no kind of argument or evidence; and I cannot find that any persons who have repeated it after him have shown any probable grounds for the opinion." Malone, in the first edition of his 'Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays,' assigns the date of this comedy to 1598, upon the authority of the passage in Meres. He says, "No other of our author's plays could have borne that title ('Love's Labour Won') with so much propriety as that before us; yet it must be acknowledged that the present title is inserted in the body of the play :

'All's well that ends well: still the fine 's the crown.'

This line, however, might certainly have suggested the alteration of what has been thought the first title, and affords no decisive proof that this piece was originally called 'All's Well that Ends Well." When Coleridge describes this play as "originally intended as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost,'"-when Mrs. Jameson, with reference to the nature of the plot and the suitableness of the title found in Meres, states, complainingly, "Why the title was altered, or by whom, I cannot discover,"and when Tieck says, "The poet probably first called this play 'Love's Labour Won,"" -we may add the opinions of these eminent writers on Shakspere to the original opinion of Malone, in opposition to the opinion of Mr. Hunter, that "the leading features of the story in 'All's Well' cannot be said to be aptly represented by the title in Meres' list."

Coleridge described this play as the counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost.' Shakspere's titles, in the judgment of our philosophical critic, always exhibit "great significancy." The Labour of Love which is Lost is not a very earnest labour. The King and his courtiers are fantastical lovers. They would win their mistresses by "bootless rhymes" and "speeches penn'd," and their most sincere declarations are thus only received as "mocking merriment." The concluding speeches of the ladies to their lovers show clearly that Shakspere meant to mark the cause why their labour was lost-it was

labour hastily taken up, pursued in a light temper, assuming the character of "pleasant jest and courtesy." The Princess and her ladies would not accept it as "labour" without a year's probation. It was offered, they thought, "in heat of blood;"-theirs was a love which only bore "gaudy blossoms." What would naturally be the counterpart of such a story? One of passionate, enduring, all-pervading love of a love that shrinks from no difficulty, resents no unkindness, fears no disgrace, but perseveres, under the most adverse circumstances, to vindicate its own claims by its own energy, and to achieve success by the strength of its own will. This is the Labour of Love which is Won. Is not this the story of All's Well that Ends Well?'

When Helena, in the first scene, so beautifully describes the hopelessness of her love

"It were all one

That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me”-

could she propose to come within "his sphere" without some extraordinary effort? "Hic labor, hoc opus est." She does resolve to make the effort; it is within the bounds of possibility that her labour may be successful, and therefore her "intents are fix'd:"

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense, and do sup-
pose

What hath been cannot be."

Inferior natures, that estimate their labours by a common standard-"that weigh their pains in sense"-that are not supported in their labours by a spirit which rejects all fear and embraces all hope,-confound the difficult with the impossible: they know that courage has triumphed over difficulty, but they still think "what hath been cannot be" again. Helena is not of their mind :

This is the purpose avowed from the commencement of the dramatic action; which marks every stage of its progress; which is essentially 'Love's Labour,' whether it be won or be lost. How beautifully does Shakspere relieve us from the feeling that it is unsexual for the labour to be undertaken by Helena, through the compassion which she inspires in the good old Countess :

The reward, however, which she seeks is avowed without hesitation. Her will was too strong to admit of that timidity which might have clung to a feebler mind :—

"Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,

What husband in thy power I will command."

Up to this point all has been "labour"the conception of a high and dangerous pur

youth."

How delicately, too, does he make Helena hold to her determination, even whilst she confesses to the Countess the secret of her ambitious love :

"My friends were poor but honest; so's my love:

Be not offended; for it hurts not him That he is loved of me: I follow him not Be any token of presumptuous suit; Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him." Again :

"There's something hints, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest

Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified

By the luckiest stars in heaven,”–

not for the cure of the King only, but for the winning of her labour. To obtain the full advantage of her legacy no common qualities were required in Helena. "Wisdom and constancy" are her characteristics, as Lafeu truly describes. The "constancy" with which she enforces her power upon the mind of the incredulous King is prominently exhibited by the poet. Her modesty never overcomes the ruling purpose of her soul. She indeed says,

"I will no more enforce mine office on you;" but she immediately after presses her "fix'd intents:"

"What I can do can do no hurt to try." She succeeds :

"Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak."

ing. When the cure is effected, and she has to avow her choice, comes a still greater labour. The struggle within herself is most intense :

"Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly;"

and

"The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,'We blush, that thou shouldst choose,"

these expressions sufficiently give the key to what passes within her. Her feelings amount almost to agony when Bertram refuses her, and for a moment she abandons her fix'd intent :

"That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad; Let the rest go."

