our conversing togeather with such private familiarities, that custome had wrought an unyon of our nature, and the sympathie of our affections such a secret love, that we have two bodies and one soule. Then marvel not (great Torismond) if, seeing my friend distrest, I finde myselfe perplexed with a thousand sorrowes; for her vertuous and honourable thoughts (which are the glories that maketh women excellent) they be such as may challenge love, and race out suspition. Her obedience to your majestie I referre to the censure of your own eye, that since her fathers exile hath smothered al griefs with patience, and in the absence of nature, hath honored you with all dutie, as her owne father by nouriture, not in word uttering any discontent, nor in thought (as far as my conjecture may reach) hammering on revenge; only in all her actions seeking to please you, and to win my favor. Her wisdome, silence. chastitie, and other such rich qualities, I need not decypher; onely it rests for me to conclude in one word, that she is innocent. If then, fortune who tryumphs in variety of miseries, hath presented some envious person (as minister of her intended stratagem) to tainte Rosalynde with any surmise of treason, let him be brought to her face, and confirme his accusation by witnesses; which proved, let her die, and Alinda wil execute the massacre. If none can avouch any confirmed relation of her intent, use justice, my lord, it is the glory of a king, and let her

live in your wonted favour; for if you banish her, myselfe, as copartner of her harde fortunes, will participate in exile some part of her extremities."-ROSALYNDE, p. 28.

(5) SCENE III.-Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.] "Why then doth my Rosalynd grieve at the frowne of Torismond, who by offering her a prejudice proffers her a greater pleasure? and more (mad lasse) to be melancholy, when thou hast with thee Alinda, a friend who wil be a faithful copartner of al thy misfortunes; who hath left her father to follow thee, and chooseth rather to brooke al extremities then to forsake thy presence. What, Rosalynd,

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.

Cheerly, woman; as wee have been bed-fellowes in royaltie, we wil be felow mates in povertie: I wil ever be thy Alinda, and thou shalt ever rest to me Rosalynd; so shall the world canonize our friendship, and speake of Rosalynd and Alinda, as they did of Pilades and Orestes. And if ever fortune smile, and we returne to our former honour, then folding our selves in the sweete of our friendship, we shal merily say (calling to mind our forepassed miseries), Olim hæc meminisse juvabit."—

ROSALYNDE, p. 31.

(1) SCENE VII.—

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.]

Totus mundus agit histrionem, an observation which occurs in one of the fragments of Petronius, and may even be traced still higher, is said to have been the motto over Shakespeare's theatre, the Globe, and was probably in his day a familiar apothegm. The division of human life into certain stages, or epochs, had also a classical origin. In some Greek verses attributed to Solon,-and whether written by him or not, certainly as old as the first half of the first century, being introduced by Philo Judæus into his Liber de Mundi opificio,-the life of man is separated into ten ages of seven years each. Other Greek authors, Hippocrates and Proclus, apportioned his existence into seven parts, and Varro the Roman into five. A Hebrew doctor of the ninth century, and a Hebrew poet of the twelfth, have made a similar distribution.

In that miscellaneous collection of the fifteenth century, denominated "Arnold's Chronicle," is a chapter entitled "THE VIJ AGES OF MAN LIVING IN THE WORLD.

The

first age is infancie, and lastyth from the byrth unto vij yere of age. The ij is childhood, and endurith unto xv yere age. The iij age is adholocencye, and endurith unto xxv yere of age. The iiij age is youthe, and endurith unto XXXV yere age. The v age is manhood, and endurith unto 1 yere age. The vi age is elde, and lasteth unto lxx yere The vij age of man is crepill, and endurith unto age. dethe." But the favourite mode of inculcating the moral of human life has been by pictorial illustration; in Shakespeare's time, as in France at the present day, the subject was a popular theme for prints, broadsides, and ballads. An Italian engraving of the sixteenth century, by Christopher Bertello, is still extant, valuable for its intrinsic merit, and interesting from its analogy to the exquisite moralization of Jaques. The school-boy is carrying his books; the lover, a youth of twenty, bears a branch of myrtle, and at his feet is a young Cupid bending his bow; the soldier, armed cap-d-pie, is bearded like the pard;" the justice has an

aspect of grave severity; the representative of our author's sixth age is a senile personage, bending with years, attired in a long furred robe, his feet in slippers, and "spectacles on nose." Last scene of all exhibits the man of eighty, blind and helpless, with one foot in the tomb already gaping to receive him.

