13 That bring these tidings to this fair assembly: I do engage my life. Duke. 14 This to be true, Welcome, young man; Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding: Brother, in accordance with what he here says of himself. Though the third brother brought into the play, he is the second in order of birth. His name is given in the first scene, and he is spoken of as being then "at school." Which might seem to make Orlando too young to have smashed up the great wrestler; but, as Mr. Verplanck observes, school was then a common term for any place of study or institution of learning, whether academical or professional. In Lodge's novel Fernandine is represented as “a scholar in Paris." He. also, is the second of three brothers, and, like Jaques de Bois, arrives quite at the end of the story. H. 13 That is, prepared. 14 In Lodge's novel the usurper is not turned from his purpose by any such pious counsels, but conquered and killed by the twelve peers of France, who undertake the cause of Gerismond, their rightful king. Here is a part of Fernandine's speech: For know, Gerismond, that hard by at the edge of this forest the twelve peers of France are up in arms to recover thy right; and Torismond, troop'd with a crew of desperate runagates, is ready to bid them battle. The armies are ready to join: therefore show thyself in the field to encourage thy subjects. And you, Saladyne and Rosader, mount you, and show yourselves as hardy soldiers as you have been hearty lovers: so shall you for the benefit of your country discover the idea of your father's virtues to be stamped in your thoughts, and prove children worthy of sc honourable a parent." H. To one, his lands withheld; and to the other, Play, music! and you, brides and bridegrooms all, With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. Jaq. Sir, by your patience: If I heard you rightly, The duke hath put on a religious life, And thrown into neglect the pompous court? Jaq. To him will I out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learn'd. — [To the DUKE.] You to your former honour I bequeath; Your patience and your virtue well deserves it: [To ORL.] You to a love, that your true faith doth merit : [To OLI.] You to your land, and love, and great allies: [To SIL.] You to a long and well deserved bed: [To TOUCH.] And you to wrangling; for thy loving Voyage s but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures: I am for other than for dancing measures. Duke. Stay, Jaques, stay. Jaq. To see no pastime, 1:- what you would have, I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave." [Exit. 15 The reader feels some regret to take his leave of Jaque? iv Duke. Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, As we do trust they'll end in true delights. [A dance EPILOGUE. Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome, than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush,' 16 'tis true that a good play good wine they do use needs no epilogue; yet to good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in, then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play? I am not furnish'd like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me my way is, to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women! for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men! for the love you bear to women, (as I perceive by your simpering none of you hates them,) that be this manner; and no less concern at not meeting with the faithfu old Adam at the close. It is the more remarkable that Shakespeare should have forgotten him, because Lodge, in his novel makes him captain of the king's guard. 16 It was formerly the general custom in England, as it is still in France and the Netherlands, to hang a busn of iry at the door of a vintner: there was a classical propriety in this; iry being sacred to Bacchus. So in Summer's last Will and Testament 1600: "Green iry-bushes at the vintners' doors." Again, in The Rival Friends, 1632: «'Tis like the ivy-bush unto a tavern." The custom is still observed in Warwickshire and the adjoining counties, at statute-hirings, wakes, &c., by people who sell ale at no other time. The manner in which they were decorated appears from a passage in Florio's Ita ian Dictionary, in voce Tremola "gold foile or thin leaves of gold or silver, namely thinne plau as our vintners adorn their bushes with." tween you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman," I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtesy, bid me farewell. [Exeunt. 17 The parts of women were performed by men or boys in Shakespeare's time. INTRODUCTION ΤΟ ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. THE only probable contemporary notice that has come down to us of ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is in Meres's Palladis Tamia, under the title of Love's Labour Won. Dr. Farmer, in his Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, 1767, first gave out the conjecture, that the two titles belonged to one and the same play; and this opinion has since been concurred or acquiesced in by so many good judgments, that it might well be let pass unsified. There is no other of the Poet's dramas extant, to which that title so well applies, while, on the other hand, it certainly fits this play better than the title it now bears. The whole play is emphatically love's labour: its main interest throughout turns on the unwearied and finally-successful struggles of affection against the most stubborn and disheartening drawbacks. It may perhaps be urged that the play entitled Love's Labour Won has been lost; but this, considering what esteem the Poet's works were held in, both in his tine and ever since is so very improbable as to be hardly worth the dwelling upo The Rev. Joseph Hunter has spent a deal of learning and ingenuity in trying to snow, that the play referred to by Meres in 1598 as Love's Labour Won was The Tempest. Among Shakespeare's dramas he could scarce have pitched upon a more unfit subject for such a title. There is no love's labour in The Tempest. For though a lover does indeed labour awhile in bearing logs, this is not from love, but simply because he cannot help himself. Nor does he thereby win the lady, for she was won before, at the first sight they have chang'd eyes ;" and the labour was imposed for the testing of his love, not for the gaining of its object; and was all the while refreshed with the "sweet thoughts" that in heart and will she was already his. In short, there is no external evi dence whatsoever in favour of Mr. Hunter's conjecture, while the internal evidence makes strongly against it. The probable date |