dyne. He debated with himself awhile what he should do, but at last resolved to do right: he killed the beast, but got a bad wound himself. At the noise Saladyne awoke, and, not knowing who his deliverer was, went along with him, and, being asked, told the story of his life, how he had wronged his brother, moistening his discourse with tears, till Rosader, unable to smother the sparks of nature, made himself known. "Much ado there was between them, Saladyne in craving pardon, and Rosader in forgiving all former injuries." In this temper Saladyne was conducted to the king, and of course taken into the woodland society. This business detained Rosader from his appointment with Rosalynd, which caused her a deal of distress; and when at last he came, he had not much more than told the story of the late events, before it appeared that his coming was in good time. For a gang of ruffians, who had fled from justice and were living secretly in the forest, thought to kidnap Aliena and her page for a present to the usurper, to buy out the law, knowing that he was a lecher, and delighted in the spoil of virgin beauty. Their onset found Rosader on the spot. But he was unable to stand against so many, and, being badly hurt, was expecting to see his friends borne away, when Saladyne came up, "having a forest bill on his neck," which he handled with such good aim as wrought a speedy rescue. Alinda and Saladyne being thus brought together, their acquaintance soon ripened into a mutual vow. While this was in the forge, Coridon took his mistress and her page where they might overhear what passed between Montanus and Fhoebe. Rosalynd was much provoked at Phoebe's behavior, and, their dialogue ended, went to chiding her, at the same time counselling her not to let slip so fair a chance. Phoebe, who all the while thought scorn to love, now gets as much enthralled to Ganimede as Montanus is to herself, when Rosalynd, seeing the effect of her speech, breaks off the interview, and leaves her sighing and weeping with this new passion. Then Phoebe presently reduces her love to writing, and asks Montanus to be her post to Ganimede,

which he readily undertakes to do, though knowing how it makes against himself. For some time things go on thus, Montanus wooing Phoebe, and Phoebe Ganimede, till Phœbe is drawn into a promise, that if she leave to love Ganimede, she will fancy Montanus; Ganimede at the same time engaging that if he ever wed any woman it shall be Phoebe.

Meanwhile, the day being set and the preparations begun for the nuptials of Saladyne and Alinda, this puts Rosader in great tribulation, that he cannot be married to Rosalynd at the same time. He tells his grief to Ganimede, who replies, "Be of good cheer, man: I have a friend that is deeply experienced in necromancy and magic: what art can do shall be acted for thine advantage: I will cause him to bring Rosalynd if either France or any bordering nation harbor her"; at which Rosader frowned, thinking the page was jesting with him. When all are assembled for the wedding, Gerismond, observing the page, calls to mind the face of his Rosalynd, and sighs deeply. Rosader asking him the cause, he tells how the page reminds him of his daughter. Rosader then professing his love for her, the king declares that if she were present he would this day make up a marriage between them. Thereupon Ganimede withdraws to put on her woman's attire, and, presently returning as Rosalynd, falls at her father's feet, and craves his blessing. Of course it is soon settled that she and Rosader shall be married that day. Phoebe being now asked if she will be willing to give up the page, she replies that if they please she and Montanus will that day make the third couple in marriage. Hitherto Alinda has kept her disguise, and Saladyne sought her hand, thinking her to be what she seemed: now, seeing him look rather sorrowful, and supposing it to grow from the apparent disadvantage of his match, she makes herself known. By this time word is brought that the priest is at Church, and tarries their coming. The wedding well over, while they are at dinner Fernandine arrives, and informs them that the twelve peers of France are at hand with an army to restore Gerismond to the throne. The victory declaring for

them, and the usurper being slain, all wrongs are soon righted, and the exiles return together to Paris.

