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"Every 'leven wether-tods; every tod yields-pound and odd shilling," &c.-Act IV., Scene 2.

To tod is used as a verb by dealers in wool. Thus, they say, "Twenty sheep ought to tod fifty pounds of wool," &c. The meaning, therefore, of the Clown's words is, "Every eleven (wethers) tods; i. e. will produce a tod, or twenty-eight pounds of wool; every tod yields a pound and odd shilling; what then will the wool of fifteen hundred yield?"

"Three-man song-men all."-Act IV., Scene 2.

That is, singers of catches in three parts.

"A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trolmy-dames."-Act IV., Scene 2.

This is probably a corruption of the French term, trou madame; the game much resembles that called bagatelle. The old English title of this sport was "pigeon-holes," as the arches in the machine, through which the balls are rolled, resemble the cavities made for pigeons in a dove-house.

"Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,

And merrily hent the stile-a."-Act IV., Scene 2. The lines in the text form part of a song first printed in "An Antidote against Melancholy, made up in Pills, compounded of witty Ballads, jovial Songs, and merry Catches" (1661). To "hent the stile," is to take the stile; from the Saxon hentan.

"But that our feasts

In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired; sworn, I think, To shew myself a glass."—Act IV., Scene 2. Perdita probably means, that the prince, by the rustic habit he wears, seems as if he had sworn to shew her, as in a glass, how she ought to be dressed, instead of being "so goddess-like pranked up:" and were it not for the license and folly which custom had made familiar at such feasts as that of sheep-shearing, when mimetic sports were allowable, she should blush to see him so attired.

"For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance be to you both"

Act IV., Scene 3. Ophelia distributes the same plants, and accompanies them with similar expressions :-"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. There's rue for you; we may call it herb of grace." The qualities of retaining "seeming and savour" appear to form the reason why these plants were considered emblematical of grace and remembrance.

-"The fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streaked gillyflowers, Which some call nature's bastards."

Act IV., Scene 3. The variegated gillyflowers, or carnations, being considered as a produce of art, were properly called nature's bastards; and being streaked white and red, Perdita considers them a proper emblem of a painted or immodest

woman.

"Pale primroses,

That die unmarried, ere they can behold

Bright Phoebus in his strength."-Act IV., Scene 3. The reason why the primrose is said to "die unmarried" is, according to Warton, "because it grows in the shade, uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with some sort of flowers."

"He so chants to the sleeve-hand, and the work about the square on't."-Act IV., Scene 3.

The "sleeve-hand" was the cuff or wristband; the "square" signified the work about the bosom.

"Pins, and poking-sticks of steel."-Act IV., Scene 3.

These "poking-sticks" were used to set the large ruffs so much in fashion. Stowe states, that "about the sixteenth year of Queen Elizabeth, began the making of steel pokingsticks; and until that time, all laundresses used setting-sticks made of wood or bone."

They call him Doricles; and he boasts himself
To have a worthy feeding."-Act IV., Scene 3.

A "worthy feeding," probably signifies a tract of pasturage not inconsiderable, which the old shepherd considers not unworthy of his supposed daughter's fortune.

"Here's another ballad, Of a fish that appeared upon the coast," &c.-Act IV., Scene 3.

In 1604, was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, "A strange reporte of a monstrous fish, that appeared in the form of a woman, from her waist upward, seene in the sea." To this it is highly probable that Shakspere alludes. In Sir Henry Herbert's office-book, which contains a register of all the shows of London, from 1623 to 1642, is entered, "A licence to Francis Sherret, to show a strange fish for one year, from the 10th of March, 1635."

"That have made themselves all men of hair."

Act IV., Scene 3.

"Men of hair" are hairy men or satyrs. A dance of satyrs was no unusual entertainment in the middle ages. At a great festival celebrated in France in 1392, the king and some of the nobles personated satyrs dressed in close habits, tufted or shagged all over, to imitate hair. They began a wild dance, and in the tumult of their merriment, one of them went too near a candle, and set fire to his satyr's garb; the flame ran instantly over the loose tufts, and spread itself to the dress of those that were next him; a great number of the dancers were cruelly scorched, being neither able to throw off their coats nor extinguish them. The king had set himself in the lap of the Duchess of Berry, who threw her robe over him and saved him.

The dress of the rustic dancers mentioned in the text was, perhaps, made of goat's skin. Cervantes mentions, in the preface to his plays, that in the time of an early Spanish writer, Lopè de Rueda, "all the furniture and utensils of the actor consisted of four shepherds' jerkins with the wool on, and adorned with gilt leather trimming; four beards and periwigs, and four pastoral crooks: little more or less." Probably a similar shepherd's jerkin was used in Shakspere's theatre.