"

For further information on this subject, the reader may consult two elaborate articles, one in Volume xxvii, of the "Archæologia," the other, in the Gentleman's Magazine, for May, 1853: to the medieval representations of the ages of life there recorded, we will add one hitherto undescribed, being a series of fourteen subjects engraved on a Monumental Brass of the date of 1487, preserved in the Hôpital S. Marie, Ypres, in Belgium.

(2) SCENE VII.-Re-enter Orlando, with Adam.] The scene in which Orlando confronts the banished Duke and his companions in the forest, demanding food for his famished retainer, is closely copied from the novel :

66

It chaunced that day, that Gerismond, the lawfull King of France banished by Torismond, who with a lustic crue of outlawes lived in that forest, that day in honour of his birth made a feast to all his bolde yeomen, and frolickt it with store of wine and venison, sitting all at a long table under the shadow of lymon trees. To that place by chance fortune conducted Rosader, who seeing such a crue of brave men, having store of that for want of which hee and Adam perished, hee stept boldly to the boords end, and saluted the company thus:

"Whatsoever thou be that art maister of these lustie squiers, I salute thee as graciously as a man in extreame distresse may know, that I and a fellow friend of mine are here famished in the forrest for want of food: perish wee must, unlesse relieved by thy favours. Therefore, if thou be a gentleman, give meate to men, and to such as are everie way woorthie of life. Let the proudest squire that sits at thy table rise and incounter with mee in any honorable point of activitie whatsoever, and if hee and thou prove me not a man, send me away comfortlesse. If thou refuse this, as a niggard of thy cates, I will have amonst you with my sword; for rather wil I dye valiantly, then perish with so cowardly an extreame. Gerismond,

looking him earnestly in the face, and seeing so proper a gentleman in so bitter a passion, was mooved with so great pitie, that rising from the table, he tooke him by the hand and badde him welcome, willing him to sit downe in his place, and in his roome not onely to eat his fill, but the lord of the feast. Gramercy, sir, (quoth Rosader,) but I have a feeble friend that lyes hereby famished almost for food, aged and therefore lesse able to abide the extremitie of hunger then my selfe, and dishonour it were for me to taste one crumme, before I made him partner of my fortunes:

therefore I will runne and fetch him, and then I will gratefully accept of your proffer, Away hies Rosader to Adam Spencer, and tels him the newes, who was glad of so happie fortune, but so feeble he was that he could not go; wherupon Rosader got him up on his backe, and brought him to the place. Which when Gerismond and his men saw, they greatly applauded their league of friendship; and Rosader, having Gerismonds place assigned him, would not sit there himselfe, but set downe Adam Spencer."-ROSALYNDE, p. 53.

(1) SCENE I.-Seek him with candle.] Referring, it is supposed, to the passage in St. Luke, ch. xv. ver. 8:"Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?"

(2) SCENE II.And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night.] Johnson conjectured this was an allusion to the triple character of Proserpine, Cynthia, and Diana, given by some mythologists to the same goddess :

"Terrel, lustrat, agil, Proserpina, Luna, Diana, Ima, superna, feras, sceptro, fulgore, sagittis;" but Mr. Singer quotes a passage from one of Chapman's Hymns, which he thinks was probably in Shakespeare's mind:

"Nature's bright eye-sight, and the Night's fair soul,
That with thy triple forehead dost control
Earth, seas, and hell."

Hymnus in Cynthiam, 1594.

(3) SCENE II.-I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat.] Rosalind is a very learned lady. She alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine, which teaches that souls transmigrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time she was an Irish rat, and by some metrical charm was rhymed to death. The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his Satires, and Temple in his Treatises. Dr. Grey has produced a similar passage from Randolph :

46

My poets

Shall with a satire, steep'd in gall and vinegar,
Rhyme them to death, as they do rats in Ireland."
JOHNSON.

(4) SCENE II.-Gargantua's mouth.] "Although there had been no English translation of Rabelais in Shakespeare's time, yet it is evident, from several notices, that a chap-book history of the giant Garagantua, who swal lowed five pilgrims, their staves and all, in a salad, was very popular in this country in the sixteenth century. The 'witless devices of Gargantua' are decried among the vain and lewd books of the age' by Edward Dering, in his epistle to the reader, prefixed to A Brief and Necessary Instruction, 1572. The history of Garagantua formed one of the pieces in the singular library of Captain Cox, so ludicrously described by Lancham, in the Letter from Kenilworth, 1575-King Arthurz book, Huon of Burdeaus, Friar Rous, Howleglass, and Gargantua.'

