entirely original plays are, the unfitness of the subject for dramatic treatment, and the want of experience shown in the conduct of the plot and the arrangement of stage effect; in both which points it is much inferior to either The Two Gentlemen of Verona or The Comedy of Errors, one of which must be its rival for the honor of being Shakespeare's maiden effort as a dramatic author: the purely external and verbal character of the faults and foibles at which its satire is aimed, even in its very title; which are just such as would excite the spleen of a very young man who to genius added common sense, and who had just commenced a literary career :- the fact that when Shakespeare was from twenty to twenty-five years old, the affectation in speech known as Euphuism was at its height; Euphues his England having been published in 1580: the inferiority of all the characters in strong original traits, even to those of The Two Gentlemen of Verona or The Comedy of Errors; Armado alone having a clear and well defined individuality, and his figure, though deftly drawn, being somewhat common-place in kind for Shakespeare, while Birone, Rosaline, and Dull are rather germs of character than characters: the use of couplets, alternate rhymes, and even doggerel in the more dignified parts of the work : the fact that Monarcho, who is alluded to in Act IV. Sc. 1, died before 1580; as we know by Churchyard's epitaph upon him, bearing that date: and, last not least, as it appears to me, in the innovating omission of a professed Fool's or Jester's part from the list of dramatis personæ; for it is ever the ambitious way of youthful genius to aim at novelty of form in its first essays, while yet in treatment it falls unconsciously into a vein of reminiscence; afterward it is apt to return to established forms, and to show originality in treatment. So Shakespeare, on the rebound, (for Love's Labour's Lost, it is safe to say, was never popular,) put two Fools into both The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Comedy of Errors; and afterward, in nearly all his comedies, and even in some of his grandest tragedies, he introduced this character, so essential to the enjoyment of a large part of the audience for which he wrote; asserting his plastic power over his own genius by moulding his wit, his humor, his pathos, and his wisdom into forms which find fit utterance beneath the Jester's cap and chime with the tinkle of his bells.

No source of the plot of Love's Labour's Lost has been discovered; but that the play is founded upon some older work, its undramatic character, its needless fulness of detail, its air of

artificial romance, and the attribution of particular personal traits—such as black eyes and a dark complexion to one, great size to another, and a face pitted with the small-pox to another of the ladies, and the merely incidental hints that one of the king's friends is an officer in the army and extremely youthful — seem unmistakable evidence; and that the story is of French origin, is as clearly shown by the nationality of the titles, the Gallicism of calling a love-letter a capon, the appearance of the strong French negative, point, twice, and the use of seigneur instead of 'signior.' Mr. Collier supposes, with some reason, that the appearance of Armado and Holofernes in the dramatis personæ is indicative of an acquaintance with the early Italian drama, in which the Spanish braggart and the pedant were stereotyped characters; but Warburton's declaration, that the latter was a satire on John Florio, rests upon assumptions not worthy of serious attention.

As there never was a Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and history records no mortgage of any part of France to Navarre for war expenses, the period of the action is quite indeterminable.* The costume may therefore be the French dress of any period before the end of the sixteenth century, for all the characters except Armado (whose plumage should show some Spanish feathers) and Sir Nathaniel, Holofernes, and Dull, who are plainly an English curate, an English schoolmaster, and an English thirdborough of Shakespeare's time.

The text of this play is but slightly corrupted, and that in unimportant passages, in either the folio or the quarto edition. A repetition of certain errors shows that the former was printed from a copy of the latter. Mr. Collier remarks truly that the folio adds some errors of its own; but he does not remark perhaps because he failed to observe that it corrects a great many more than it makes. There are also variations which came from another source than the quarto; and thus it is plain that although the folio itself was not exempt from accidents, these do not invalidate its authenticity, or exempt us from the obligation to accept its deliberate changes as authoritative, and to regard the quarto only as auxiliary to the formation of the text.

*The Rev. Joseph Hunter has, however, pointed out a passage in Monstrelet's Chronicles, which mentions a negotiation between the King of France and a Charles of Navarre, that resulted in the obligation of the former to pay the latter two hundred thousand crowns. New Illustrations, &c., Vol. I. p. 256.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a Spaniard.

SIR NATHANIEL, a Curate.

HOLOFERNES, a Schoolmaster.
DULL, a Constable.

COSTARD, a Clown.

MOTH, [or MOTE,] Page to Armado.

Officers and others, attendants on the King and Princess.

SCENE: Navarre.

(348)

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I.

SCENE I. - Navarre. A Park, near a Palace.

L'

Enter the KING, BIRONE, LONGAVILLE, and

DUMAINE.

KING.

ET fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs, And then grace us in the disgrace of death; When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge; And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors! — for so you are,

That war against your own affections,

And the huge army of the world's desires,
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world:
Our Court shall be a little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.

You three, Birone, Dumaine, and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein.

If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
Longaville. I am resolv'd: 'tis but a three years'
fast:

The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankerout the wits.

Dumaine. My loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves :
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
With all these living in philosophy.

Birone. I can but say their protestation over; So much, dear liege, I have already sworn, That is, To live and study here three years. But there are other strict observances; As, not to see a woman in that term, Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there: And one day in a week to touch no food, And but one meal on every day beside, The which, I hope, is not enrolled there: And then, to sleep but three hours in the night, And not be seen to wink of all the day, (When I was wont to think no harm all night, And make a dark night, too, of half the day,) Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there. O! these are barren tasks, too hard to keep, Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.