further back amongst the dukes and margraves of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is our opinion, however, that in all cases where there is no positive violence committed against historywhere the foundation of the plot is either fanciful or legendary-that the nearest possible period to that of the writing of the play should be fixed upon as that of its action, as by so doing the best illustration is obtained of the author's ideas and the manners of the age which he depicted. With this view we should place the date of All's Well that Ends Well' just previous to 1557, in which year, on the 3rd of July, Sienna was given to Cosmo de Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Philip of Spain, who had been invested with its sovereignty by his father, Charles V. The last war between the Florentines and the Siennois, and in which the former were supported by the troops of the emperor, and the latter by those of France, broke out in 1552 and ended in 1555, the King of France at that period being Henry II., and the Duke of Florence Cosmo de Medicis aforesaid. Our illustrations have, therefore, been taken from Montfaucon's Monarchie Francaise' (sub anno), and the Florentine costume is furnished us by Vecellio, which, though a little later, is sufficiently near for the purpose. The hair was worn very short by gentlemen in France at this time, a fashion which arose from an accident that happened to Henry's father, Francis I., who, in a twelfth-night frolic, was hurt by the fall of a lighted firebrand on his head, and was compelled in consequence to have his hair shaved off. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, in mourning. Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward,' evermore in subjection. Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam;-you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it" where there is such abundance. Lack it. This is the reading of the old copies; but Theobald, Hanmer, and others, have slack it. We incline to think this is the true reading; for we have no example of lack being used actively. Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time. a Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (O, that had! how sad a passage 'tis !) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease. ⚫ Passage. This use of the word is now little known; but it is highly expressive. Modern writers have substituted event and circumstance-words that do not convey the meaning of passage-what passes. The passage of an author is a familiar phrase to us; but the passage of a life would now sound quaint and affected. b Would-it would. Laf. A fistula, my lord. Ber. I heard not of it before. Laf. I would it were not notorious.—Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too: in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her good ness.a Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears. Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.b The remembrance of her To understand this passage we must define the meaning of "virtuous qualities." The Countess has distinguished between "dispositions" and "fair gifts." By the one is meant the natural temper and affections-by the other the results of education. In like manner "virtuous qualities mean the same as "fair gifts"-they are the acquirements which might find a place in "an unclean mind," as well as in one of honest " dispositions." Then they are virtues and traitors too"-they are good in themselves, but they betray to evil, by giving the "unclean mind" the power to deceive. The "virtuous qualities" in Helena are unmixed with any natural defect- they are the better for their simpleness." The concluding expression, "she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness," is one of the many examples of Shakspere's beautiful discrimination as a moralist. How many that are honest by nature can scarcely be called good! "Goodness," in the high sense in which our poet uses it, can only be "achieved." b To season," says Malone," has here a culinary sense; to preserve by salting." Upon this, Pye, in his Comments upon the Commentators,' says, Surely, this coarse and vulgar metaphor neither wanted nor merited a note." But why "coarse and vulgar"? The culinary sense' of Malone may raise associations of the kitchen, which are up not perfectly genteel: but suppose he had said " chemical seuse "would the metaphor have been itself different? We would rather make our estimate of what is "coarse and vulgar" upon the authority of Shakspere himself than upon that of Mr. Pye. With our poet this was a favourite metaphor, repeated almost as often as "the canker" of the rose. In the Rape of Lucrece we have, "But I alone, alone must sit and pine, Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine.” In Romeo and Juliet. Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena-go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sarrow, than to have." Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too. Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living. Hel. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal." Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes. Count. Be thou blest, Bertram! and succeed thy father In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue, Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use; and keep thy "And water once a day her chamber round A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh The metaphor which these critics call "coarse and vulgar" Malone here points out an inaccuracy of construction, and says the meaning is-lest you be rather thought to affect a sorrow than to have. This construction can scarcely be called inaccurate. It belongs not only to Shakspere's phraseology, but to the freer system upon which the English language was written by the most correct writers in his time. We have lost something in the attainment of our present precision. b Tieck assigns this specch, and we think correctly, to Helena, in the belief that she means it as a half-obscure expression, which has reference to her love for Bertram. Such are her first words-" I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too." In the original copies, and in all the modern editions, the passage before us is given to the Countess. In her month it is not very intelligible; in Helena's, though purposely obscure, it is easily comprehensible. The living enemy to grief for the dead is Bertram; and the grief of her unrequited love for him destroys the other grief-makes it mortal. To this mysterious expression of Helena, Lafeu addresses himself when he says, "How understand we that?" Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination To see him every hour; to sit and draw of his sweet favour: my idolatrous fancy Who comes here? Enter PAROLLES. Hel. And no. Par. Are you meditating on virginity? Hel. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out. Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance. Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men? Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 't is too cold a companion; away with it. Hel. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin. One that goes with him: I love him for his against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much sake; And yet I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. Par. Save you, fair queen. The "great tears" which the departure of Bertram causes her to shed, being imputed to her grief for her father, grace his remembrance more than those which she really shed for him. Table-the tabular surface, tablet, upon which a picture is painted, and thence used for the picture itself. Trick-peculiarity. See Note on King John, Act 1., Sc. 1. Favour-conntenance. Monarch. When Parolles calls Helena "queen," she like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by 't: Out with 't: within ten year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Away with 't. Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. Let me see: Marry, ill, to like him that answers by a sarcastic allusion to the Monarcho-an Italian who figured in London about 1580, possessed with the notion that he was sovereign of the world. (See Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV., Sc. 1.) Stain-tincture;-you have some slight mark of the soldier about you. We print the text as in the folio. It is not worth discussing whether the word two of the original should not be ten, as it is commonly read. |