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INTRODUCTION TO AS YOU LIKE IT.

THIS is one of the plays first published in the folio of 1€28, and is

among the best-printed in that volume. There are no very serious difficulties about the text. Some of the more important needful correc tions are remarked in the notes; others, of less consequence, are adopted without remark. The play is first heard of in 1600, when it was entered in the Stationers' Register, London, as if for publication; but against the entry are the words "to be stayed," evidently meant to restrain the publisher from using it. On the other hand, in Act iii. scene 5, a line is noted as having been taken from Christopher Marlowe's translation of Hero and Leander, which was first printed in 1598. This shows the play to have been written somewhere between 1598 and 1600, when the author was thirty-five or thirty-six years old.

Shakespeare cared very little for the interest of mere novelty in his dramas. As a general thing, he preferred to use, for the canvas of his delineations, such tales and romances as were already known, and well established in the public faith and favour. This was not from any lack of inventiveness, - for he could be the most inventive of poets when he chose, but probably because the people were most easily attracted by fresh presentations of old and familiar stories. And it was the true, not the new, that his heart was mainly set upon and most at home in. Accordingly this play, so far as regards the chief particulars of the story, was founded upon a highly popular novel of that time, written by Thomas Lodge, and first published in 1590. The novel is entitled Rosalynd; Euphues' Golden Legacy. The plot and leading incidents were borrowed almost entirely from that source, but were made the ground-work and support of a portraiture as different from Lodge's as light is from darkness. There is nothing that can properly be called character of any sort in the novel, and but little that can be rightly pronounced poetical or even natural; though there are some rather clever, spirited, and graceful passages of narrative and description. The persons, or rather the personal figures, answering to Oliver, Orlando, Celia, Corin, and Silvius, are there called Saladyne, Rosader, Alinda, Coridon, and Montanus. Adam there has the name of Adam Spencer. The names of Rosalind and Phebe are the same as in the play; so also are the names Ganymede and Aliena, assumed by Rosalind and Celia in their disguise. Instead of the banished Duke, and Frederick his usurping brother, the novel has Gerismond the rightful King of France, who has been driven into banishment and his crown usurped by his younger brother Torismond. Some rather improbable things in the play, such as palm-trees, lions, and huge serpents in the Forest of Arden, are also borrowed from the novel. Of Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey, the novel has no traces whatever.

As You Like It is an universal favourite with readers of Shakespeare, and is held by many to be the most pleasing of all his comedies. The characters, the sentiments, the descriptions, and the general course of the action are full of healthy, natural freshness and delectation; so that it seems impossible for any thing but sheer dulness or perversity ever to grow weary of the play. Campbell the poet says, he has "been in love with the comedy these forty years." I have myself been in love with it somewhat more than thirty years, and am not likely ever to get the better of that old weakness. The whole is replete with a

beauty so delicate, yet so intense, that we feel it everywhere, but can never tell especially where it is, or in what it consists. For instance, the descriptions of forest scenery come along so unsought, and in such easy, quiet, natural touches, that we take in the impression without once noticing what it is that impresses us. Thus there is a certain woodland freshness, a glad, free naturalness, that creeps and steals into the heart before we know it. And the spirit of the place is upon its inhabitants, its genius within them: we almost breathe with them the fragrance of the forest, and listen to "the melodies of woods and winds and waters," and feel

"The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty,

That have their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring."

Even the Court Fool, notwithstanding all the crystallizing process that has passed upon him, undergoes a sort of rejuvenescence of his inner man, so that his wit catches at every turn the fresh hues and odours of his new whereabout. I am persuaded indeed that Milton had a special eye to this play in the lines,

"And sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

To all which add, that the kindlier sentiments here seem playing out in a sort of jubilee. Untied from set purposes and definite aims, the persons come forth with their hearts already tuned, and so have but to let off their redundant music. Envy, jealousy, avarice, revenge, all the passions that afflict and degrade society, they have left in the city behind them. And they have brought the intelligence and refinement of the Court, without its vanities and vexations; so that the graces of art and the simplicities of Nature meet in joyous, loving sisterhood. A serene and mellow atmosphere of thought encircles and pervades the actors in this drama: Nature throws her protecting arms around them; Beauty pitches her tents before them; Heaven rains its riches upon them; with " no enemy but Winter and rough weather," Peace hath taken up her abode with them; and they have nothing to do but to "fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world."

