on - lie pret-tie ring tyme, When birds doo sing, Hey ding a ding a ding, Hey ding a ding a ding, Hey ding a ding a ding; Suiet lovers love the spring. 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 Shakspeare's life when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience. The memory of hours mis-spent, 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 teaches ;-these, as they sank down into the depths of his great mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear and Timon, but that of one primary character, the censurer of mankind. This type is first seen in the philosophic melancholy of Jaques, gazing with an undiminished serenity, and with a gaiety of fancy, though not of manners, on the follies of the world. It assumes a graver cast in the exiled Duke of the same play." Mr. Hallam then notices the like type in Measure for Measure, and the altered Hamlet, as well as in Lear and Timon; and adds, "In the later plays of Shakspere, especially in Macbeth and the Tempest, much of moral speculation will be found, but he has never returned to this type of character in the personages."+ Without entering into a general examination of Mr. Hallam's theory, which evidently includes a very wide range of discussion, we must venture to think that the type of character first seen in Jaques, and presenting a graver cast in the exiled Duke, is so modified by the whole conduct of the action of this comedy, by its opposite characterization, and by its prevailing tone of reflection, that it offers not the slightest evidence of having been produced at a period of the poet's life "when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience." The charm which this play appears to us to possess in a most remarkable degree, even when compared with other works of Shakspere, is that, while we * Literature of Europe, vol. ii. p. 397. + Ib. vol. iii. p. 568 " behold "the philosophic eye, turned inward on the mysteries of human nature"-(we use Mr. Hallam's own forcible expression)-we also see the serene brow and the playful smile, which tell us that "the philosophic eye" belongs to one who, however above us, is still akin to us-who tolerates our follies, who compassionates even our faults, who mingles in our gaiety, who rejoices in our happiness; who leads us to scenes of surpassing loveliness, where we may forget the painful lessons of the world, and introduces us to characters whose generosity, and faithfulness, and affection, and simplicity may obliterate the sorrows of our "experience of man's worser nature." It is not in Jaques alone, but in the entire dramatic group, that we must seek the tone of the poet's mind, and to that have our own minds attuned. Mr. Campbell, speaking of the characters of this comedy, says, our hearts are so stricken by these benevolent beings that we easily forgive the other more culpable but at last repentant characters." * This is not the effect which could have been produced if the dark shades of a painful commerce with the world had crossed that "sunshine of the breast' which lights up the "inaccessible" thickets, and sparkles amidst the "melancholy boughs" of the forest of Arden. Jaques may be Shakspere's first type "of the censurer of mankind;" but Jaques is precisely the reverse of the character which the poet would have chosen, had he intended the censure to have more than a dramatic force-to be universally true and not individually characteristic. Jaques is strikingly a character of inconsistency; one, as Ulrici expresses it, "of witty sentimentality and merry sadness." Nothing can be more beautiful than the delineation; but it appears to us to be anything but the result of the poet's self-consciousness. We are, induced to believe that Shakspere's unbounded charity made him feel that there was a chance of Jaques being held somewhat too much of an authority, and that he in consequence made the Duke reprove him when he says,― "Invest me in my motley; give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine. Duke S. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but good? Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin; As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, That thou with licence of free foot hast caught, The German critic Ulrici, speaking of the characters of Jaques and Touchstone, calls them "the two fools." We are not about to pursue his argument; but we accept his classification, which is, indeed, startling. What! Is he a fool that moralises the spectacle of "a poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt," and gives us, thereupon, "a thousand similes," with which "most invectively he pierceth through The body of the country, city, court"? Is he a fool that "can suck melancholy out of a song as a weazel sucks eggs"? Is he a fool that Is he a fool, who has gained his "experience," and whom the "sundry contemplation" of his travels wraps in a "most humorous sadness"? Is he a fool, who commends him whom the critic calls his brother fool as "good at anything, and yet a fool"? Lastly, is he a fool, who rejects honour and advancement, and deserts the exiled Duke when he is restored to his state, because, "out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learn'd"? Assuredly, upon the first blush of the question, we must say that the German critic is wrong. Life prefixed to Moxon's edition, p. xlv. And yet, what is a fool, according to the Shaksperian definition? The fool is one "Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms,-and