From this sketch, which has been made with care, it will be seen that the Poet has here borrowed much excellent matter: perhaps it will also be seen that he has used with exquisite judgment whatsoever he took. Excepting, indeed, The Winter's Tale, there is none of his plays wherein he has drawn so freely from others; nor, we may add, is there any wherein he has enriched his drawings more liberally from the glory of his own genius. To appreciate his judgment as shown in what he left, one must read the whole of Lodge's novel. In our sketch will be found no traces of Jaques, or Touchstone, or Audrey: in truth, there is nothing in the novel, that could yield to the slightest hint towards either of those characters. It need scarce be said that these superaddings are of themselves enough to transform the whole into another nature, pouring through all its veins a free and lively circulation of the most original wit, and humor, and poetry. And by a judicious indefiniteness as to persons and places, the Poet has greatly idealized the work, throwing it at a romantic distance, and weaving about it all the witchery of poetical perspective; and the whole falls in so smoothly with the laws of the imagination, that the breaches of geographical order are never noticed, save by such as cannot understand poetry without a map. No one at all qualified to judge in the matter will suppose that Shakespeare could have been really indebted to Lodge, or whomsoever else, for any of the characters in As You Like It. He did but borrow certain names and forms for the bodying forth of conceptions purely his own. The resemblance is all in the drapery and circumstances of the representation, not in the individuals. For instance, we can easily imagine Rosalind in an hundred scenes not here represented, for she is a substantive personal being, such as we may detach and consider apart from the particular order wherein she stands; but we can discover in her no likeness to Lodge's Rosalynd, save that of name and situation: take away the similarity here, and there is noth

ing to indicate that he who drew the heroine of the play had ever seen the heroine of the novel. And it is considerable, that though he has here borrowed more than almost any where else, there is no sign of any borrowing in the work itself: we can detect no foreign influences, no second-hand touches, nothing to suggest that any part of the thing had ever been thought of before; what he took being so thoroughly assimilated into what he gave, that the whole seems to have come fresh from nature and his own mind: so that, had the originals been lost, we should never have suspected there were any.

This play is exceedingly rich and varied in character. The several persons standing out round and clear, yet their distinctive traits in a remarkable degree sink quietly into the feelings, without reporting themselves in the understanding; for which cause the clumsy methods of criticism. can scarce reduce them to expression. Properly speaking, the drama has no hero; for, though Orlando occupies the foreground, the characters are strictly coördinate, the very design of the work precluding any subordination among them. Diverted by fortune from all their cherished plans and purposes, they pass before us in just that moral and intellectual dishabille, which best reveals their indwelling graces of heart and mind. Schlegel, indeed, remarks that "throughout the picture the Poet seems to have aimed at showing that nothing is wanting to call forth the poetry which has its dwelling in nature and the human mind, but to throw off all artificial restraint, and restore both to their native liberty." But it should be further observed, that the persons have already been "purified by suffering,” and that it was under the discipline of social restraint that they developed the virtues that make them go right without it. Because they have not hitherto been free to do as they would, therefore it is that they are good and beautiful in doing as they have a mind to now.

Orlando is altogether such a piece of young manhood as it does one good to be with. He has no special occasion for heroism, yet we feel that there is plenty of heroic stuff

in him. Brave, gentle, modest, and magnanimous; never thinking of his high birth but to avoid dishonoring it; in his noble-heartedness forgetting and making others forget his nobility of rank;-he is every way just such a man as all true men would choose for their best friend. The whole intercourse between him and his faithful old servant, Adam, is on both sides replete with the very divinity of the old chivalrous sentiment, in whose eye the nobilities of nature were always sure of recognition.

The exiled Duke exemplifies the best sense of nature, as thoroughly informed and built up with Christian discipline and religious efficacy, so that the asperities of life do but make his thoughts run the smoother. How sweet, yet how considerative and firm, is every thing about his temper and moral frame! he sees all that is seen by the most keen-eyed satirist, yet is never moved to be satirical, because he looks with wiser and therefore kindlier eye. Hence comes it that he "can translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style." In his philosophy, so bland, benignant, and contemplative, the mind tastes the very luxury of rest, and has an antepast of measureless content.

Touchstone, though he nowhere strikes so deep a chord within us as the poor fool in Lear, is the most entertaining of Shakespeare's privileged characters. Richly indeed does his grave logical nonsense moralize the scenes wherein he moves. It is curious to observe how the Poet takes care to let us know from the first, that beneath the affectations of his calling some precious sentiments have been kept alive; that far within the fool there is laid up a secret reserve of the man, ready to leap forth and combine with better influences as soon as the incrustations of art are thawed and broken up. Used to a life cut off from human sympathies; stripped of the common responsibilities of the social state; living for no end but to make aristocratic idlers laugh; one, therefore, whom nobody respects enough to resent or be angry at any thing he says; of course his habit is to speak all for effect, nothing for truth: instead of yielding or being passive to the natural force and vir