66

three days within which Orsino has known Viola with some intimacy. I regard this touch as in every respect fine and true. Nothing could be more probable than that three months should pass, after Viola's entrance into the Duke's household, before a man so absorbed as Orsino in self- affairs," and in the day-dreams of a poetic nature and an unrewarded passion, would fairly note the beauty of her face and speech, sever her from the crowd of his undistinguished followers, and begin to please himself with her separate companionship and conversation; but such an acquaintance once begun between two such persons would advance rapidly, and I find the long interval of time during which Viola remains practically silent and unnoticed an important, almost essential, factor in her development. There is little of Rosalind, little of Olivia, in her "tender-hefted" nature, which is at once most reserved and shy, as well as sweet. Love, especially if unrequited, must needs be a plant of slow growth in such a soul; must be quite incapable of putting forth, like Juliet's, into leaf and bud and flower and fruit within the compass of a few tense hours. It is not three days, but three months of quiet, unnoticed observation of the Duke, within which her affection has slowly rooted itself in her heart and taken possession of the very depths of her spirit. And in this scene the great change has already taken place: even in the face of his liberally avowed passion for another, Viola is constrained to admit to herself that, "whoe'er " she, "wooes" in his behalf, herself "would be his wife." Here we find Viola first employed as an ambassador of love from the Duke to Olivia. Scene 5 succeeds, with an interval of but a few hours or minutes, and Viola stands before Olivia, gives her message, and at once infects the Countess with, "the plague" of her "perfections." She is allowed to depart, and then Malvolio is made to run after her

with a request that "the youth will come this way to-morrow." Scene 1 of Act II., which follows, is of the utmost importance in fixing the time of the action. Viola's brother, Sebastian, appears upon the seacoast in company with Antonio, who has saved his life from the shipwreck which engulfed both brother and sister. They have lived together in the closest intimacy for "three months" (vide Antonio's speech to the Duke, Act V., Scene 1, ubi supra), and now Sebastian takes leave of his preserver and sets out for Orsino's court, which is distant by not many hours' travel. This scene Shakespeare has taken pains to rivet into the very substance of the action which concerns Viola by inserting it between Viola's departure from Olivia and Malvolio's overtaking the fair youth and delivering his message. Scene 3 of Act II. is filled with the delicious merry-making of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown. That its time is the night of the same day is directly in evidence, for Maria says that Olivia "is much out of quiet," "since the youth of the Count's was to-day with my lady;" and with Sir Toby's memorable line, the succinct utterance of magnificent revelry, victorious over time and space, ""Tis too late to go to bed now," the first day of the quick movement of Twelfth Night ends. The action of all the rest of the comedy takes place within the next twenty-four hours, the incidents being packed together solidly and swiftly, but with extreme and scrupulous neatness. Scene 4 of Act II. is in the morning, the Duke bidding his courtiers "good-morrow" at its outset,— and Viola is once more bidden to go to Olivia "in haste." In Scene 5 the conspiracy against Malvolio begins active operations: the decoy letter is dropped in his path, and achieves its end. In Scene 1, Act III., Viola arrives in Olivia's garden, and takes part in a second interview, wherein the Countess throws off disguise, and vainly solicits for Cesa

and third scenes succeed with intervals of but a few hours; in the third scene the supple Borachio feeds the spleen of his tart master, Don John, with news about Hero and Claudio, gathered at the "great supper," which is still in progress. Scene 1 of Act II. carries the action directly on it is just after the supper, and Leonato is inquiring about Don John's absence from the feast. The masked ball follows, with its merry encounter of wits, sharp and blunt, and the renewal with threefold bitterness of the war between Beatrice and Benedick. In this scene the wedding-day of Claudio and Hero is fixed "on Monday next, which is hence a just seven night;" and the day ends with the framing of the plot by Don Pedro and the others "to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other." The second and third scenes of Act II. are not exactly fixed in time, though one may shrewdly guess that the former is very near the first day of the piece, inasmuch as Don John's gossip-greedy ears have only just now been assured of the certainty of the proposed marriage. In the third scene the amiable conspirators begin operations against Benedick's hard heart. It is perhaps fair to conjecture that several days have passed since the conception of their scheme, because the attack upon Beatrice would naturally follow as soon as might be, lest device should be dulled by coldness or delay. And Beatrice's heart is assailed in the next scene (Scene 1, Act III.), which takes place on the day before that fixed for the wedding; for Hero takes counsel with Ursula about the attire which is "best to furnish" her "to-morrow." Scenes 2 and 3 also fall on the day before, the wedding. In the former, Don John, preserving his malicious purpose, asks his half-brother and Claudio to spy that night upon an encounter between himself and Hero under her chamber window, and Claudio resolves if

he "sees anything to-night why" he "should not marry her to-morrow" he will shame her before the congregation. Scene 3 is on the night of the same day. The honest watchmen, headed by Dogberry and Verges, have come together, and presently overhear the whispered talk of Borachio, who is telling Conrade the tale of the infamous fraud which he has just perpetrated at the instance of Don John's thousand ducats. The next day, being that originally fixed for the wedding, covers all the rest of the play except the final scene of Act V. In Scene 4, Act III., it being "almost five o'clock" in the morning, Hero is attiring herself for church, Beatrice is roused, and presently the Prince and his suite call "to fetch the bride to church." In Scene 5, Act III., as Leonato is stayed for to give away the bride, Dogberry appears, with his muddled story of his arrest of "two aspicious persons," and is told with impatient condescension that

