a very fine classical phrensy; and Bannister, as Autolycus, roared as loud for pity as a sturdy beggar could do who felt none of the pain he counterfeited, and was sound of wind and limb. We shall never see these parts so acted again; or if we did, it would be in vain. Actors grow old, or no longer surprise us by their novelty. But true poetry, like nature, is always young; and we still read the courtship of Florizel and Perdita, as we welcome the return of spring, with the same feelings as ever.

'Florizel. Thou dearest Perdita,

With these forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not
The mirth o' the feast: or, I'll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father's: for I cannot be

Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine. To this I am most constant,

Tho' destiny say, No. Be merry, gentle;

Strangle such thoughts as these, with any thing

That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:

Lift up your countenance; as it were the day

Of celebration of that nuptial, which

We two have sworn shall come.

Perdita. O lady fortune,

Stand you auspicious!

Enter Shepherd, Clown, Mopsa, DORCAS, Servants; with
POLIXENES, and CAMILLO, disguised.

Florizel. See, your guests approach.

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,

And let's be red with mirth.

Shepherd. Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon
This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook;

Both dame and servant: welcom'd all, serv'd all:

Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now here

At

upper end o' the table, now i' the middle:

On his shoulder, and his: her face o' fire

With labour; and the thing she took to quench it
She would to each one sip. You are retir'd,

As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid
These unknown friends to us welcome; for it is
A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself
That which you are, mistress o' the feast. Come on,
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
As your good flock shall prosper.

Perdita. Sir, welcome!

It is my father's will I should take on me

[To Polixenes and Camille.

The hostess-ship o' the day: you're welcome, sir!

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs,
For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming, and savour, all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance be unto you both,
And welcome to our shearing!
Polixenes. Shepherdess,

(A fair one are you) well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.

Perdita. Sir, the year growing ancient,

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations, and streak'd gilly-flowers,
Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind

Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not

To get slips of them.

Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

Perdita. For I have heard it said

There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.

Polixenes. Say, there be:

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art

Which you say, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

A gentler scyon to the wildest stock;

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather: but

The art itself is nature.

Perdita. So it is.1

Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them bastards.

Perdita. I'll not put

The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them; 1

No more than, were I painted, I would wish

This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore

Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers

Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given

To men of middle age. You are very welcome.
Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.

Perdita. Out, alas!

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January

1 The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind.

Would blow you through and through. Now my fairest friends,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might

Become your time of day; and your's, and your's,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maiden-heads growing: O Proserpina,

For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty: violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength (a malady
Most incident to maids); bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The fleur-de-lis being one! O, these I lack
To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend
To strow him o'er and o'er.

Florizel. What, like a corse?

Perdita. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on;

Not like a corse; or if not to be buried,

But quick, and in mine arms. Come take your flowers ;
Methinks, I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine

Does change my disposition.

Florizel. What you do,

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

I'd have you do it ever : when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so; so, give alms;

Pray, so; and for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that: move still, still so,

And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you 're doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

Perdita. O Doricles,

Your praises are too large; but that your youth

And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it,

Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd;

With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You woo'd me the false way.

Florizel. I think you have

As little skill to fear, as I have purpose

To put you to 't. But come, our dance, I pray :

Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,

That never mean to part.

Perdita. I'll swear for 'em.

Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does, or seems,
But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.

Camillo. He tells her something

That makes her blood look out: good sooth she is
The queen of curds and cream.'

This delicious scene is interrupted by the father of the prince discovering himself to Florizel, and haughtily breaking off the intended match between his son and Perdita. When Polixenes goes out, Perdita says,

'Even here undone :

I was not much afraid; for once or twice
I was about to speak; and tell him plainly,
The self-same sun that shines upon his court,
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on 't alike. Wilt please you, sir, be gone?
I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,
Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,
But milk my ewes and weep.'

[To Florizel.

As Perdita, the supposed shepherdess, turns out to be the daughter of Hermione, and a princess in disguise, both feelings of the pride of birth and the claims of nature are satisfied by the fortunate event of the story, and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest court-etiquette.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is one of the most pleasing of our author's comedies. The interest is however more of a serious than of a comic nature. The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem. Perhaps the romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when

young Roussillon leaves his mother's house, under whose protection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the French king's court.

'Helena. Oh, were that all-I think not on my father,

And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

I have forgot him. My imagination
Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's.
I am undone, there is no living, none
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it; he is so above me :
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself;
The hind that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague,
To see him every hour, to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls

In our heart's table: heart too capable

Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics.'

The interest excited by this beautiful picture of a fond and innocent heart is kept up afterwards by her resolution to follow him to France, the success of her experiment in restoring the king's health, her demanding Bertram in marriage as a recompense, his leaving her in disdain, her interview with him afterwards disguised as Diana, a young lady whom he importunes with his secret addresses, and their final reconciliation when the consequences of her stratagem and the proofs of her love are fully made known. The persevering gratitude of the French king to his benefactress, who cures him of a languishing distemper by a prescription hereditary in her family, the indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose pride of birth yields, almost without a struggle, to her affection for Helen, the honesty and uprightness of the good old lord Lafeu, make very interesting parts of the picture. The wilful stubbornness and youthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. The comic part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, and cowardice of Parolles, a parasite and hanger-on of Bertram's, the detection of whose false pretensions to bravery and honour forms a very amusing episode. He is first found out by the old lord Lafeu, who says, The soul of this man is in his clothes'; and it is proved afterwards that his heart is in his tongue, and that both are false and hollow. The adventure of the bringing off of his drum' has become proverbial as a satire on all ridiculous and bluster