except in these respects, made over by Shakespeare circa 1598. But why not an earlier play on the same subject by the dramatist himself? While it is true, as Dr. Furness urges, that if he first wrote the play in 1598, it is hardly probable Touchstone would seem two different people, it is not at all impossible that in rapidly making over an old play of his own he might let an early scene stand much as originally planned, and then, when he had greatly changed later scenes, fail to bring the first appearance of the Clown into entire accord with the revisions further on. Certainly Shakespeare nods occasionally in such ways; for instance, just because he is so full of his source, he fails to make the cause in "King John" for the Bastard's hatred of Austria as clear as it was in his source, "The Troublesome Raigne." "Romeo and Juliet," and above all "Hamlet," show also how ready he was to make over his work when opportunity came. Lodge's "Rosalynde, Euphues' Golden Legacie,' was first printed in 1590, but the first extant edition is that of 1592. There was another edition in 1598; indeed there were ten between 1590 and 1642. When one remembers that the Elizabethan dramatists were the reporters of their day, does it not seem likely there was by 1593 some play on a story which had passed through two editions between 1590 and 1592 and had lasting quality enough to keep it popular for over fifty years?

What also suggests an earlier date than 1598 for the first writing of "As You Like It" is the closeness with which it follows the novel. Usually, even in the chronicle plays, in which Shakespeare shows a stronger sense of

fact than his contemporary dramatists, he departs freely and largely from his sources. Moreover, though a hard and fast principle probably cannot be laid down, he is on the whole freer with his sources as his work advances. In "As You Like It " he borrows all the principal incidents and characters of Lodge's novel. Though he adds Jaques, Touchstone, Audrey, William, Le Beau, Dennis, Sir Oliver Martext, Amiens, and the First Lord, he but very slightly changes the situations of the novel except in so far as highly developing the characters provided him must affect them somewhat. That is, his method is to change rather by adding than by working over thoroughly the original story.

What previous experience told Shakespeare, as he mulled over Lodge's story, was that the love story of Orlando and Rosalind lacks large emotional significance, and does not contain the seemingly inextricable complication which a play of absorbing story and stirring incident must possess. When Rosalind and Orlando once meet in the Forest of Arden, she has only to reveal herself to bring the story to an end. All that stands between is her her desire to test him, her truly feminine wish to tease. There is no real dramatic barrier, no complication which keeps a reader in suspense as to the way in which the lovers may be brought together. Compare the central story here with that of "Much Ado about Nothing.' Here is naught to excite and thrill an audience as does the tale of Claudio and Hero, with its misunderstandings, jealousies, and tragic moments. There we have clash of character with character, and complication, which

seems inextricable, in the effect on Claudio of the slandering of Hero by Don Pedro's hirelings. The story is meant to create suspense early and to keep an audience emotionally tense even to the end. In "Twelfth Night," too, the Duke, whom Viola loves, cares not for her, but for Olivia, who in turn loves Viola, thinking her a youth. This means a conflict of wills productive of moving scenes. Both of these plays, in other words make a strong and varied appeal to the emotions of the audience. So far as Orlando and Rosalind are concerned, the complications for them are less even than for Beatrice and Benedick. The misrepresentations of Benedick and Beatrice to each other by Leonato and Claudio complicate their wooing badly. Scene ii of Act V in " As You Like It" shows how completely Rosalind controls the dénouement of the play. When Orlando tells her of the speedy marriage of Celia and Oliver she says: If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her." Indeed, as any careful reader must note, the angry banishment of Rosalind by the Duke in Act I gives promise of complications for Rosalind which never appear. The first act is so stormy that it prepares a hearer for a play of bustling action later; but such action fails to appear. Such a contrast between this act and the mood of the other acts is more suggestive of the contrast between the almost tragic opening of "The Comedy of Errors" and the farce of its main scenes than of any other play of Shakespeare before 1600. There can be no question, then, that the main dependence of "As You

Like It" is not upon a complicated central story. The appeal of “ As You Like It" is, frankly, delicate rather than powerful, intellectual rather than emotional, to the educated, the cultivated, rather than to the untrained mind.

A play built directly from Lodge's material must depend not on dramatic situation, but on attractive characterisation of the dramatis personae, on graceful and charming speech, and upon much variety instead of much intensity of interest. That is, its means must be literary rather than essentially dramatic. Now experience long, long ago demonstrated that in the theatre it is situation which can be depended on, above everything else, to win and hold the attention of a large audience. Take away, not story entirely, but the complication in story which keeps an audience in suspense, eager for a solution favourable to the heroine or annihilating to the villain, and what is to hold the public? Character may, but if so it must provide some decidedly attractive or interesting figures. What holds most in characterisation is the clash of wills which produces dramatic situations; but, as we have seen, in the scenes of Orlando and Rosalind such clashes are absent. Though Shakespeare contrasts Celia and Rosalind, though Orlando and the disguised Rosalind may seem to clash in their talk of Orlando's love, there is no real combat of wills. It is in Rosalind's relations to Phebe that the only real complication in the love story comes. Yet Shakespeare does not make even that in any way complicate the relations of Orlando and Rosalind as he makes the slandering of Hero bring Ben

edick and Beatrice to an understanding. It is noteworthy, too, that all the strongly emotional moments come early in the play, in the wrestling scene, the banishment of Rosalind, and the flight of Orlando and Adam. Once in the Forest of Arden, all real anxieties are over; Rosalind and Celia are free to play with their moods and to indulge in badinage with Orlando; Touchstone can quaintly soliloquise; and Jaques may philosophise as the days slip by. Action in the ordinary sense is kept off the stage. We hear of the rescue of the brother Oliver; of the conversion of the usurping Duke; we are told that Celia and Oliver fall head over ears in love at sight; but nothing of all this are we allowed to see in action. I dwell on this absence of complicated plotting, of dramatic action, of emotional appeal in the main figures, for it points to the emphasis intended by the dramatist. When we know that, his underlying purpose in the play must reveal itself.

Evidently Shakespeare's interest in this play went much where it did in "Love's Labour's Lost"-on char

acterisation and dialogue. As As was true in that play, here he depends much on variety of appeal rather than on a story of emotional significance. There we had Don Armado, Jaquenetta, Costard, Holofernes, Moth, and Will, each with his own special interest for the audience, but all slightly and arbitrarily connected with the main story. Here we have Touchstone, Audrey, Jaques, William, the foresters, and the singing pages, all added to the original fable, not to complicate the main story but to give varied interest. The additions in "As You Like