But when I came unto my bed, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A great while ago the world begun, But that's all one, our play is done, END OF [Exit. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 'AS YOU LIKE IT' was first printed in the folio collection of 1623. There appears to have been an intention to publish it separately, for we find it entered in the registers of the Stationers' Company, together with Henry V.' and Much Ado about Nothing.' There is no exact date to this entry, but it is conjectured to have been made in 1600. The text of the original folio is, upon the whole, a very correct one. Of all Shakspere's comedies we are inclined to think that As You Like It' is the most read. It possesses not the deep tragic interest of The Merchant of Venice,' nor the brilliant wit and diverting humour of Much Ado about Nothing,' nor the prodigal luxuriance of fancy which belongs to 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' nor the wild legendary romance which imparts its charm to A Winter's Tale,' nor the grandeur of the poetical creation of The Tempest.' The peculiar attraction of As You Like It' lies, perhaps, in the circumstance that "in no other play do we find the bright imagination and fascinating grace of Shakspere's youth so mingled with the thoughtfulness of his maturer age." This is the character which Mr. Hallam gives of this comedy, and it appears to us a very just one. But in another place Mr. Hallam says, "There seems to have been a period of Shakspere's life when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience. The memory of hours misspent, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen associates, by chance or circumstances, peculiarly VOL. III. o 2 |