"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS ACT I. sc. 1.— WELL." "Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal. Bert. Madam, I desire your holy wishes, Laf. How understand we that?" ERTRAM and Lafeu, I imagine, both speak together, Lafeu referring to the Countess's rather obscure remark. Act ii. sc. 1. (Warburton's note.) “King. let higher Italy Those 'bated, that inherit but the fall It would be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest "bastards," for "bated." As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur ?-With my conjecture, the sense would be;—"let higher, or the more northern part of Italy (unless "higher" be a corruption for "hir'd,”—the metre seeming to demand a monosyllable) (those bastards that inherit the infamy only of their fathers) see," &c. The following "woo and "wed" are so far confirmative as they indicate Shakespeare's manner of connection by unmarked influences of association from some preceding meta phor. This it is which makes his style so peculiarly vital and organic. Likewise "those girls of Italy" strengthen the guess. The absurdity of Warburton's gloss, which represents the king calling Italy superior, and then excepting the only part the lords were going to visit, must strike every one. Ib. sc. 3. "Laf. They say, miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persous to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless." Shakespeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses the word "causeless" in its strict philosophical sense;―cause being truly predicable only of phenomena, that is, things natural, and not of noumena, or things supernatural. Act iii. sc. 5.— "Dia. The Count Rousillon:-know you such a one? Hel. But by the ear that hears most nobly of him; His face I know not.” Shall we say here, that Shakespeare has unnecessarily made his loveliest character utter a lie?—Or shall we dare think that, where to deceive was necessary, he thought a pretended verbal verity a double crime, equally with the other a lie to the hearer, and at the same time an attempt to lie to one's own conscience? "MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR." ACT I. sc. 1.— "Shal. The luce is the fresh fish, the salt fish is an old coat.' I' CANNOT understand this. Perhaps there is a corruption both of words and speakers. Shallow no sooner corrects one mistake of Sir Hugh's, namely, "louse" for "luce,” a pike, but the honest Welchman falls into another, namely, “cod” (baccalà). Cambrice—“ cot" for coat. "Shal. The luce is the fresh fish Evans. The salt fish is an old cot." "Luce is a fresh fish, and not a louse;" says Shallow. "Aye, aye," quoth Sir Hugh; "the fresh fish is the luce; it is an old cod that is the salt fish." At all events, as the text stands, there is no sense at all in the words. Ib. sc. 3. "Fal. Now, the report goes, she has all the rule of her husband's purse; He hath a legion of angels. Pist. As many devils entertain; and To her, boy, say I.” Perhaps it is "As many devils enter (or enter'd) swine; and to her, boy, say I:"_ a somewhat profane, but not un-Shakespearian, allusion to the "legion" in St. Luke's "gospel." H MEASURE FOR MEASURE,” TH HIS play, which is Shakespeare's throughout, is to me the most painful-say rather, the only painful part of his genuine works. The comic and tragic parts equally border on the μισητόν, the one being disgusting, the other horrible; and the pardon and marriage of Angelo not merely baffles the strong indignant claim of justice-(for cruelty, with lust and damnable baseness, cannot be forgiven, because we cannot conceive them as being morally repented of); but it is likewise degrading to the character of woman. Beaumont and Fletcher, who can follow Shakespeare in his errors only, have presented a still worse, because more loathsome and contradictory, instance of the same kind in the Night-Walker, in the marriage of Alathe to Algripe. Of the counter-balancing beauties of Measure for Measure, I need say nothing; for I have already remarked that the play is Shakespeare's throughout, Act iii. sc. 1.—– "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where," &c. "This natural fear of Claudio, from the antipathy we have to death, seems very little varied from that infamous wish of Mæcenas, recorded in the 101st epistle of Seneca: "Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa," &c.-Warburton's note. I cannot but think this rather a heroic resolve, than an infamous wish. It appears to me to be the grandest symptom of an immortal spirit, when |