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ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE.

THE fable of this play, (written in 1598,) is taken from a novel of which Boccace is the original author; but it is more than probable that our poet read it in a book called The Palace of Pleasure; a collection of novels translated from different authors, by one William Painter, 1566, 4to. Shakspeare has only borrowed from the novel a few leading circumstances in the graver parts of the drama: the comic characters are entirely of his own formation: one of them, Parolles, a boaster and a coward, is the sheet-anchor of the piece. The plot is not sufficiently probable. Some of the scenes are forcibly written, whilst others are impoverished and uninteresting. The moral of the play may be correctly ascertained from Dr. Johnson's estimate of the character of Bertram: "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 aukindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness."

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ACT I.

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

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skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, it 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 Geraid 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 makes fair gifts fairer: for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in

⚫ Qualities of good breeding and erudition.

ber they are the better for their simpleness; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones she derives her honesty, and achieves her good-Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full eit

ness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from

her tears.

Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. 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.

we see

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Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the liv-valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us ing.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?

Count. Be thou bless'd, Bertram! and succeed thy father

In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue, Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness Share with thy birthright; Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key be check'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,

That thee may furnish, ‡ and my prayers pluck down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.

Laf. He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.

Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Bertram. [Exit COUNTESS. Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in your thoughts, [To HELENA] be servants to you 15 Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU. Hel. 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.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind, that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though
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. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES.

a

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit to fit in him,

some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men ?

Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the counmonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in't ; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of selflove, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by 't: Out with't; within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Away with't.

Hel. How might one do, Sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Pur. Let me see: Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible; answer the time uf request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion richly suited, bat unsuitable: just like the brooch and tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek: And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears; it looks ill, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: Will you any thing with it?

Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There shall your master have a thonsand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
liis humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,

Her excellencies are the better because they are That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall be-

artless.

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I know not what he shall :-God send him well!

The court's a learning-place ;-and he is one—— Par. What one, i'faith?

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Par. Under Mars, I.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.
Par. Why under Mars?

Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.

Par. When he was predominant.

Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
Par. Why think you so ?

Hel. You go so much backward, when you fight.

Par. That's for advantage.

Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: But the composition, that your va lour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

1 Lord. His love and wisdom,
Approv'd so to your majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.

King. He hath arm'd our answer,
And Florence is denied before he comes :
Yet, for our gentlemen, that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

2 Lord. It may well serve

A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.

King. What's he comes here?

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

1 Lord. It is the count Rousillon, my good
Young Bertram.
{lord,
King. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral
parts

May'st thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
King. I would I had that corporal soundness

now,

me

As when thy father, and myself, in friendship
First tried our soldiership! He did look fai
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs
To talk of your good father: In his youth
He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
So like a courtier, contempt not bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and, at this time,
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below
He used as creatures of another place; [him
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to natur-Till their own scorn return to them unnoted, alize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: so farewell. [Exit.

Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it, which mounts my love so
high;

That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things. ‡
Impossible be strange attempts, to those
That weigh their pains in sense; and do sup-
pose

What hath been cannot be: Who ever strove
To show her merit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease-my project may deceive me.
But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.
[Exit.
SCENE II.-Paris.-A Room in the King's

Palace.

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In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them
But goers backward.
[now

Ber. His good remembrance, Sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb;
So in approof lives not his epitaph,
As in your royal speech.

King. 'Would, I were with him! He would
always say,

(Methinks, I hear him now; his plausive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
To grow there, and to bear,)—Let me not live,-
Thus his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,-Let me not live, quoth he,
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments

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ber they are the better for their simpleness; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones she derives her honesty, and achieves her good-Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft

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Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. 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.

we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.
Hel. And you, monarch.

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Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the liv-valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us ing.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?
Count. Be thou bless'd, Bertram! and succeed
thy father

In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright; Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more
will,

That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck
down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.

Laf. He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.

some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men ?

Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is

Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Ber-most infallible disobedience. He, that hangs

tram.

[Exit COUNTESS. Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in your thoughts, [To HELENA] be servants to you ! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and LA FEU. Hel. 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.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind, that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though

plague,

a

To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curis,
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. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES.

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit to fit in him,

himself, is a virgin virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctitled limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of selflove, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't: Out with't; within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Away with't.

Hel. How might one do, Sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Par. Let me see: Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek: And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears; it looks ill, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: Will you any thing with it?

Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and bis discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,

Her excellencies are the better because they are That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall be-

artless.

[blocks in formation]

I know not what he shall :-God send him
well!-

The court's a learning-place ;-and he is one-
Par. What one, i'faith ?

frait.

A quibble on date, which means age, and candied

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