prose is in better iambic rhythm than his verse is. upsets Mr. Collier's argument on the passage,

"His blood was yet untainted, but with the heat
Got by the wrong the king had offered him,
And that he boldly durst, and did defy himself,
His subjects, and the proudest danger that

This entirely

Either tyranny or treason could inflict upon her."

As to which Mr. Collier says,

"Would the above have got so readily into blank verse if it had not in fact been so originally written, and recited by the actor when Pericles was first performed ?"

I should not indeed have thought it necessary to have noticed these views of Mr. Collier's, were it not that both Mommsen and Delius have been misled by them: which is surprising, as both of them have excellent ears for rhythm.

There are, however, other more important points in this Wilkins novel that demand our attention; for instance, the difference in his treatment of the rhyming documents in the play. The riddle which occurs in the part he wrote himself he quotes in exactly the same form: but the inscription on Thaisa's coffin he alters thus :—

"If ere it hap this chest be driven
On any shore or coast or haven,
I, Pericles, the prince of Tyre
(That, losing her, lost all desire),
Intreat you give her burying,
Since she was daughter to a king,
This gold I give you as a fee;

The gods requite your charity!"

As he has put in his novel the four lines of undoubted Shakespeare quoted above,—"Thou art as rudely welcome," &c., -he must have had Shakespeare's work before him when he wrote the novel, and this inscription must therefore have been altered to show how much better he could do it himself. I do not think his attempt a

success. In like manner he has altered Rowley's epitaph on Marina into

"The fairest, sweetest, and most best, lies here,

Who wither'd in her spring of year.

In Nature's garden, though by growth a bud,

She was the chiefest flower, she was good."

Had he written this himself originally, he would have done it, as he has all the rhymes in his part that are not dialogue, in octosyllabics.

But his crowning achievement is the song he quotes from Twine, given to Marina, and which Delius-if I understand him rightlytakes to be the same that Shakespeare intends her to sing :

Among the harlots foul I walk,

Yet harlot none am I ;

The Rose among the thorns doth grow,

And is not hurt thereby :

The thief that stole me sure I think

Is slain before this time;

A Bawd me bought, yet am I not
Defiled by fleshly crime.
Nothing were pleasanter to me,

Than parents mine to know;
I am the issue of a king,

My blood from kings doth flow.

In time the Heavens may mend my state,

And send a better day;

For sorrow adds unto our griefs,

But helps not any way.

Shew gladness in your countenance,

Cast up your cheerful eyes,

That God remains that once of nought

Created earth and skies."

The treatment, then, of these lyrics strongly confirms our conclusion as to the share Wilkins had in writing the play, and so does the exact similarity of the style of his verse-prose to that of the

prosaic verse of the drama: that he should have expanded and given more detail in the prose work is only natural; as, for instance, in giving Thaisa's letter to her father in full: there is not, however, the slightest pretext for foisting any of the novel into the play. On the contrary, some of the alterations are essentially undramatic. For example, the following passage, which Delius praises, is very inferior to the treatment in the play (Act ii. Sc. 2, end): "But Cerimon, who best knew that now, with anything to discomfort her, might breed a relapse which would be unrecoverable, intreated her to be cheer'd; for her Lord was well, and that anon when the time was more fitting, and that her decayed spirits were repaired, he would gladly speak with her." Is Thaisa a petulant baby, then, to be coaxed and petted into reason? And again in Act v. Sc. I, Pericles, according to Wilkins, strikes Marina on the face! His Marina certainly deserves any punishment for her detestable song; but Shakespeare's Pericles is a gentleman and a father.

A much more important matter, however, is, that when Pericles in the novel, in obedience to Diana, tells the story of his life, he gives all the events that happened at Antioch and Pentapolis in full, the riddle and the tournament, and all the rest of it. None of this occurs in the play: Shakespeare carefully confines Pericles's speech to the events that concerned his sole subject, the life of Marina. A stronger argument that his work was not founded on Wilkins's play, but done previously and independently, one cannot well have: and in like manner afterwards in the same scene in the novel, Thaisa alludes to Pericles having been her schoolmaster; Shakespeare has not this allusion: and finally, the novel ends with Pericles burning the Bawd, Marina rewarding the Pander, Pericles rewarding the fisherman, stoning Cleomenes and Dion, and succeeding to the kingdom of Antioch, all of which is foreign to the Shakespeare play. In fact, the shifts that critics who hold the common opinions as to this play are reduced to, are strong arguments in favour of my views. Delius, for instance, is obliged to make such assumptions as these: 1. That the abundance of material compelled the author of the play to introduce Gower and the dumb-show business :-the fact being, that the play is an unusually short one, and that there was abundance of space for all that Wilkins wanted to introduce: his poverty of invention was the only drawback to his doing so. 2. That in Act v.

Sc. 3, some of Wilkins's work is retained and patched up by Shakespeare: why, he could have re-written it with half the trouble of cobbling up Wilkins. 3. That in the Epilogue and five-foot Gower part, Shakespeare imitated Wilkins! The author of Lear imitated the author of the Miseries of Inforced Marriage! It is true he couldn't keep up the imitation, and the real Shakespeare shows in the dialogue. 4. Finally, that the Gower in Act v. is like Prosper's Epilogue: and that Wilkins wrote the parts of Timon that are not Shakespeare's. I say nothing in reply to this: I can only admire, and conclude with one little piece of lower criticism, that the author of "she was rather a deserving bed-fellow for a prince, than a play-fellow for so rascally an assembly" (p. 62 in the novel), was probably author also of the first chorus in the play,

"To seek her as a bed-fellow,

In marriage pleasures play-fellow."

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF

CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER VII.

ON "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.”

:

WHETHER this be the same play as Love's Labour's Won is doubtful that it has a better title to be considered so than any other extant play of Shakespeare is certain, and has been abundantly shown by others. I confess that I feel little interest in the question, as it cannot from any data at present in our possession be settled satisfactorily. All that we are here concerned with is the demonstrable fact that it contains portions written at a much earlier date than the completed work. At the time of its completion Shakespeare had introduced the free manner of his third periodthat of the Tragedies; was using many Alexandrines and short lines; was indulging freely in double endings; and in the greater part of this play was comparatively sparing in the use of rhymes. There are however portions of the play which are quite in his earliest style; ie. in the continuous rhyming manner of Love's Labour's Lost, and in a few instances we find also alternate rhymes and even stanzas. These parts are indubitably of a much less matured time; and indicate that the play is founded on an earlier draft. I now proceed to give a list of these portions.

I.-Act i. Sc. I, last 14 lines in rhyme, forming a speech of Helen's, perfectly appropriate to her position and feeling at the moment, but in no way connected with or necessitated by the

context.

II.-Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 134—142; an eight-line stanza, spoken by the Countess; pure youthful poetry, not dramatic; not required in the scene or connected with the context.