acceptance of his hand, completes her character, marking her most truly as a coquette of famed Arcady. Two of the most poetical passages to be found in the comedy, belong to Phoebe, the one in which she taunts Silvius, and the other full of delicacy and beauty, when she describes Ganymede:

"Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
But what care I for words? yet words do well,
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:

But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him:
He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue

Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall:
His leg is but so so; and yet 't is well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip;

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix'd in his cheek; 't was just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near

To fall in love with him; but for my part,

I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:

For what had he to do to chide at me."-A. III. S. 5.

Celia, the modest, the retiring, is in most admirable keeping. The love of her cousin, in conjunction with that cousin's loquacity and vivacity of spirits, keep her somewhat in the background, yet she is not less gifted, being full of wisdom, gentleness and sweetness. The love existing between her and her cousin is of the purest character. She believes in Rosalind, and when her father rebukes her cousin and decrees her banishment, she lacks not spirit to defend her cousin. She exclaims, describing their fondness for each other,

"if she be a traitor,

Why, so am I; we still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable."

When her father will not revoke the decree of banishment, but repeats the sentence, "she is banish'd," Celia answers by saying,

"Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:

I cannot live out of her company."

Her love for Rosalind causes her to dare and to do. She cannot conceive of their being separated ;

"Shall we part, sweet girl?

No: let my father seek another heir."

She is fertile in her invention and prompt in her action. She decides where to go, whom to go to, and suggests means whereby the journey may be accomplished. She is in no way dispirited by the harsh conduct of her father, on the contrary, her flow of spirits becomes stronger by the occasion. She will "devise the fittest time," and "the safest way," to baffle those who may be desirous of pursuing. She will but collect her jewels and her wealth, and then she says, speaking to her cousin, as they quit the scene,

"Now go we in content

To liberty, and not to banishment."

Celia is equally as witty as her cousin, though she makes not so much display. The interest which her love for her cousin creates, continues throughout the whole of the comedy, and our sympathies are retained for one who could love so true, and act so kindly.

Rosalind, the winning, the loving, the witty, playful maiden, is one of those charming characters that at all times and under all circumstances fails not to please. She is the principal character of the comedy, the centre on which the chief interest turns. She is the real heroine, possessing much sprightliness, and yet withal a thoughtfulness that lends force and strength to her character. When she first appears, she is not in her true position. She is but a mere dependant, a half willing captive at her uncle's court, and her natural flow of spirits is checked by the remembrance of her father who is in banishment.

This feeling is driven from her mind by her love of Orlando, which springeth up out of pure sympathy. It is this which moves her in her first interview with him. Her sympathy is excited, and whenever such a feeling arises, love is sure to follow. The manliness and gentleness of Orlando quickens that which his unfortunate position began, and this is completed, when she learns his name and knows from whom he sprung.

She says,

"My father lov'd Sir Rowland as his soul,
And all the world was of my father's mind:
Had I before known this young man his son,
I should have given him tears unto entreaties,
Ere he should thus have ventured."

This knowledge adds fuel to the fire, and she falls truly in love with him; thus affording another instance of the power of that feeling, which

"From court to the cottage,

In bower and in hall,

From the king unto the beggar
Love conquers all."*

* Truth's Integrity, or Love will find out the way. Early Ballads edited

by R. Bell, p. 176.

The speeches of Rosalind are full of playfulness and wit, which bubbles up like a fountain, scattering its refreshing waters on all things around. She is voluble but never tiring, for her volubility is full of life and joy, and her impulses are all marked by kindness and gentleness. She never loses her maiden modesty, even when clothed in man's attire; and man's attire she surely wears—not that of a boy-if her own description can be relied upon.

"Were it not better,

Because I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,

A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will)
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,

That do outface it with their semblances."

While so disguised, she never uses words nor performs any acts which are contrary to her feminine disposition. She never unsexes herself, and she as readily and as gracefully puts off her manly garments to wear her own womanly attire, as when she adopted her masculine ones to assist her in her flight.

The wit of Rosalind differs greatly from that of Beatrice's. It is not so caustic; there is much less of satire in her word-playing. It is more humourous, more mirthful, and less pointed. There is more feeling and earnestness in Rosalind than in Beatrice. The female character that most resembles Rosalind is Imogen. Both are possessed of great tenderness and sympathy, both possess high intellectual powers,both are heroines of their respective plays, and “in both are found the same clear and prompt intelligence—

the same consummate grace and self-possession in enacting those respective masculine parts which the exigences of their fortune compel them to assume. The deeper pathos and the graver wisdom which lend a more solemn though scarcely more tender colouring to the character of Imogen, seem hardly more than may be sufficiently accounted for by that maturer development which one and the same original character would receive from the maturer years, the graver position, and more tragic trials of the wife, in which the heroine of Cymbeline is set before us, as compared with that early bloom, and those fond anxieties of youthful courtship, which we behold in Rosalind."*

The whole of the love scenes, the manner in which the characters fall in love with each other, is done in the most masterly manner by Shakspere. He evidently intendeth their actions to support the opinion of love at first sight. The reasons for this are twofold; firstly, because of its frequent occurrence in the world, thereby showing its truthfulness; and secondly, out of compliment to one of his greatest contemporaries, Marlow, of the mighty line, to whom he alludes when he says,

"Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might,
'Whoever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?""

In the closing scene, Jaques, true to his character, will not fall in with the measures proposed by the duke. He will away, for

"Out of these convertites,

There is much matter to be heard and learn'd."

His cynical disposition will not allow him to participate in the happiness of others; it is contrary to

*Fletcher's Studies of Shakspere, p. 237.