My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

Pet. Why, there's a wench!—Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't. Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward. Luc. But a harsh hearing when women are froward. Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed :

We three are married, but you two are sped 12. 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white 13; [TO LUCENTIO.

And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATH. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst

shrew.

Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd [Exeunt14

So.

12 You two are sped, i. e. the fate of you both is decided; for you both have wives who exhibit early proofs of disobedience.

13 The white was the central part of the mark or butt in archery. Here is also a play upon the name of Bianca, which is white in Italian.

14 The old play continues thus:

"Enter two servants, bearing SLIE in his own apparel, and leaving him on the stage. Then enter a Tapster.

Tapster. Now that the darksome night is overpast,

And dawning day appeares in christall skie,

Now must I haste abroade: but softe! who's this?

What, Slie? O wondrous? hath he laine heere all night!
Ile wake him; I thinke he's starved by this,

But that his belly was so stuff't with ale:

What now, Slie? awake for shame.

Slie. [Awaking.] Sim, give's more wine.—What, all the players gone? Am I not a lord?

Tap. A lord, with a murrain?-Come, art thou drunk still? Slie. Who's this? Tapster!-Oh I have had the bravest dream that ever thou heard'st in all thy life.

Tap. Yea, marry, but thou hadst best get thee home, for your wife will curse you for dreaming here all night.

Slie. Will she? I know how to tame a shrew.

I dreamt upon

it all this night, and thou hast wak'd me out of the best dream that ever I had; but I'll to my wife, and tame her too, if she anger me."

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

HE fable of All's Well that Ends Well is derived from the story of Gilletta of Narbonne in the Decamerone of Boccaccio. It came to Shakespeare through the medium of Painter's Palace of Pleasure: and is to be found in the first volume, which was printed as early as 1566. The comic parts of the plot, and the characters of the Countess, Lafeu, &c. are of the poet's own creation, and in the conduct of the fable he has found it expedient to depart from his original more than it is his usual custom to do. The character of Helena is beautifully drawn; she is an heroic and patient sufferer of adverse fortune like Griselda, and placed in circumstances of almost equal difficulty. Her romantic passion for Bertram, with whom she had been brought up as a sister; her grief at his departure for the court, which she expresses in some exquisitely impassioned lines, and the retiring anxious modesty with which she confides her passion to the Countess, are in the poet's sweetest style of writing. Nor are the succeeding parts of her conduct touched with a less delicate and masterly hand. Placed in extraordinary and embarrassing circumstances there is a propriety and delicacy in all her actions, which is consistent with the guileless innocence of her heart.

The King is properly made an instrument in the denouement of the plot of the play, and this is a most striking and judicious deviation from the novel: his gratitude and esteem for Helen are consistent and honourable to him as a man and a monarch.

Johnson has expressed his dislike of the character of Bertram, and most fair readers have manifested their abhorrence of him, and have thought with Johnson that he ought not to have gone unpunished, for the sake not only of poetical but of moral justice. Schlegel has remarked that " Shakespeare never attempts to mitigate the impression of his unfeeling pride and giddy dissipation.

He intended merely to give us a military portrait; and paints the true way of the world, according to which the injustice of men towards women is not considered in a very serious light, if they only maintain what is called the honour of the family." The fact is, that the construction of his plot prevented him. Helen was to be rewarded for her heroic and persevering affection, and any more serious punishment than the temporary shame and remorse that awaits Bertram would have been inconsistent with comedy. It should also be remembered that he was constrained to marry Helen against his will. Shakespeare was a good-natured moralist; and, like his own creation old Lafeu, though he was delighted to strip off the mask of pretension, he thought that punishment might be carried too far. Who that has been diverted with the truly comic scenes in which Parolles is made to appear in his true character could have wished him to have been otherwise dismissed?—

66

'Though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat."

It has been remarked that "the style of the whole play is more conspicuous for sententiousness than imagery:" and that "the glowing colours of fancy could not have been introduced into such a subject." May not the period of life at which it was produced have something to do with this? Malone places the date of its composition in 1606, and observes that a beautiful speech of the sick king has much the air of that moral and judicious reflection that accompanies an advanced period of life:

"Let me not live

After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff

Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses

All but new things disdain: whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions."

It appears probable that the original title of this play was Love's Labours Wonne: at least a piece under that title is mentioned by Meres in his Wits Treasurie, 1598; but if this was the play referred to, what becomes of Malone's hypothesis relating to the date of its composition?

It was first printed in the folio of 1623.