Hallam, perhaps the calmest and severest of English critics, has the following apt and judicious passage in reference to the play, with which this Introduction may fitly conclude:

"The sweet and sportive temper of Shakespeare, though it never deserted him, gave way to advancing years, and to the mastering force of serious thought. What he read we know but very imperfectly; yet in the last years of this century (the sixteenth), when five-andthirty summers had ripened his genius, it seems that he must have transfused much of the wisdom of past ages into his own all-combin ing mind. In several of the historical plays, in The Merchant of Venice, and especially in As You Like It, the philosophic eye, turned inward on the mysteries of human nature, is more and more characteristic; and we might apply to the last comedy the bold figure that Coleridge has less appropriately employed as to the early poems, that the creative power and the intellectual energy wrestle as in a war-embrace.' In no other play, at least, do we find the bright imagination and fascinating grace of Shakespeare's youth so mingled with the thoughtfulness of his maturer age. Few comedies of Shakespeare are more generally pleasing, and its manifold improbabilities do not much affect us in perusal. The brave, injured Orlando, the sprightly but modest Rosalind, the faithful Adam, the reflecting Jaques, the serene and magnanimous Duke, interest us by turns; though the play is not BO well managed as to condense our sympathy, and direct it to the conclusion."

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SCENE, at first, near Oliver's House; afterwards, in the Usurper's Court, and in the Forest of Arden.

ACT I. SCENE I. An Orchard near OLIVER'S House.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.

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Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion,he1 bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns; and, as thou say'st, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hir'd: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dung-hills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that Nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my geutility with

1 The original lacks the pronoun he, and runs bequeathed in with the preceding was. The arrangement of the text is Mr. Dyce's. This use of the pronoun, without the word to which it refers, naturally carries the thoughts back to the preceding part of the conversation, which the Poet did not report.

2 So in the original, and in accordance with old usage. Modern editions have generally transposed poor a. We have similar forms of speech in goo☛ my lord, sweet my coz, and many others.

my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it. Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.

Enter OLIVER.

Oli. Now, sir! what make you here? 4

[Adam retires.

Orl. Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.
Oli. What mar you then, sir?

Orl. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

Oli. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile! 6

Orl. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal's portion have I spent, that I should come to such penury?

Oli. Know you where you are, sir?

Orl. O sir! very well: here in your orchard.

Oli. Know you before whom, sir?

Orl. Ay, better than he I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother; and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as you; albeit I confess your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.8

Oli. What, boy!

Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.9

8 Mines is here used in the sense of undermines. Gentlity means noble birth: what an honourable parentage has done for me, he strives to undo with base breeding.

4 What do you here?

5 Marry was used a good deal in colloquial language as a petty oath or intensive; something like the Latin hercule and edepol, which grew into use as simple intensives from swearing by Hercules and Pollux, and came to mean much the same as our indeed, truly, and to be sure. This use of marry sprang, no doubt, from a custom of swearing by St. Mary the Blessed Virgin.

Be naught, or go and be naught, was formerly a petty execration between anger and contempt, which has been supplanted by others, as be hanged, be cursed, &c.; awhile, or the while, was added merely to round the phrase.

7 The allusion to the parable of the Prodigal Son is obvious enough. 8 Nearer to him in the right of that reverence which was his due.

9 The word boy naturally provokes and awakens in Orlando the sense of his manly powers; and with the retort of elder brother, he grasps him with firm bands, and makes him feel he is no boy.

Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?

Orl. I am no villain: I am the youngest son of Sir Roland de Bois; he was my father; and he is thrice a villain, that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pull'd out thy tongue for saying so thou hast rail'd on thyself. Adam. [Advancing.] Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's remembrance, be at accord.

Oli. Let me go, I say.

Orl. I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My father charg'd you in his will to give me good education: you have train'd me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery 10 my father left me by testament: with that I will go

buy my fortunes.

Oli. And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have some part of your will: I pray you, leave me. Orl. I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good.

Oli. Get you with him, you old dog.

Adam. Is old dog my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service.— God be with my old master! he would not have spoke such a word.

[Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM.] Oli. Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. - Holla, Denis!

Enter DENIS.

Den. Calls your worship?

Oli. Was not Charles the Duke's wrestler here to speak with me?

Den. So please you, he is here at the door, and importunes access to you.

Oli. Call him in. [Exit DENIS.]—"Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.

Enter CHARLES.

Cha. Good morrow to your worship.

Oli. Good morrow, Monsieur Charles! 11 What's the new news at the new Court?

10 Allottery is portion; that which is allotted.

11 Morrow is wanting here in the original. The use of it in the preceding speech shows that it ought to be repeated in this, and so it is by Mr. Dyce.

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