II.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

AND now from the pitchy smoke of Acheron, and from the hot and stifling atmosphere of injustice and cruelty, midnight murders and haunting spirits, bloody wrongs and fierce resentments, we emerge into the blue and sunshine of God's own heaven, and feel the "unchartered winds" from the mountain in our faces, blowing away towards the deep ocean of oblivion all clouds of mistrust and despair at man's unkindness and folly. We are in the forest of Arden; and under the green shaws will we crack nuts and jokes with that pretty squirrel, the pranksome Rosalind, or descant upon her blithe wisdom with that sedate and most loving of all cousins, the devoted, the cordial, the confiding Celia. To make the world one "perfect chrysolite" of happiness, let every man respect the predilections of his fellow: nothing is worth quarrelling about, not even unkindness; for that is a mistake which always brings its own retribution, silent or revealed. So we will talk of the gallant and gentle bearing and stalwart proportions of her lover with the crystal-hearted Rosalind; and repeat within hearing of the exiled Duke (for elderly gentlemen-especially aristocratic ones-love to hear themselves quoted) his own moral reflections upon the "sweet

uses of adversity;"-worthy, by the way, to be quoted at all seasons, for it is perfect in itself, and is an amulet to hang round the necks of the desponding. No one can know anything of Shakespeare and be ignorant of his first speech,

"Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile," &c. -Opening of Act ii.

The exiled Duke is a perfect exemplar of what should comprise a Christian's course-a cheerful gratitude for the benefits that have been showered upon him; a calm, yet firm endurance of adversity; a tolerance of unkindness; and a promptitude to forgive injuries. How sweet, and yet how strong is his moral nature! It seems as though no trial, social or physical, could change the current of his gracious wisdom. In a scene subsequent to that containing his celestial confession of moral faith, we have the proof that his philosophy is no cold profession merely,-no lip-deep ostentation,-no barren theory without practice. His conduct shows that his cheerful morality nestles in his heart, and inspires his actions. It is the seventh Scene of the second Act, where he and his followers are about to sit down to their woodland meal, when Orlando rushes in with his drawn sword, and demands food. There is in every point of the Duke's behaviour on this occasion, the forbearance, the gentleness, the charity, and the cordial courtesy which grow out of such philosophy as his-that of unaffected contentment. "Sweet are the uses of adversity," indeed, when they teach such lessons as these! We cannot fancy that this true-hearted gentleman could have so perfected his native character had he never known the reverse of fortune, which exiled him from his court, and sent him among the forest-trees to learn wisdom from all-bounteous Nature; to know the worth of his true friends, who forsook land and station to share his seclusion; and to secure a peace of soul seldom known to

those who live perpetually in the turmoil of public life. We find how dear his sylvan haunts have become to him; how happy have been the hours spent among them with his friends; how entirely their calm has penetrated his soul, and made part of his existence, by the unwillingness with which he prepares to quit these scenes at the end of the play, when his dukedom is restored to him. He receives the news with his own philosophic composure; and, by a word or two that he lets fall, it may be shrewdly suspected that he only intends returning to repossess himself of his birthright, in order to secure it for his daughter Rosalind, and her future husband, Orlando; and then that he will quietly leave the young people at court, and steal back with a few of his faithful friends to close their days in retirement on the spot where they have been so contentedly happy. Mayhap, as the years creep on, and age-aches warn him not to disregard the "seasons' difference," he will exchange the table under the greenwood tree for one beneath the oaken roof. But be sure that his house will be close upon the forest glades, and on his table will smoke a haunch of the red deer for old lang syne.

When we design to change our course of the moralising in this most perfect of Arcadian plays, we will accompany the "melancholy Jaques"-albeit not an especial favourite with us, for he is somewhat tinged with the affectation of melancholy and philosophy. Besides, we recognise no more affinity with "melancholy" than did Shakespeare himself, who never misses an opportunity of girding at your pompous and affectedly pensive character, and of proclaiming the superior qualifications of cheerfulness and good-humour. Instances of this might be multiplied; while I know of none that encourage melancholy, or even gravity, as being in itself, and for itself, a test of wisdom. "Laugh if you are wise," says one of his characters. "Frame your mind," says Kit Sly's

page, "to mirth and merriment; which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life." "Let me play the fool," says Gratiano; "with mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." chirping rogue, Autolycus, sings:

"A merry heart goes all the day;

Your sad tires in a mile-a."

That

And, in the mouth of Falstaff, he urges it as a vice in the cold blooded-nature of Prince John of Lancaster, that "a man cannot make him laugh.”

Jaques, nevertheless, is a great character in his way, and good too; as, indeed, says the Duke, "there is good” (more or less) "in everything." His chuckling account of the court fool, whom he stumbles upon in one of his rambles through the forest, is choicely good, and is as famous; both as giving a capital sketch of the man described, and as affording a characteristic picture of the mind of him who is describing. Jaques finds the fool-jester's conventional affectations irresistibly comic, while he betrays his own individual affectations even in the act of laughing at the other's.

Jaques is the model of a man addicted to self-contemplation; he always appears to be before his own mental lookingglass. He has inherited or acquired the tact to discern the worthlessness of artificial society, but he has not carried that tact into the wisdom of turning his philosophy the sunny side outwards. He, forsooth, would undertake to reform the world, having seen no more of the world than is comprised within the precincts of a court. Jaques says some of the finest things in the play; but, lest he should become an authority with the world, (and here again we note Shakespeare's watchfulness in inculcating a bland and cheerful philosophy,) by one stroke we are let into the secret of his character, that it is, or at least has heretofore been not altogether the exemplar to place before a reforming society.