The

monstrous fables of Garagantua' are also enumerated among many other infortunate treatises' in Hanmer's Eusebius, 1577. In the books of the Stationers' Company for 1592, is found an entry of Gargantua his Prophecie;' and in those for 1594 of a booke entitled the History of Garagantua."-HALLIWELL.

(5) SCENE III.-I will not to wedding with thee.] These lines are probably quoted from the old ballads mentioned in the following entries on the Registers of the Stationers' Company, 1584-5

"6 AUGUSTI. "Ric. Jones. Rd of him, for his licence to printe A Ballat of O swete Olyver, Leave me not behind thee.

iiijd."

(6) SCENE V.-And why, I pray you?] Compare the parallel scene in "Rosalynde:"

Oft

"Ganimede, overhearing all these passions of Montanus, could not brooke the crueltie of Phoebe, but starting from behind the bush said: And if, damzell, you fled from mee, I would transforme you as Daphne to a bay, and then in contempt trample your branches under my feet. Phoebe at this sodaine replye was amazed, especially when shee saw so faire a swaine as Ganimede; blushing therefore, she would have bene gone, but that he held her by the hand, and prosecuted his reply thus: What, shepheardesse, so faire and so cruell? Disdaine beseemes not cottages, nor coynesse maids; for either they be condemned to be too proud, or too froward. Take heed, faire nymph, that in despising love, you be not over-reacht with love, and in shaking off all, shape yourselfe to your owne shadow, and so with Narcissus prove passionat and yet unpitied. have I heard, and sometime have I seene, high disdaine turned to hot desires. Because thou art beautifull be not so coy as there is nothing more fair, so there is nothing more fading; as momentary as the shaddowes which growes from a clowdy sunne. Such (my faire shepheardesse) as disdaine in youth desire in age, and then are they hated in the winter, that might have been loved in the prime. A wringled mayd is like to a parched rose, that is cast up in coffers to please the smell, not worne in the hand to content the eye. There is no folly in love to had I wist, and therefore be rulde by mee. Love while thou art yoong, least thou be disdained when thou art olde. Beautie nor time cannot be recalde, and if thou love, like of Montanus; for if his desires are many, so his deserts are great."ROSALYNDE, p. 97.

(7) SCENE V.

Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might; Who ever loo'd, that lov'd not at first sight!]

-

The "dead shepherd" here apostrophised was Marlowe, and the line Phebe quotes is from his once popular poem of "Hero and Leander," first published in 1598 :—

"It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is over-rul'd by fate.

When two are stripp'd, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win."
And one especially do we affect

Of two gold ingots, like in each respect :
The reason no man knows; let it suffice,
What we behold is censur'd by our eyes.
Where both deliberate the love is slight:
Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?"
P. 10, Edit. 1821.

Shakespeare has before referred to this favourite poem in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act I. Sc. 1.

(1) SCENE III.—

in which hurtling

From miserable slumber I awak'd.]

The touching incident of the meeting of the two brothers is thus narrated in Lodge's story :-"Saladyne, wearie with wandring up and downe, and hungry with long fasting, finding a little cave by the side of a thicket, eating such fruite as the forest did affoord, and contenting himselfe with such drinke as nature had provided and thirst made delicate, after his repast he fell in a dead sleepe. As thus he lay, a hungry lyon came hunting downe the edge of the grove for pray, and espying Saladyne began to ccaze upon him but seeing he lay still without any motion, he left to touch him, for that lyons hate to prey on dead carkasses; and yet desirous to have some foode, the lyon lay downe and watcht to see if he would stirre. While thus Saladyne slept secure, fortune that was careful of her champion began to smile, and brought it so to passe, that Rosader (having stricken a deere that but slightly hurt fled through the thicket) came pacing downe by the grove with a boarc-speare in his hande in great haste. He spyed where a man lay a sleepe, and a lyon fast by him: amazed at this sight, as he stoode gazing, his nose on the sodaine

bledde, which made him conjecture it was some friend of his. Whereuppon drawing more nigh, he might easily discerne his visage, perceived by his phisnomie that it was his brother Saladyne, which drove Rosader into a deepe passion, as a man perplexed at the sight of so unexpected a chance, marvelling what should drive his brother to traverse those secrete desarts, without any companie, in such distresse and forlorne sorte. But the present time craved no such doubting ambages, for he must eyther resolve to hazard his life for his reliefe, or else steale away and leave him to the crueltie of the lyon. In which doubt hee thus briefly debated with himselfe.**** With that his brother began to stirre, and the lyon to rowse himselfe, whereupon Rosader sodainly charged him with the boare speare, and wounded the lion very sore at the first stroke. The beast feeling himselfe to have a mortall hurt, leapt at Rosader, and with his pawes gave him a sore pinch on the brest that he had almost faln; yet as a man most valiant, in whom the sparks of Sir John Bourdeaux remained, he recovered himselfe, and in short combat slew the lion, who at his death roared so lowd that Saladyne awaked, and starting up, was amazed at the sudden sight of so monstrous a beast lying slaine by him, and so sweet a gentleman wounded."-ROSALYNDE, p. 79.