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"I think affliction may subdue the cheek,

But not take in the mind."-Act IV., Scene 3. To "take in" anciently meant to conquer, to get the better of. As in "ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA:"

"He could so quickly cut the Ionian seas,
And take in Toryne."

"Not a riband, glass, pomander," &c.-Act IV., Scene 3.

A "pomander" was a little ball of perfumed paste, worn in the pocket, or in various parts of the person, as an antidote to infection. Various receipts for making them may be found in old books of housewifery.

"As if my trinkets had been hallowed."-Act IV., Scene 3. This alludes to the custom of selling beads, &c., as made particularly efficacious by the touch of some relic.

"A great man, I'll warrant: I know by the picking on's teeth."-Act IV., Scene 3.

It seems that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of some pretension to greatness or elegance. Faulconbridge, speaking of the traveller, says,

"He and his toothpick at my worship's mess."

In Sir Thomas Overbury's "Characters" we find," If you find not a courtier here, you shall in Paul's, with a toothpick in his hat, a cape-cloak, and a long stocking."

"The hottest day prognostication proclaims.”

Act IV., Scene 3.

That is, the hottest day foretold in the almanack. Almanacks were, in Shakspere's time, published under this title:"An Almanack and Prognostication made for the year of our Lord God, 1595."

"Being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard."-Act IV., Scene 3.

Autolycus means, "I, having a gentlemanlike consideration given me (i. e. a bribe), will bring you," &c.

"

"What were more holy,

Than to rejoice the former queen is well?"

Act V., Scene 1. By 'well," is here meant dead. In "ANTONY and CLEOPATRA," the phrase is said to be peculiarly applicable to the dead:

"MESS. First, madam, he is well.

CLEO. Why, there's more gold; but, sirrah, mark: We use to say 'The dead are well;' bring it to that, The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour

Down thy ill-uttering throat."

And in "ROMEO and JULIET," Balthazar, speaking of Juliet, whom he imagined to be dead, says,

"Then she is well, and nothing can be ill."

"The old shepherd, which stands by, like a weather-bitten conduit."-Act V., Scene 2.

Conduits representing the human figure were formerly not uncommon. The same image is found in "ROMEO and JULIET:"

"How now? a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering?"

"Weather-bitten" was in the third folio changed to "weather-beaten;" but there does not seem to be any necessity for the change. Hamlet says,-" The air bites shrewdly;" and the Duke, in "As YOU LIKE IT," speaking of the wind, says,—

"When it bites and blows upon my body." Weather-bitten, therefore, means corroded by the weather.

"A piece many years in doing, and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano."

Act V., Scene 2. Painted statues appear to have been not uncommon in Shakspere's day. In Ben Jonson's "MAGNETIC LADY," Doctor Rut says,

"All city statues must be painted,

Else they be worth nought in their subtle judgments."

"Would beguile nature of her custom."—Act V., Scene 2. That is, of her trade; would draw nature's customers from her.

"Let boors and franklins say it; I'll swear it."
Act V., Scene 2.

A "franklin" was a freeholder, or yeoman; a man above a villain, but not a gentleman.

"I'll swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands."-Act V., Scene 2.

The phrase" tall fellow" was used to signify a bold, courageous fellow. "Of his hands," probably meant, skilful in the use of his hands.

"Come, follow us; we'll be thy good masters." Act V., Scene 2. The Clown conceits himself already a man of consequence at court. It was the fashion for an inferior or suitor to beg of the great man, after his humble commendations, that he would be "good master" to him. Many ancient letters run in this fashion. Thus Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, when in prison, in a letter to Lord Cromwell (in the time of Henry VIII.), says :-"Furthermore, I beseech you to be good master unto one in my necessities; for I have neither shirt nor suit, nor yet other clothes that are necessary for me to wear."

"The fixure of her eye has motion in 'l.”—Act V., Scene 3.

The meaning is, though her eye be fixed, yet it seems to have motion in it: that tremulous motion which is perceptible in the eye of a living person, how much soever one endeavours to fix it.

In the novel of "DORASTUS and FAWNIA," the King of Sicilia, whom Shakspere names Leontes, is called Egistus; Polixenes, King of Bohemia,-Pandosto; Mamillius, Prince of Sicilia,-Garinter; Florizel, Prince of Bohemia,-Dorastus; Camillo,-Franion; Old Shepherd,-Porrus; Hermione, -Bellaria; Perdita,- Fawnia. The parts of Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus, are of the poet's own invention; but many circumstances of the novel are omitted in the play. STEEVENS.

