"Much Ado about Nothing," was doubtless soon removed; for "Henry the Fifth " was entered again for publication on the 14th August; and, as has been already shown, Wise and Aspley took the same course with "Much Ado about Nothing" on the 23rd August. There is no known edition of "As You Like It" prior to its appearance in the folio of 1623, (where it is divided into Scenes, as well as Acts) and we may possibly assume that the "stay" was not, for some unexplained and unascertained reason, removed as to that comedy.

Malone relied upon a piece of internal evidence, which, if examined, seems to be of no value in settling the question when "As You Like It" was first written. The following words are put into the mouth of Rosalind :-"I weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain (A. iv. sc. 1), which Malone supposed to refer to an alabaster figure of Diana on the east of Cheapside, which, according to Stowe's" Survey of London," was set up in 1598, and was in decay in 1603. This figure of Diana did not "weep;" for Stowe expressly states that the water came "prilling from her naked breast." Therefore, this passage proves nothing as far as respects the date of "As You Like It," and Shakespeare probably intended to make no allusion to any particular fountain.

It is not to be forgotten, in deciding upon the probable date of "As You Like It," that Meres makes no mention of it in his Palladis Tamia, 1598; and as it was entered at Stationers' Hall on the 4th August [1600], we may infer that it was written and acted in that interval. In A. iii. sc. 5, a line from the first Sestiad of Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" is quoted; and as that poem was first printed in 1598, "As You Like It" may not have been written until after it appeared.

There is no doubt that Lodge, when composing his "Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie," which he did, as he informs us, while on a voyage with Captain Clarke "to the islands of Terceras and the Canaries," had either "The Coke's Tale of Gamelyn" (falsely attributed to Chaucer, as Tyrwhitt contends in his Introd. to the Cant. Tales, I. clxxxiii. Edit. 1830.) strongly in his recollection, or, which does not seem very probable in such a situation, with a manuscript of it actually before him. It was not printed until more than a century afterwards. According to Farmer, Shakespeare looked no farther than Lodge's novel, which he followed in "As You Like It," quite as closely as he did Greene's "Pandosto" in the "Winter's Tale." There are one or two coincidences of expression between "As You Like It" and "The Coke's Tale of Gamelyn," but not perhaps more than might be accidental, and the opinion of Farmer appears to be sufficiently borne out. Lodge's "Rosalynde" was printed as part of "Shakespeare's Library," 8vo,

1843, and it will be easy, therefore, for the reader to trace the particular resemblances between it and "As You Like It."

In his Lectures in 1818, Coleridge eloquently and justly praised the pastoral beauty and simplicity of " As You Like It," but he did not attempt to compare it with Lodge's "Rosalynde," where the descriptions of persons and of scenery are comparatively forced and artificial:-"Shakespeare," said Coleridge, "never gives a description of rustic scenery merely for its own sake, or to show how well he can paint natural objects: he is never tedious or elaborate; but while he now and then displays marvellous accuracy and minuteness of knowledge, he usually only touches upon the larger features and broader characteristics, leaving the fillings up to the imagination. Thus in 'As You Like It' he describes an oak of many centuries' growth in a single line :—

Under an oak whose antique root peeps out.'

Other and inferior writers would have dwelt on this description, and worked it out with all the pettiness and impertinence of detail.. In Shakespeare the 'antique root' furnishes the whole picture."

These expressions are copied from notes made at the time; and they partially, though imperfectly, supply an obvious deficiency of general criticism in vol. ii. p. 115, of Coleridge's "Literary Remains."

Adam Spencer is a character in "The Coke's Tale of Gamelyn," and in Lodge's "Rosalynde;" and a great additional interest attaches to it, because it is supposed, with some appearance of truth, that the part was originally sustained by Shakespeare himself. We have this statement on the authority of Oldys's MSS.: he is said to have derived it, intermediately of course, from Gilbert Shakespeare, who survived the Restoration, and who had a faint recollection of having seen his brother William "in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping, and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among some company, who were eating, and one of them sung a song." This description very exactly tallies with "As You Like It," A. ii. sc. 7.

Shakespeare found no prototypes in Lodge, nor in any other work yet discovered, for the characters of Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey. On the admirable manner in which he has made them part of the staple of his story, and on the importance of these additions, it is needless to enlarge. It is rather singular, that Shakespeare should have introduced two characters of the name of Jaques into the same play; but in the old impressions, Jaques de Bois, in the prefixes to his speeches, is merely called the "Second Brother."

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ'.

DUKE, Senior, living in exile.

FREDERICK, his Brother, usurper of his dominions.

WILLIAM, a Country Fellow, in love with Audrey.
HYMEN.

ROSALIND, Daughter to the exiled Duke.

CELIA, Daughter to Frederick.

PHEBE, a Shepherdess.

AUDREY, a Country Wench.

Lords; Pages, Foresters, and Attendants.

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

1 This list of the persons, omitted in the old editions, was added by Rowe.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

ACT I. SCENE I.

An Orchard, near OLIVER's House.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.

Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion: he bequeathed me by will', but a poor 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 hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on his dunghills 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 gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit

1 — it was upon this fashion: HE bequeathed me by will,] Orlando and Adam are in the midst of a conversation, on the contents of the will of the father of the former, when they enter. The word "he" must have dropped out in the press, and it is all that is needed to make the sense complete: Malone, at the suggestion of Sir W. Blackstone, inserted it at hazard; but we have now the warrant of the corr. fo. 1632 for it. In the folio, 1623, "a poor thousand crowns" is transposed to "poor a thousand crowns:" possibly, the poet so wrote, and so it remained in the subsequent impressions of 1632, 1664, and 1685.

VOL. II.

A a

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. [ADAM retires.

Enter OLIVER.

Oli. Now, sir! what make you here?

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'. Orl. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal 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.

Oli. What, boy?

Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this. Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain ?

Orl. I am no villain: I am the youngest son of sir Rowland 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 pulled out thy tongue for saying so. [Shaking him.] Thou hast railed on thyself.

Adam. [Coming forward.] Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's remembrance, be at accord.

2 and be naught awhile.] A proverbial expression, equivalent (says Warburton) to "a mischief on you," and Gifford agrees with him: see Ben Jonson's Works, vol. iv. 421, and vol. vi. 160. Many quotations might be adduced to show that "and be naught awhile" was as much as to say and be hanged to you.