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THIS comedy was first printed in the folio collection of 1623. In the original copy the play is divided into acts, but not into scenes. There are several examples of corruption in the text; but, upon the whole, it is very accurately printed, both with regard to the metrical arrangement and to punctuation.

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In 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. Hunter, 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." Malone, in

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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." This is the real argument in the matter; and Coleridge, therefore, describes this play as "originally intended as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost.'" Shakspere's titles, in the judgment of that 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." 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.

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This is the Labour of Love which is Won. Is not this the story of All's Well that Ends Well'? Of the characters we may say a few words. Mrs. Jameson quotes a passage from Foster's 'Essays' to explain the general idea of the character of Helena: "To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immoveable heart amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity." This "constitution of mind" has been created by Shakspere in his Helena, and who can doubt the truth and nature of the conception?

Bertram, like all mixed characters, whether in the drama or in real life, is a great puzzle to those who look without tolerance on human motives and actions. In a onesided view he has no redeeming qualities. Johnson says, "I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helena as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate when she is dead by his unkindness sneaks home to a second marriage: is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness." We have no desire to reconcile our hearts to Bertram; all that we demand is, that he should not move our indignation beyond the point in which his qualities shall consist with our sympathy for Helena in her love for him. And in this view the poet, as it appears to us, has drawn Bertram's character most skilfully. Without his defects the dramatic action could not have proceeded; without his merits the dramatic sentiment could not have been maintained.

"In this piece," says Schlegel, “age is exhibited to singular advantage: the plain honesty of the King, the good-natured impetuosity of old Lafeu, the maternal indulgence of the Countess to Helena's love of her son, seem all, as it were, to vie with

each other in endeavours to conquer the arrogance of the young Count." The general benevolence of these characters, and their particular kindness towards Helena, are the counterpoises to Bertram's pride of birth, and his disdain of virtue unaccompanied by adventitious distinctions. The love of the Countess towards Helena is habit, that of the King is gratitude: in Lafeu the admiration which he perseveringly holds towards her is the result of his honest sagacity. He admires what is direct and unpretending, and he therefore loves Helena: he hates what is evasive and boastful, and he therefore despises Parolles.

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Is this crawling, empty, vapouring, cowardly representative of the off-scourings of social life, to be compared for a moment with the inimitable Falstaff? The comparison will not bear examining with patience, and much less with painstaking. rolles in his own way is infinitely comic. "The scene of the drum," according to a French critic, "is worthy of Molière." This is the highest praise which a French writer could bestow; and here it is just. The character belongs to the school of which Molière is the head, rather than to the school of Shakspere. And what shall we say of the Clown? He is the "artificial fool;" and we do not like him, therefore, quite so much as dear Launce and dearer Touchstone. To the Fool in Lear' he can no more be compared than Parolles to Falstaff; but he is, nevertheless, great-something that no other artist but Shakspere could have produced. Our poet has used him as a vehicle for some biting satire. There can be no doubt that he is "a witty fool," a shrewd knave, and an unhappy."

66

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING OF FRANCE.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3.

DUKE OF FLORENCE.
Appears, Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3.

BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 3; sc. 5; sc. 6. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3.

LAFEU, an old Lord.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3.

PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5.
Act III. sc. 5; sc. 6. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3.

Several young French Lords that serve with
Bertram in the Florentine war.
Appear, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 6.
Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3.

Steward, servant to the Countess of Rousillon.
Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 4.

Clown, servant to the Countess of Rousillon. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 2.

Astringer.

Appears, Act V. sc. 1.

A Page.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1.

COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to
Bertram.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2.
Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 3.
HELENA, a gentlewoman, protected by the
Countess.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc.3. Act II.sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5.
Act III. sc. 2; sc. 5; sc. 7. Act IV. sc. 4.
Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

An old Widow of Florence.
Appears, Act III. sc. 5; sc. 7. Act IV. sc. 4.
Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

DIANA, daughter to the Widow.
Appears, Act III. sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 4.
Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the
Widow.

Appears, Act III. sc. 5.

MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

Appears, Act III. sc. 5.

Lords attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, &c., French and Florentine.

SCENE,-IN FRANCE AND IN TUSCANY.

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SCENE I.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

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.

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.

Lack it. This is the reading of the old copies; but Theobald, Hanmer, and others, have slack it. What lack applies to is the kindness of the king.

COUNT. This young gentlewoman had a father, (O, that had! how sad a passage a 't is!) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it streched 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.

LAF. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNT. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

LAF. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

BER. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of ?

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 goodness?.

LAF. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

COUNT. 'T is the best brine a maiden can season her praise in3. The remembrance of her 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 sorrow, 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.

a

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.

Would-it would.

• 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.

a Tieck assigns this speech, 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 mouth 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?"

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