"But shall she weakly relinquish the golden opportunity, and dash the cup from her lips at the moment it is presented? Shall she cast away the treasure for which she has ventured both life and honour, when it is just within her grasp ? Shall she, after compromising her feminine delicacy by the public disclosure of her preference, be thrust back into shame, 'to blush out the remainder of her life,' and die a poor, lost, scorned thing? This would be very pretty and interesting and characteristic in Viola or Ophelia, but not at all consistent with that high determined spirit, that moral energy, with which Helena is portrayed."* Helena suffers Bertram to be forced upon her-and this is the greatest "labour" of all.

After the marriage and the desertion "Love's labour" is still most untiringly tasked. Love next assumes the sweet and

* Mrs. Jameson's ' Characteristics,' vol. i. p. 212.

smiling aspect of duty. "What's his will else?"-"what more commands he ?"

"In everything I wait upon his will". are all the replies she makes to the harsh commands of her lord, conveyed by a frivolous messenger. In her parting interview with Bertram, in which his coldness and dislike are scarcely attempted to be concealed, the same spirit alone exists. She has a harder trial still. Her lord avows his final abandonment of her, except upon apparently impossible conditions. She has only one complaint,

"This is a dreadful sentence;"

but her intense love has destroyed in her all the feeling of self through which she was enabled to accomplish the triumph of her own will:

"Poor lord! is 't l
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war?"

When she says "I will be gone," she probably had no purpose of seeking Bertram, and of endeavouring to reverse his "dreadful sentence" by her own management. But "love's labours" were not yet ended. Her mind was not framed to shrink from difficulty; and we soon meet her at Florence. The plot after this is such a one as Shakspere could only have found in the legendary history of an unrefined age, preserved from oblivion by one who was imbued with the kindred genius of unveiling the brightness of the poetical, even when it was concealed from ordinary vision by the clouds of a prosaic, atmosphere. Mrs. Jameson has truly observed, "All the circumstances and details with which Helena is surrounded are shocking to our feelings, and wounding to our delicacy; and yet the beauty of the character is made to triumph over all." The beauty of the character is in its intensity. By that is Helena enabled to pass through all the slough of her last "labours" without contamination; her purpose sanctifies her acts. From the first scene to the last her life is one continued struggle. But the hopeful quality of her soul never forsakes her :—

"The time will bring on summer,

When briars shall have leaves as well as

thorns,

And be as sweet as sharp."

She repines at no exertion-she shrinks from no fatigue :

"But this exceeding posting, day and night, Must wear your spirits low,"

has no reference to herself. When she finds the King has left Marseilles she has no regrets :—

"All's well that ends well, yet;

Though time seem so adverse, and means unfit."

Her final triumph at last arrives; but it is a happiness that cannot be spoken of. Her feelings find vent in—

"O my dear mother, do I see you living!" She can now, indeed, call the Countess mother. In the early scenes she dared only to name her as "mine honourable mistress." By her energy and perseverance she has conquered. Is this, or is it not, Love's Labour Won?

The

Malone, as we have already expressed our belief, has applied the true test to the application of Meres' title of 'Love's Labour Won:' "No other of our author's plays could have borne that title with so much propriety as that before us." The application, be it understood, is limited to the comedies. title cannot be applied to 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'The Comedy of Errors,' 'Love's Labour's Lost,' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' for those are also mentioned in Meres' list as existing in 1598. Can it have reference to The Merry Wives of Windsor,' than which no title can be more definite;-to "The Taming of the Shrew,' equally defined; to 'Twelfth Night' or 'Measure for Measure,' or 'Much Ado about Nothing,' or 'As You Like It,' or 'The Winter's Tale ?'-We think not; we are sure that none of our readers who are familiar with the plots of these plays can believe that either of them was so named. We, of course, here put the question of chronology out of view. Mr. Hunter, to support his opinion that 'The Tempest' was

་

written in 1596, boldly maintains the following opinion:-"But if not to the 'All's Well,' to what play of Shakspere was this title once attached? I answer, that of the existing plays there is only 'The Tempest' to which it can be supposed to belong: and, so long as it suits so well with what is a main incident of this piece, we shall not be driven to the gratuitous and improbable supposition that a play once so called is lost." The "main incident" relied upon by Mr. Hunter for the support of this theory is the following speech of Ferdinand, in the third act of 'The Tempest:'

"There be some sports are painful, and their labour

Delight in them sets off; some kinds of base

ness

Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
The mistress which I serve quickens what's
dead,

And makes my labours pleasures: Oh, she is Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed ;

And he's composed of harshness. I must

remove

Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction: My sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work; and says, such baseness

Had never like executor. I forget:

66

They are both in either's powers: But this
swift business

I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
Make the prize light."

