them against the fault.

Away with your best-proved improbabil ities, when the heart has been touched, and the fancy fascinated! "In fact, though there is no rule without exceptions, and no general truth without limitation, it may be pronounced, that if you delight us in fiction, you may make our sense of probability slumber as deeply as you please. But it may be asked, whether nature and truth are to be sacrificed at the altar of fiction? No! in the main effect of fiction on the fancy, they never are or can be sacrificed. The improbabilities of fiction are only its exceptions, while the truth of nature is its general law; and unless the truth of nature were in the main observed, the fictionist could not lull our vigilance as to particular improbabilities. Apply this maxim to As You Like It, and our Poet will be found to make us forget what is eccentric from nature in a limited view, by showing it more beautifully probable in a larger contemplation."

Finally, we have to confess that, upon the whole, As You Like It is our favourite of Shakespeare's comedies. Yet we should be puzzled to tell why; for our preference springs, not so much from any particular points or features, wherein it is surpassed by several others, as from the general toning and effect. The whole is replete with a beauty so delicate, yet so intense, that we feel it every where, but can never tell especially where it is or in what it consists. For instae, the descriptions of forest scenery come along so unsought, and in such easy, natural touches, that we take in the impression, without once noticing what it is that impresses us. Thus there is a certain woodland freshness, a glad, free naturalthat creeps and steals into the heart before we know it. We are persuaded, indeed, that Milton had this play especially in his mind when he wrote,

ness,

"And sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,

Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

Add to this, that the kindlier sentiments here seem playing out in a sort of jubilee. Untied from set purposes and definite aims, the persons come forth with their hearts already tuned, and so have nothing to do but let off their redundant music. Envy, jealousy, avarice, revenge, all the passions that afflict and degrade society, they have left in the city behind them. And they have brought the intelligence and refinement of the court, without its vanities and vexations; so that the graces of art and the simplicities of nature meet together in joyous loving sisterhood. Thus it answers to Ulrici's fine description: "The whole is a deep pervading harmony, while sweet and soul-touching melodies play around; all is so ethereal, so tender and affecting, so free, fresh, and joyous, and so replete with a genial sprightliness, that I have no hesitation in pronouncing it one of the most excellent compositions in the whole wide domain of poesy.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

DUKE, living in exile.

FREDERICK, his usurping Brother.

AMIENS, Lords attending upon the exiled Duke.

JAQUES,

LE BEAU, a Courtier attending upon Frederick
CHARLES, his Wrestler.

CORIN,

SILVIUS,

Shepherds.

WILLIAM, a country Fellow, in love with Audrey.

HYMEN.

ROSALIND, Daughter to the exiled Duke.

CELIA, Daughter to Frederick.

PHEBE, a Shepherdess.

AUDREY, a country Wench.

Lords, Pages, Foresters, and other Attendants.

SCENE, at first, near Oliver's House; afterwards, in the Usurper's Court, and in the Forest of Arden.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

ACT I.

SCENE I. An Orchard near OLIVER's House.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.

Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will, but poor a thousand crowns; and, as thou say'st, charged my brother, on his' blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hir'd: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dung-hills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so

That is, my father's.

His

This use of the pronoun, without the word to which it refers, naturally carries the thoughts back to the preceding part of the conversation, which the Poet did not report, as if he but just then came where he could overhear it. Sir William Blackstone proposed to read," He bequeathed me;" Warburton, My father bequeathed me." No such change is necessary; on the whole, it is rather worse than useless.

H.

plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me, his countenance seems to take from me he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.

Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.

Enter OLIVER.

Oli. Now, sir! what make you here?3

Orl. Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. Oli. What mar you, then, sir?

Orl. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

Oli. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.'

Orl. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with

2 Mines is here used in the sense of undermines. So, in Raleigh's History of the World: "The enemy mined, and they countermined." Gentility means noble birth: what an honourable parentage has done for me, he strives to undo with base breeding.

H.

3 That is. what do you here ? See The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. sc. 1, note 15, and Act iv. sc. 2, note 5.

4" Be naught," says Mr. Nares," or go and be naught, was formerly a petty execration of common usage between anger and contempt, which has been supplanted by others that are worse, as be hanged, be cursed, &c.; awhile, or the while, was frequently added merely to round the phrase." So in The Story of King Darius, 1565: "Come away, and be naught a whyle." And in Swetnam. a comedy, 1620: "Get you both in, and be naught nchile." See, also, Measure for Measure, Ac' v. sc. 1, note 28.

them? What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should come to such penury?

Oli. Know you where you are, sir?

Orl. O! sir, very well: here in your orchard. Oli. Know you before whom, sir?

Orl. Ay, better than he I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me: The courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as much of my father in me, as you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is nearer to his reverence."

Oli. What, boy!

Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this."

Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain ?

Orl. I am no villain: I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois; he was my father; and he is thrice a villain, that says such a father begot villains: Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat, till this other had pull'd out thy tongue for saying so thou hast rail'd on thyself.

Adam. [Advancing.] Sweet masters, be patient; for your father's remembrance, be at accord.

I

Oli. Let me go, I say.

Orl. I will not, till I please: you shall hear me My father charg'd you in his will to give me good

That is, nearer to him in the right of that reverence which was his due.

H.

• Upon this passage Coleridge remarks: "There is a beauty here. The word boy naturally provokes and awakens in Orlando the sense of his manly powers; and with the retort of elder brother, be grasps him with firm hands, and makes him feel he is no boy."

H.