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been laughed at now take to laughing at others. Costard, who is the most natural of the Worthies, comes off with the fewest hurts. He has performed Pompey marvellously well, and he is not a little vain of his performance -"I hope I was perfect." When the learned curate breaks down as Alexander, the apology of Costard for his overthrow is inimitable : "There, an 't shall please you; a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth; and a very good bowler; but, for Alisander, alas! you see how 't is ; a little o'erparted." Holofernes comes off worse than the curate" Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited!" We feel, in spite of our inclination to laugh at the pedant, that his remonstrance is just "This is not generous, not gentle, not humble." We know that to be generous, to be gentle, to be humble, are the especial virtues of the great; and Shakspere makes us see that the schoolmaster is right. Lastly, comes Armado. His discomfiture is still more signal. The malicious trick that Biron suggests to Costard shows that Rosaline's original praise of him was not altogether deserved-that his merriment was not always

"Within the limit of becoming mirth." The affectations of Biron are cast aside, but

he has a natural fault to correct, worse than any affectation; and beautifully does Rosaline hold up to him the glass which shows him how

"To choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools."

The affectations are blown into thin air. The King and his courtiers have to turn from speculation to action-from fruitless vows to deeds of charity and piety. Armado is about to apply to what is useful: "I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years." The voices of the pedants are heard no more in scraps of Latin. They are no longer "singled from the barbarous." But, on the contrary, "the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo," is full of the most familiar images, expressed in the most homely language. Shakspere,

unquestionably, to our minds, brought in this most characteristic song-(a song that he might have written and sung in the chimney-corner of his father's own kitchen, long before he dreamt of having a play acted before Queen Elizabeth)-to mark, by an emphatic close, the triumph of simplicity over false refinement.

CHAPTER IV.

ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

Is Dr. Farmer's 'Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,' we find this passage:-"The story of 'All's Well that Ends Well' or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, 'Love's Labour Wonne"" (and here Farmer inserts a reference to Meres' 'Wits' Treasury,' where 'Love's Labour Wonne' is mentioned amongst plays by Shakspere,) "is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's 'Giletta of Narbon."" Mr. Hun

ter, in his 'Disquisition on the Tempest,' repudiates the notion that 'Love's Labour Won' and 'All's Well that Ends Well' are identical. Mr. Hunter states that a passing remark of Dr. Farmer, in the ‘Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,' first pointed out this supposed identity; and he adds, "the remark has since been caught up and repeated by a thousand voices. Yet it was made in the most casual, random, and hasty manner imaginable. It was supported by

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no kind of argument or evidence; and I cannot find that any persons who have repeated it after him have shown any probable grounds for the opinion." Malone, in the first edition of his 'Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays,' assigns the date of this comedy to 1598, upon the authority of the passage in Meres. He says, "No other of our author's plays could have borne that title (Love's Labour Won') with so much propriety as that before us; yet it must be acknowledged that the present title is inserted in the body of the play :

'All's well that ends well: still the fine 's the crown.'

This line, however, might certainly have suggested the alteration of what has been thought the first title, and affords no decisive proof that this piece was originally called 'All's Well that Ends Well.'" When Coleridge describes this play as "originally intended as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost," "-when Mrs. Jameson, with reference to the nature of the plot and the suitableness of the title found in Meres, states, complainingly, "Why the title was altered, or by whom, I cannot discover,"and when Tieck says, "The poet probably first called this play 'Love's Labour Won,"" -we may add the opinions of these eminent writers on Shakspere to the original opinion of Malone, in opposition to the opinion of Mr. Hunter, that "the leading features of the story in All's Well' cannot be said to be aptly represented by the title in Meres' list."

Coleridge described this play as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost.' Shakspere's titles, in the judgment of our philosophical critic, always exhibit "great significancy."

The Labour of Love which is Lost is not a very earnest labour. The King and his courtiers are fantastical lovers. They would win their mistresses by "bootless rhymes" and "speeches penn'd," and their most sincere declarations are thus only received as "mocking merriment." The concluding speeches of the ladies to their lovers show clearly that Shakspere meant to mark the cause why their labour was lost-it was

labour hastily taken up, pursued in a light temper, assuming the character of "pleasant jest and courtesy." The Princess and her ladies would not accept it as 66 labour" without a year's probation. It was offered, they thought, "in heat of blood;"—theirs was a love which only bore "gaudy blossoms." What would naturally be the counterpart of such a story? One of passionate, enduring, all-pervading love-of a love that shrinks from no difficulty, resents no unkindness, fears no disgrace, but perseveres, under the most adverse circumstances, to vindicate its own claims by its own energy, and to achieve success by the strength of its own will. This is the Labour of Love which is Won. Is not this the story of All's Well that Ends Well?'

