reasonable conditions, I thought it my duty, being privy to his Majesty's gracious purpose of affording his subjectis at this time some such condition of favour, to consider of and propound some convenient courses to his Majesty," &c. (Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii., 4to., page 189.)

sage noted is an exception; but such are very rare. Doubts have been entertained as to Shakspere's religious belief, because few or no notices of it occur in his works. This ought to be attributed to a tender and delicate reserve about holy things, rather than to inattention or neglect. It is not he who talks most about scripture, or who most frequently adopts its phraseology, who most deeply feels it.-(s)

3 SCENE III." What does this knave here," &c. Douce classes the Clown of this comedy amongst the domestic fools. Of this genus the same writer gives us three species:-The mere natural, or idiot; the silly by nature, yet cunning and sarcastical; the artificial. Of this latter species, to which it appears to us the Clown before us belongs, Puttenham, in his' Art of English Poesie,' has defined the characteristics :-"A buffoon, or counterfeit fool, to hear him speak wisely, which is like himself, it is no sport at all. But for such a counterfeit to talk and look foolishly it maketh us laugh, because it is no part of his natural." Of the real domestic fools of the artificial class-that is of the class of clever fellows who were content to be called fools for their hire, Gabriel Harvey has given us some minor distinctions:-" Scoggin, the jovial fool; or Skelton, the melancholy fool; or Elderton, the bibbing fool; or Will Sommer, the choleric fool." (Pierce's Supererogation, book ii.) Shakspere's fools each united in his own person all the peculiar qualities that must have made the real domestic fool valuable. He infused into them his wit and his philosophy, without taking them out of the condition of realities. They are the interpreters, to the multitude, of many things that would otherwise "lie too deep" for words.

4 SCENE III." Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart." This passage refers to the sour objection of the puritans to the use of the surplice in divine service, for which they wished to substitute the black Geneva gown. At this time the controversy with the puritans raged violently. Hooker's fifth book of Ecclesiastical Polity,' which, in the 29th chapter, discusses this matter at length, was published in 1597. But the question itself is much olderas old as the Reformation, when it was agitated between the British and continental reformers. During the reign of Mary it troubled Frankfort, and on the accession of Elizabeth it was brought back to England, under the patronage of Archbishop Grindal, whose residence in Germany. during his exile in Mary's reign, had disposed him to Genevan theology. The dispute about ecclesiastical vestments may seem a trifle, but it was at this period made the ground upon which to try the first principles of church authority: a point in itself unimportant becomes vital when so large a question is made to turn upon it. Hence its prominency in the controversial writings of Shakspere's time; and few among his audience would be likely to miss an allusion to a subject fiercely debated at Paul's Cross and else where.--(s.)

Of the last monarchy") see, that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
The bravest questant shrinks find what you seek,
That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell.

2 Lord. Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!

King. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them; They say our French lack language to deny, If they demand; beware of being captives, Before you serve.

Both. Our hearts receive your warnings. King. Farewell.-Come hither to me.

[The KING retires to a couch.

1 Lord. O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!

Par. 'Tis not his fault; the spark— 2 Lord. O, 't is brave wars!

a Johnson explains the epithet higher to have reference to geographical situation- upper Italy, where the French lords were about to carry their service. Those 'bated, &c., he interprets as, those abated or depressed by the wars, who have now lost their ancient military fame, and inherit but the fall of the last monarchy. The construction of the whole sentence in the original (in which the parenthetical punctuation is found) inclines us to think that the King applies the epithet higher to the general dignity of Italy, as the nation descended from ancient Rome the last monarchy. Be you the sons of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy (the Italian nation or people) see that you come to wed honour; but I except those, as unfit judges of honour, who inherit, not the Roman virtues, but the humiliation of the Roman decay and fall.