(1) SCENE IV.-O, sir, we quarrel in print, by the book.] The particular book here ridiculed, is conjectured to be a treatise in 4to. published in 1595, entitled "Vincentio Saviolo his Practice. In two Bookes. The first intreating of the use of the Rapier and Dagger. The second of Honor and honorable Quarrels." "A Discourse," says the author, speaking of the second part, "most necessarie for all Gentlemen that have in regarde their honors, touching the giving and receiving of the Lie, whereupon the Duello and the Combats in divers sortes doth insue, and many other inconveniences, for lack only of the truc knowledge of honor and the contrarie and the right understanding of wordes." The contents of the several chapters are as follows:-"I. What the reason is, that the partie unto whom the lie is given ought to become Challenger: and of the nature of Lies. II. Of the manner and diversitie of Lies. III. Of Lies certaine. IV. Of conditionall Lyes. V. Of the Lye in generall. VI. Of the Lye in particular. VII. Of foolish Lyes. VIII. A conclusion touching the Challenger and the Defender, and of the wresting and returning back of the Lye, or Dementie." In the chapter of conditional lies, he says: "Conditionall lyes be such as are given conditionally: as if a man should saie or write these wordes-If thou hast saide that I have offered my Lord abuse, thou lyest; or if thou saiest so hereafter, thou shalt lye. Of these kind of lyes given in this manner, often arise much contention in words ****

whereof no sure conclusion can arise." "By which," observes Warburton, "he means, they cannot proceed to cut one another's throat, while there is an if between." See note (6), p. 216, Vol. I.

(2) SCENE IV. As you have books for good manners.] Such works were not uncommon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mr. Halliwell mentions a book of this description, published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1507, the colophon of which is as follows,-" Here endeth and fynysshed the boke named and Intytled Good Maners." There was also "The Boke of Nurture, or Schoole of Good Maners for Men, Servants, and Children," 8vo. 1577, written by Hugh Rhodes; another called "Galateo of Maister John Della Casa, Archebishop of Beneventa. Or rather, A treatise of the maners and behaviours, it behoveth a man to use and eschewe, in his familiar conversation. A worke very necessary and profitable for all Gentlemen or other. First written in the Italian tongue, and now done into English by Robert Peterson, of Lincoln's Inne Gentleman," 4to. 1576: and in the Stationers' Registers, under the year 1576, is an entry

"Ric. Jones. Receyved of him, for his lycense to ymprinte a booke intituled how a yonge gentleman may behave him self in all cumpanies, &c. iiijd, and a copie."

(1) Good wine needs no bush.] Mr. Halliwell remarks that the custom of hanging out a bush as a sign for a tavern, or a place where wine was to be sold, was of great antiquity in this country; and he supplies an interesting example from an illuminated MS. of the fourteenth century, preserved in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, where a party of travellers are observed approaching a wayside inn, indicated by a huge bush depending from the sign. Chaucer alludes to the custom, and in an early poem in MS., Cotton. Tiber. A. vii. fol. 72, we read :

"Ryght as off a tavernere,

The greene busche that hangeth out,

Is a sygne, it is no dowte,
Outward folkys ffor to telle

That within is wyne to selle."

The bush is very frequently alluded to as having been formed of ivy, in which there appears a trace of classical

allusion, as the ivy was always sacred to Bacchus ; perhaps continued from heathen times. So in "Gascoigne's Glass of Government," 1575: Now-a-days the good wyne needeth none ivye garland." And in Florio's "Second Frutes," 1591: "Like unto an icy bush, that cals men to the tavern, but hangs itselfe without to winde and wether." Kennett, in his Glossary, says, that "the tavern-bush, or frame of wood, was drest round with ivy forty years since, though now left off for tuns or barrels hung in the middle of it. This custom gave birth to the present practice of putting out a green bush at the door of those private houses which sell drink during the fair, a practice stated to be still prevalent in many of the provinces." Notices of the tavern-bush abound in our early writers, and the name is traced in the sign of the "Bush," still retained by many inns in England. The petty taverns of Normandy are, indeed, to this day distinguished by bushes.