The "WINTER'S TALE" is as appropriately named as the "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." It is one of those tales which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long winter evening; which are even attractive and intelligible to childhood; and which, animated by fervent truth in the delineation of character and passion, invested with the decoration of a poetry lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject, transport even manhood back to the golden age of imagination. The calculation of probabilities has nothing to do with such wonderful and fleeting adventures, ending at last in general joy; and accordingly, Shakspere has here taken the greatest liberties with anachronisms and geographical errors.-SCHLEGEL.

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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

HELENA, the plebeian heroine of this excellent comedy, is of the order of Nature's nobility. The character is a charming compound of courage and tenderness; of modesty and passion; misgiving and perseverance. In the subduement of her superior mind to the personal qualities of Bertram, we recognise one of those familiar tricks that Love, the omnipotent urchin, devises in furtherance of Benedick's maxim,-"The world must be peopled." Notwithstanding the purity and devotedness of the sensitive dependent's affection, her portrait of the haughty young Count refers solely to bodily perfections; and, indeed, he gives neither her nor any one else much opportunity of praising him for others, courage excepted. "His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,-every line and trick of his sweet favour,"-these were the charms which struck

that fine-hearted creature whom he contemptuously designates the " poor physician's daughter," and "sanctified his relics" to one whom, in the indignant language of the benevolent Countess, "twenty such rude boys might tend upon, and call her hourly, mistress." He lives, however, to regret her loss; and, on regaining so sweet a treasure, to give a voluntary promise that henceforth he will "love her dearly, ever, ever dearly." Heartily do we sympathise with the strenuous achiever of love's labours, in this summer of her fortunes, her own anticipated time,-" when briars shall have leaves as well as thorns, and be as sweet as sharp."

The Countess is a no less admirable specimen of female humanity: by nature, as by station, she stands erect and graceful,-a genuine "Corinthian capital of polished society." Her overflowing benignity enriches every scene in which she figures: it is not the spurious result of indolence or apathy, but an ever-active principle, leading her to seek and love the just and true in every word and every action. The skilful, sharp, and yet affectionate manner in which she probes the secret feelings of the love-lorn maiden, demanding urgently and frequently the simple rigid truth, is highly characteristic of a warm and sincere nature, ready to make all needful sacrifices, but impatient of deceit or trifling. Had Helena, instead of breaking into an impassioned avowal of her love for Bertram, in preference even to her friend and benefactress, attempted denial or persisted in evasion, she had never gone to Paris with "leave, and love,-means, and attendants," and prayers for blessing on her bold attempt.-These two inestimable women form the gems of the play, and finer ornaments no dramatist of the affections need wish to place in his poetic tiara.

The comic portion of the drama is principally sustained by Parolles. This amusing braggart is delineated with great skill; and, despite his cowardice and practical absurdity, he possesses an eye for the ridiculous, and considerable power of sarcasm. His libellous sketches of the French gallants in the Florentine camp, are rich and abundant. The mode, too, in which the baffled boaster works upon the self-love of his hearty old enemy, Lafeu, shews him a keen observer of the shady side of human nature:-"O my good lord, you were the first that found me." The old pike bites at this delicious gudgeon:-"Was I, in sooth?" "Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had talk of you last night: though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat; go to, follow."-The Clown displays the usual characteristics of his class, as drawn by Shakspere. The occasional coarseness of "good Monsieur Lavatch" is expressive of an imperfectly-refined, though picturesque, state of manners: his wit and humour are not unworthy of the hand that has furnished so ample a supply of these enlivening materials, and of wisdom, passion, and imagination, still more valuable.-Throughout the play, there is interspersed much spirited dialogue: its whole strong texture is embroidered with fancy and observation. One of the finest remarks to be found in all the poet ("The web of our life is of a mingled yarn," &c.), is given, with his usual liberality, to a mere subordinate (the First Lord), who has not even a proper name in the dramatis persona.

"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" is supposed to have been originally entitled "LOVE'S LABOUR WON;" a production of that name being mentioned by Francis Meres, in his "WIT'S TREASURY" (1598), among the proofs of Shakspere's excellence in comedy. The plot of the play was originally derived from Boccaccio's "DECAMERON;" but is immediately founded on the tale of "Giletta of Narbonne," in Painter's "PALACE OF PLEASURE."

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