yet a motley fool." The fool is one that doth "moral on the time;" one that hath been a courtier; The fool is one who aims at every man, but, hitting or missing, thus justifies his attack :- "Let me see wherein My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right And thus Jaques describes himself. Now let us see what is the character of the companion fool, Touchstone. He introduces himself to us with a bit of fool's logic-that is, a comment upon human actions, derived from premises that are either above, or below,-which you please,-the ordinary argumentation of the world. His story “ of a certain knight that swore oy his honour they were good pancakes" is not pointless. Perhaps it is a fool's bolt, and soon shot; yet it hits. But the fool is not without his affections. The friendship which Celia had for Rosalind is reciprocated by the friendship which the fool has for Celia : He is fled to the forest with the two ladies, their comfort, their protector: "My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft They are in Arden; and then the fool becomes a philosopher : "Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be And then he goes on to laugh at romance in a land of romance, and tells us of " Jane Smile." But next we hear of him growing "deep-contemplative" over his dial : "Thus we may see,' quoth he, how the world wags: 'T is but an hour ago since it was nine; And after one hour more 't will be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot, The fool's manners are changing. He did not talk thus in the court. He is quickly growing a philosopher. Hazlitt truly tells us that the following dialogue is better than all 'Zimmermann on Solitude,' where only half the question is disposed of : "Cor. And how like you this shepherd's life, master Touchstone? Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?" COMEDIES. VOL. II. S 257 The fool has lived apart from human sympathies. He has been a thing to make idle people laugh; to live in himself alone; to be in the world and not of the world; to be licensed and despised; to have no responsibilities. The fool goes out of the social state in which he has moved, and he becomes a human being. His affections are called forth in a natural condition of society; he is restored to his fellow-creatures, a man, and not a fool. We do not think that Shakspere meant the courtship of Touchstone and Audrey to be a travestie of the romantic passion of Orlando and Rosalind. It appears to us that it is anything but farce or irony when the fool and the shepherdess thus commune: "Touch. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. Aud. I do not know what poetical is: is it honest, in deed, and word? Is it a true thing?" And there is anything but folly when Touchstone resolves, "Be it as it may, I will marry thee." A touch of the court-of his old vocation of saying without accountableness-lingers with him, when, rejoicing in that most original hedge priest, who says, "ne'er a fantastical knave of 'em all shall flout me out of my calling"-(the Fleet prison priest of a century ago)-he hugs himself with the belief that "I were better to be married by him than another;"-but he is after all the true lover, when he rejects the "most vile Mar-text," and in the honesty of his heart exclaims, "To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married." And thus, it appears to us, is Ulrici justified in denominating Jaques and Touchstone "the two fools." It was the characteristic of the Shaksperian fool to hang loose upon the society in which he was cherished; to affect no concern in its anxieties, no sympathy in its pleasures; to be passionless and sarcastic. Jaques, a banished courtier, refuses to seek companionship in the solitary life;—he rejects its freedom;- he finds in it only a distorted mirror of the social life. The wounded stag is "a broken bankrupt," the "careless herd are "fat and greasy citizens." This is not real philosophy; it is false sentimentality. Jaques, refusing to adopt the tone of his companions, who have embraced the free life of the woods, its freshness, its privacy,-has put himself into the condition of the fool, who belongs to the world only because he is a mocker of the world. When his friends sing, Jaques answers, " "Who doth ambition shun, And pleas'd with what he gets," "If it do come to pass That any man turn ass, A stubborn will to please," &c. This is the answer of one for whom "motley's the only wear." In And yet how beautifully all this harmonises with the pastoral character of this delightful comedy! The professional fool gradually slides into a real man, from the power of sympathy, which is strong in him, and which is called forth by the absence of a just occasion for his professional unrealities. He is no longer a chorus. The clever but self-sufficient courtier, half in jest, half in earnest, becomes a mocker and a pretended misanthrope. He is passed into the chorus of the real action. the mean while the main business of the comedy goes forward; and we live amongst all the natural and kindly impulses of true thoughts and feelings, mingled with weaknesses that are a part of this sincerity. But most certainly the spirit which breathes throughout is not one of censure, or sarcasm, or irony. It is a most loving, and sincere, and tolerant spirit-radiant with poetry and therefore with truth. We desire nothing better to show that Shakspere did not speak through Jaques than these words: "Jaques. Will you sit down with me? and we two will |