From these facts Mr. Collier infers, and his inference is strengthened by the style of the language and the structure of the verse, that "The Winter's Tale" was a novelty at the time Forman saw it played at the Globe, and had "been composed in the autumn and winter of 1610-11, with a view to its production on the Bankside, as soon as the usual performances by the king's players commenced there." The plot of "The Winter's Tale" is founded on a popular novel by Robert Greene, first printed in 1588, and then called " Pandosto: The Triumph of Time,"* &c., though in subsequent impressions intituled, "The History of Dorastus and Fawnia." In this tale we have the leading incidents of the play, and counterparts, though insufferably dull and coarse ones, of the principal personages. But Shakespeare has modified the crude materials of his original with such judgment, and vivified and ennobled the characters he has retained with such incomparable art, that, as usual, he may be said to have imposed rather than to have incurred an obligation by adopting them. Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Guards, &c. SCENE,-Sometimes in SICILIA; sometimes in BOHEMIA. ARCH. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. CAM. I think, this coming summer, the king of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. ARCH. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves; for, indeed, CAM. Beseech you,— ARCH. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge, we cannot with such magnificence in so rare-I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintel ligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us. CAM. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. ARCH. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. CAM. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves! ARCH. I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note. you CAM. I well very agree with in the hopes of him it is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject," makes old hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life to see him a man. ARCH. Would they else be content to die? CAM. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. ARCH. If the king had no son they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. SCENE II.-The same. [Exeunt. world, So soon as yours could win me: so it should now, Palace. Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMIL- POL. Nine changes of the wat'ry star have been Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher, LEON. Stay your thanks awhile, And pay them when you part. POL. Sir, that's to-morrow. I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance a — shook hands, as over a vast;] So the first folio: that of 1632 reads," over a vast sea." The earlier lection is no doubt the true one; in "The Tempest," Act I. Sc. 2, we have, "vast of night;" and in "Pericles," Act III. Sc. 1, "The God of this great vast, rebuke these surges." bone that, indeed, physics the subject,-] "Subject," in this place, may import the people generally, as it is usually interpreted; yet from the words which immediately follow," makes old hearts fresh," it has perhaps a more particular meaning:-The sight and hopes of the princely boy were cordial to the afflicted, and invigorating to the old. LEON. But let him say so then, and let him go; The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia to justify my apprehensions, and make me say, "I predicted too truly:" but Mr. Dyce and Mr. Collier suspect, with reason, that the passage is corrupt. d To let-] To stay. e-behind the gest-] A "gest" was the name of the scroll containing the route and resting-places of royalty during a "progress;" and Hermione's meaning may be,-when he visits Bohemia he shall have my licence to prolong his sojourn a month beyond the time prescribed for his departure. But gest, or jest, also signified a show or revelry, and it is not impossible that the sense intended was, he shall have my permission to remain a month after the farewell entertainment. f What lady-she her lord.-] Mr. Collier's annotator suggests, prosaically enough, "What lady should her lord." The difficulty in the expression arises, we apprehend, solely from the omission of the hyphen in "lady-she;" that restored, the sense is unmistakeable,-I love thee not a tick of the clock behind whatever high-born woman does her husband. So in Massinger's play of "The Bondman," Act I. Sc. 3, "I'll kiss him for the honour of my country, with oaths, Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily, Not like a gucst; so you shall pay your fees When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner or my guest? by your dread verily, One of them you shall be. POL. Your guest then, madam: To be your prisoner should import offending; Which is for me less easy to commit Than you to punish. At my request he would not. Hermione, my dear'st, thou never spok'st HER. LEON. Never? Never, but once. As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless, Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. My last good deed was to entreat his stay; LEON. Why, that was when Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white hand, HER. 'Tis Grace, indeed!— Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice; The one for ever earn'd a royal husband; The other for some while a friend. LEON. [Giving her hand to POLIXENES. [Aside.] Too hot, too hot! To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. с I have tremor cordis on me,-my heart dances,— were d The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment Ay, my good lord. bounty, fertile bosom,-] Hanmer and Mr. Collier's annotator read, "bounty's fertile bosom," &c. d The mort o' the deer;] The mort or mote of the deer was a particular strain blown by the huntsmen when the deer was killed. There is perhaps, also, a latent play on the word "deer," akin to that in the ensuing speech on "neat." |