Would Shakspere have chosen this incident —not a "main incident," for we all along know Prospero's real intentions-as that which would furnish a title to his play? The pain which Ferdinand endures is very transient; and Prospero, when he removes the infliction, says,—

"All thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love, and thou Hast strangely stood the test."

We know that the Love Labours of Ferdinand are not severe trials, and that at their worst they were refreshed with "sweet thoughts." Can they be compared with the Love's Labour of Helena?

Mr. Hunter rejects the claim of 'All's Well that Ends Well' to be named Love's Labour Won, most decisively, but upon one ground

labours."

"Here then," says Mr. Hunter, "are the Love Labours. In the end they won the lady." We venture to say that our belief in the significancy of Shakspere's titles would be at an end if even a main incident" was to suggest a name, instead of the general course of the thought or action. In this case there are really no Love Labours at all. The lady is not won by the piling of the logs; the audience know that both Ferdinand and Miranda are under the influence of Prospero's spells, and the magician has explained to them why he enforces these harsh "labours." In the first act, when Ferdinand and Miranda are thrown together, Prospero says,

"which itself bespoke its own title from the beginning, it is this:

'We must away;

word won in the last line might have suggested to Mr. Hunter the possibility of the play having a double title—the one derived from the one great incident of the piece,— the other from the application of its dramatic action. Mr. Hunter, however, rejects the claim of All's Well that Ends Well' to the title of Meres, upon the assumption that it could only have had a single title; whilst he seeks to establish the claim of 'The Tempest' to the title of Meres, upon the assumption that it had a double title: "I suspect that the play originally had a double title, 'The Tempest, or Love's Labour Won;' just as another of the plays had a double title, 'Twelfth Night, or What You Will." This reasoning is, to say the least of it, illogical. If the argument is good for 'The Tempest,' it is good for 'All's Well that Ends Well.'

Whether or no 'The Tempest,' looking at the internal evidence of its date, could have been included in Meres' list, there can be no doubt that 'All's Well that Ends Well' | has many evidences of having been an early composition-unquestionably so in parts. When Malone changed his theory with regard to the date, and assigned it to 1606, in the posthumous edition of his 'Chronological Order,' he relied principally upon the tone of a particular passage: "The beautiful speech of the sick King in this play has much the air of that moral and judicious reflection that accompanies an advanced period of life, and bears no resemblance to Shakspere's manner in his earlier plays." The mind of Shakspere was so essentially dramatic, that when he puts serious and moral words into the mouth of a sick King, who is growing old, we should be no more disposed to believe that the sentiment has reference to the individual feelings of the poet than we should believe that all the exuberant gaiety of some of his comic characters could only have been produced by the reflection of his own spirit of youth. "Shakspere's manner in his earlier plays" has, however, much more to assist us in approximating to a date. The manner -by which we mean the metrical arrangement and the peculiarities of constructionin 'All's Well that Ends Well' certainly

places it, for the most part, in the class of his earlier plays. Where, except in the class of the earlier plays, shall we find one in which the rhyming couplet so constantly occurs? But then, again, we occasionally encounter all the music and force of thought of his most perfect blank-verse. Tieck is of opinion that the play, as we have it, contains an engrafting of the poet's later style upon his earlier labours. He says, "Rich subjectmatter, variety of situation, marvellous development, and striking catastrophe allured the young poet, who probably, later in life, would not have chosen a subject so unsuited to dramatic treatment. Some passages, not merely difficult, but almost impossible to be understood, remain out of the first attempt; and here the poet combats with language and thought-the verse is artificial, the expressions forced. Much of what I consider later alterations reminds us of the Sonnets, and of Venus and Adonis.' The prose, particularly in the last acts, is so pure and clear, the scenes with Parolles are so excellently written,-that in all that concerns the language we must reckon them amongst Shakspere's best efforts. The first act is the most obscure; and here are probably the most extensive remains of the older work. The last half of the delineation of Parolles must belong to Shakspere's later period."

Malone assigns his second conjectural date of this play to 1606 upon other ground than that of Shakspere's manner: "Another circumstance which induces me to believe that this is a later play than I had formerly supposed is the satirical mention made of the puritans, who were the objects of King James's aversion." Surely the poet might allude to the famous contention about wearing the surplice, without being led to it by the aversions of King James. The contest had been going on for many years, and Hooker, in his fifth book of Ecclesiastical Polity,' published in 1597, refutes the puritanical opinions upon this matter at great length. Upon the subject of the surplice he distinctly says that the hostility of the puritans was much modified when he wrote. The controversy had raged with the greatest violence at the period when Shakspere, ac