When Helena, in the first scene, so beautifully describes the hopelessness of her love

"It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me"-

could she propose to come within "his sphere" without some extraordinary effort? "Hic labor, hoc opus est." She does resolve to make the effort; it is within the bounds of possibility that her labour may be successful, and therefore her "intents are fix'd:"

"The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose

What hath been cannot be."

Inferior natures, that estimate their labours by a common standard-" that weigh their pains in sense"-that are not supported in their labours by a spirit which rejects all fear and embraces all hope,-confound the difficult with the impossible: they know that courage has triumphed over difficulty, but they still think "what hath been cannot be" again. Helena is not of their mind.

*

"My project may deceive me, But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me."

This is the purpose avowed from the commencement of the dramatic action; which marks every stage of its progress; which is essentially Love's Labour,' whether it be won or be lost. How beautifully does Shakspere relieve us from the feeling that it is unsexual for the labour to be undertaken by Helena, through the compassion which she inspires in the good old Countess :

The reward, however, which she seeks is avowed without hesitation. Her will was too strong to admit of that timidity which might have clung to a feebler mind :

"Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,

What husband in thy power I will command."

Up to this point all has been "labour"the conception of a high and dangerous pur

"It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impress'd in pose—the carrying it through without shrink

youth."

How delicately, too, does he make Helena hold to her determination, even whilst she confesses to the Countess the secret of her ambitious love :

ing. When the cure is effected, and she has to avow her choice, comes a still greater labour. The struggle within herself is most intense :

"Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly;"

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

Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me: I follow him not
Be any token of presumptuous suit;
Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him.”
Again :-

"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,”-

not for the cure of the King only, but for
the winning of her labour. To obtain the
full advantage of her legacy no common
qualities were required in Helena. "Wis-
dom and constancy" are her characteristics,
as Lafeu truly describes. The "constancy"
with which she enforces her power upon the
mind of the incredulous King is prominently
exhibited by the poet. Her modesty never
overcomes the ruling purpose of her soul.
She indeed says,

"I will no more enforce mine office on you;" but she immediately after presses her "fix'd intents:"

"What I can do can do no hurt to try." She succeeds :

"Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak."

"The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,We blush, that thou shouldst choose,'"

these expressions sufficiently give the key to what passes within her. Her feelings amount almost to agony when Bertram refuses her, and for a moment she abandons her fix'd

intent :-

"That you are well restor'd, my lord, I 'm 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."* Helena suffers Bertram to be forced upon her-and this is the greatest "labour" of all.

After the marriage and the desertion "Love's labour" is still most untiringly tasked. Love next assumes the sweet and

*Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics,' vol. i. p. 212.

smiling aspect of duty. "What's his will else?"-"what more commands he ?"

"In everything I wait upon his will"—

are all the replies she makes to the harsh commands of her lord, conveyed by a frivolous messenger. In her parting interview with Bertram, in which his coldness and dislike are scarcely attempted to be concealed, the same spirit alone exists. She has a harder trial still. Her lord avows his final abandonment of her, except upon apparently impossible conditions. She has only one complaint,

"This is a dreadful sentence;"

but her intense love has destroyed in her all the feeling of self through which she was enabled to accomplish the triumph of her own will:

"Poor lord! is 't I That chase thee from thy country, and expose

Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war?"

When she says "I will be gone," she probably had no purpose of seeking Bertram, and of endeavouring to reverse his “dreadful sentence" by her own management. But "love's labours" were not yet ended. Her mind was not framed to shrink from difficulty; and we soon meet her at Florence. The plot after this is such a one as Shakspere could only have found in the legendary history of an unrefined age, preserved from oblivion by one who was imbued with the kindred genius of unveiling the brightness of the poetical, even when it was concealed from ordinary vision by the clouds of a prosaic, atmosphere. Mrs. Jameson has truly observed, "All the circumstances and details with which Helena is surrounded are shocking to our feelings, and wounding to our delicacy; and yet the beauty of the character is made to triumph over all." The beauty of the character is in its intensity. By that is Helena enabled to pass through all the slough of her last "labours" without contamination; her purpose sanctifies her acts. From the first scene to the last her life is one continued struggle. But the hopeful quality of her soul never forsakes her :

"The time will bring on summer,

When briars shall have leaves as well as

thorns,

And be as sweet as sharp."

