Strong conclusions are to be drawn as to the amplitude and benignity of Shakespeare's moral code, from the slightest and most casual hints and incidents. His most home-striking injunctions are conveyed by actions, rather than by saws and theories. When Jaques, in his sudden admiration of the fool, after he had met him in the forest, and, with the fantasticalness of a self-worshipper, will undertake the office of reformergeneral, he proposes that the Duke invest him with the insignia of the order. 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.

"Fie on thee (answers the Duke), I can tell what thou would'st do.

46

'Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but good? "Duke. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin; For thou thyself hast been a libertine,

As sensual as the brutish sting itself;

And all th' embossed sores, and headed evils,
Which thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
Would'st thou disgorge into the general world."

From this rebuke, it appears clear that Shakespeare had in view the overweening mouth-moralist; for, with all the reflections and sarcasms he has put into the mouth of this selfasserting philosopher, and which have the air of being gleanings from the harvests of other men rather than the result of his own growth, it is to be remarked that he never brings him point to point in contest of wit with any of the other characters of the play, but he is foiled; they, being natural people, outwit the artificial one. He first tries his hand with Orlando, and upon a tender point-his mistress and his love-making; and the bout between them is as good as a match at singlestick :

"Faq. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

"Orl. And so had I; but yet, for fashion's sake, I thank you too for your society.

Faq. God be with you, let us meet as little as we can.

"Orl. I do desire we may be better strangers.

Faq. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing loveverses in their barks.

"Orl. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

Faq. Rosalind is your love's name?

"Orl. There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

Faq. You are full of pretty answers: have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings?

"Orl. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions."

[This answer of Orlando's refers to grave points of morality, which it was the custom to impersonate, by painting them on cloth.]

66

Faq. You have a nimble wit: I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery."

Now, note the answer of the man who had just reason to "rail at misery," having been fortune's foot-ball from his infancy. How beautifully the moral of a cheerful endurance comes out against the affectation and petulance of a querulous selfishness! Orlando's reply is the very offspring of a modest self-knowledge and experience. How few can trace their ill

fortunes to any other source than ignorance or indiscretion. With a beautiful candour he replies:

"I will chide no breather in the world but myself; against whom I know most faults.

Faq. The worst fault you have is to be in love.

"Orl. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

you.

Faq. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found

Orl. He is drowned in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him.

"Faq. There shall I see mine own figure.

"Orl. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.

"Faq. I'll tarry no longer with you; farewell, good Signior 'Love!'

“Orl. I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur 'Melancholy!'"

The fact is they all smoke him for being a solemn pretender to a quality not natural to him. When he desires to make the acquaintance of Rosalind, her objecting reply is, "They say you are a melancholy fellow." And he takes but little by his answer when he says, "Why, 'tis good to be sad, and say nothing;" for she retorts, "Why, then, 'tis good to be a post."

Another instance (to my mind at least) that Shakespeare intended Jaques for a grave coxcomb, appears with some strength in that short parley between him and Amiens, after the sprightly song, "Under the greenwood tree." Observe the pomposity and patronising air with which the philosopher condescends to encourage the ballad-singer :

"More, more, I prithee, more.

"Am. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques."

Amiens is hoaxing him. What is there in a merry roundelay to make a man melancholy? Jaques, however, is so en

grossed with himself that he takes the songster gravely and literally.

"I thank it," he says-that is, for its melancholy. "More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.

"Am. My voice is ragged. I know I cannot please you.

Faq. I do not desire you to please me—I do desire you to sing. Come, more; another stanza. Call you them

stanzas?

"Am. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.

Faq. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?

"Am. More at your request than to please myself.

"Faq. Well, then, if ever I thank any man, I will thank you."

What a prig! Why not thank him? Is it requisite, when a man sets up for a philosopher, that he should begin by being a hog? So he continues :

When a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues.

"Am. Well, I'll end the song. Duke will drink under this tree. to look for you.

Sirs, cover the while. The
He hath been all this day

day to avoid him. He is

Faq. And I have been all this too disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he; but I give Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them.— Come, warble-come."

Shakespeare certainly intended the character of Jaques to be a satire upon your pretenders to wisdom; and I have the rather enlarged and insisted on this reading of it, because the world (both literary and theatrical) appear to have misunderstood the poet's intention. One more reason for my opinion, and which reason, be it observed, is one of the numerous instances displaying Shakespeare's habit of drawing conclusions

as to his characters from acts, and not from descriptions:Jaques, the ostensibly melancholy man, and who is always talking about himself, has no trials to perplex him, and is unstricken by adversity. The Duke, who has most cause to complain of all the characters in the play, is not only the least querulous, but he is uniformly the most hopeful and cheerful. With all his moral professions, Jaques is either not a sincere man to himself, (and consequently is not true to others,) or he is really a man without affection or attachment. It may be retorted that he follows the fortunes of the banished Duke. He does so; but it is evident that he takes that course to please his own humour, and from an affectation of singularity —also, to carry out the character he has assumed, of a cynic philosopher; and, at all events, he prefers that course to a steadiness of friendship, since he deserts the Duke when he is restored to his patrimony. But, after all, let us part upon pleasant terms with "Monsieur Melancholy," if it be only for his gentle reflections upon the wounded deer; and for his perfect portraiture of the "Seven Ages of Man," (Act ii., sc. 7.)

In the character of Orlando, Shakespeare has depicted the very perfection of gentleness in manliness-modesty in manhood. He is an exemplar of the power of gentleness, and the gentleness of power. His inadequate training and breeding the result of his despotic brother's tyrannous restraint and miserly allowance-induces a withdrawing, a self-mistrust, that is only counterbalanced by his inherent nobleness and high spirit. Orlando is by nature generous, warm, eager, without one spark of conceit or presumption. He is by conformation robust, athletic-a model of manly vigour-and yet, as old Chaucer hath it, "Meek of his port as is a maid.” The dramatist has markedly and vividly kept before us this point of Orlando's personal strength as a counterbalance to the extreme mildness of his disposition. He perpetually re