She repines at no exertion-she shrinks from no fatigue:

"But this exceeding posting, day and night, Must wear your spirits low,"

has no reference to herself. When she finds the King has left Marseilles she has no regrets:

"All's well that ends well, yet;

Though time seem so adverse, and means unfit."

Her final triumph at last arrives; but it is a happiness that cannot be spoken of. Her feelings find vent in

"O my dear mother, do I see you living!" She can now, indeed, call the Countess mother. In the early scenes she dared only to name her as "mine honourable mistress." By her energy and perseverance she has conquered. Is this, or is it not, Love's Labour Won ?

Malone, as we have already expressed our belief, has applied the true test to the application of Meres' title of 'Love's Labour Won:' "No other of our author's plays could have borne that title with so much propriety as that before us." The application, be it understood, is limited to the comedies. The title cannot be applied to 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'The Comedy of Errors,' 'Love's Labour's Lost,' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' for those are also mentioned in Meres' list as existing in 1598. Can it have reference to The Merry Wives of Windsor,' than which no title can be more definite ;-to 'The Taming of the Shrew,' equally defined; to 'Twelfth Night' or 'Measure for Measure,' or 'Much Ado about Nothing,' or 'As You Like It,' or 'The Winter's Tale?'-We think not; we are sure that none of our readers who are familiar with the plots of these plays can believe that either of them was so named. We, of course, here put the question of chronology out of view. Mr. Hunter, to support his opinion that 'The Tempest' was

written in 1596, boldly maintains the following opinion:-"But if not to the 'All's Well,' to what play of Shakspere was this title once attached? I answer, that of the existing plays there is only "The Tempest' to which it can be supposed to belong: and, so long as it suits so well with what is a main incident of this piece, we shall not be driven to the gratuitous and improbable supposition that a play once so called is lost." The "main incident" relied upon by Mr. Hunter for the support of this theory is the following speech of Ferdinand, in the third act of The Tempest:'

"There be some sports are painful, and their labour

Delight in them sets off; some kinds of base

ness

Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
The mistress which I serve quickens what 's
dead,

And makes my labours pleasures: Oh, she is Ten times more gentle than her father 's crabbed;

And he's composed of harshness. I must

remove

Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction: My sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work; and says, such baseness

Had never like executor. I forget:

"It goes on, I see,

As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit, I'll free thee

Within two days for this."

Again :

"At the first sight

They have changed eyes: Delicate Ariel, I'll set thee free for this."

Yet he adds,—

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'They are both in either's powers: But this swift business

I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
Make the prize light."

Would Shakspere have chosen this incident -not a "main incident," for we all along know Prospero's real intentions-as that which would furnish a title to his play? The pain which Ferdinand endures is very transient; and Prospero, when he removes the infliction, says,—

"All thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love, and thou Hast strangely stood the test."

We know that the Love Labours of Ferdinand are not severe trials, and that at their worst they were refreshed with "sweet thoughts.” Can they be compared with the Love's Labour of Helena?

Mr. Hunter rejects the claim of 'All's Well that Ends Well' to be named Love's Labour Won, most decisively, but upon one ground

But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my only: "If ever there was a play," he says,

labours."

"Here then," says Mr. Hunter, “ are the Love Labours. In the end they won the lady." We venture to say that our belief in the significancy of Shakspere's titles would be at an end if even a "main incident

was to suggest a name, instead of the general course of the thought or action. In this case there are really no Love Labours at all. The lady is not won by the piling of the logs; the audience know that both Ferdinand and Miranda are under the influence of Prospero's spells, and the magician has explained to them why he enforces these harsh "labours." In the first act, when Ferdinand and Miranda are thrown together. Prospero says,—

"which itself bespoke its own title from the beginning, it is this:

"We must away;

Our waggon is prepared, and time revives us : All's Well that Ends Well: still the fine 's the crown;

Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.' "Again:

'All's well that Ends Well,' yet;

Though time seem so adverse, and means unfit.'

"And, as if this were not sufficient, in the epilogue:

'The king's a beggar, now the play is done: All is well ended, if this suit is won.'" We venture to think that the use of the

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