he may himself "take the examination " of his prisoners "this morning." Then follows the scene in the church (Scene 1, Act IV.), where Claudio refuses and accuses his bride at the altar. Scene 2 shows the excellent wit of Dogberry in the examination of Borachio and Conrade, and closes with the Sexton's direction that the prisoners be brought to Leonato. There is an interval of a few hours or minutes, and towards evening Act V. begins, the characters saluting each other with "good den." Presently the watch appear with their prisoners, and in a moment Hero's injured innocence is demonstrated to the remorseful young gentlemen. Claudio forthwith resolves to spend the night in paying honor to the memory of Hero, and engages to meet Leonato and marry Antonio's daughter "to-morrow morning." Scene 2, Act V., between Benedick and Beatrice, is but a few minutes later, and the eventful day ends with the obituary rites paid by Claudio to his slander-slain mistress. The final

scene is on the following morning, as had been arranged. Hero, who has been dead to Claudio and the Prince but for the twenty-four hours during which "her slander lived," returns to life and love, and the "too wise" Benedick and Beatrice put forth together upon the matrimonial voyage, which it is safe to predict will be marred by some serious squalls and storms.

As You Like It opens in Oliver's orchard, and its first scene stands by itself, occupying a part of the first day of the action of the piece. "To-morrow," before the new Duke, Charles, the professional athlete, is to "wrestle for his credit," as in this scene he warns Orlando's malevolent brother. The second day, therefore, is that of the second scene, in which Orlando trips up the wrestler's heels and Rosalind's heart, both in an instant. The third scene closely follows the encounter of the lovers, and is occupied with Celia's prompt teasing of her friend, then with the usurping Duke's appearance and sentence of banishment upon Rosalind, and finally with the resolution of the young maids to go into exile together. Scene 1, Act II., is with the Banished Duke in the forest of Arden, and makes a new starting-point of interest, in the fashion already discussed. Scene 2 of this act marks the beginning of the third day of the regular action, inasmuch as the attendant ladies in the palace have just found Celia's "bed untreasured of their mistress." The following scene also belongs to the third day, for in it Orlando, just returned from the short journey to court, meets Adam before Oliver's house, and with the old man sets forth for the forest, to which all roads in As You Like It lead. There are divers unknown intervals, all quite short, between the scenes which succeed until Scene 4 of Act III. is reached. Shakespeare does not inform us how long Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone were in making the journey, the close of which

in Scene 4, Act II., finds them so weary in spirits and in legs; nor how much time Orlando and Adam consumed upon the way; nor what period elapsed before the usurper, Frederick, turned Oliver out-of-doors to bring back Orlando, "dead or living," to his court; nor how long Orlando lived in the forest before he began to abuse the "young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks," and to hang "odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles." But many slight hints in the text show that these periods were very short. In Scene 2, Act III., Orlando first sees Rosalind in her disguise, and then and there makes that contract for substituted wooing, the story of which, at the end of three centuries, comes filled with the scent of the wild rose and the note of the nightingale, and both as fresh and sweet as if they were breathed out but yesterday. An undisclosed interval then occurs, which is doubtless filled by Rosalind with lovemaking and by Orlando with love-thinking. Rosalind evidently fritters away no part of the time in cultivating acquaintance with her father, the Banished Duke, though she meets him once, and bestows some of her sweet sauciness upon him; not that she lacked filial affection, but that she was in a state of mind which many maidens have experienced, though not many have had the courage to put it frankly into words, and say there is no use in “talking of fathers" "when there is such a man as Orlando." The interval is a short one, we may be sure, for Rosalind's heart beats as fast as her wit moves and her tongue trips; and Orlando has been well and much, if briefly, tutored in the art of love when Scene 4 of Act III. opens, and with it the actual last day but one of the comedy. Scenes 4 and 5 of Act III., the whole of Act IV., and the whole of Act V. except its final scene are compressed within this one day, the progress of which is marked almost to the point of distinguishing its hours. Scene 4,

Act III., opens at about the hour of ten in the forenoon, as will be presently verified, — with Rosalind's lament over Orlando's broken promise to "come this morning;" thence Rosalind, Celia, and Corin pass directly to Scene 5, and the contemplation of the misery of Silvius and the coquetry of Phebe; and in Scene 1 of Act IV. Orlando appears, and in response to Rosalind's peevish "How now, Orlando! where have you been all this while?" replies that he comes "within an hour of" his "promise." This enchanting scene begins at about eleven and ends at noon, when Orlando departs to attend the Duke at dinner, promising to be with Rosalind again by two o'clock. The two hours which follow, though not included in the action of the play, are very important. After dinner, Orlando, "chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy," takes a walk in the forest, discovers Oliver asleep upon the ground, and saves him, at the cost of a wound, from the paw of the "sucked and hungry lioness;" and, upon Oliver's showing a sudden but complete change of heart, the brothers are reconciled. The story of this adventure is told by the elder brother to Rosalind and Celia in an interview which begins in the latter part of Scene 3, Act IV., the opening hour of which as fixed by Rosalind, again impatient of her lover's tardiWas past two o'clock;" and by the time Rosalind has revived from her counterfeit of faintness the afternoon must be pretty well advanced. In Scene 1 of Act V. it is "good even," and at the same time, or a little later, in the sequent scene Rosalind tells Orlando the tale of Oliver's and Celia's love, which, beginning in an introduction a few hours before, has developed with such extraordinary rapidity that Rosalind plainly feels called upon to make a little humorous apology for it ("Your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved," etc.); and the scene closes with

ness

--

Rosalind's promise to make everything "on the morrow" as everybody likes it. Scene 3 comes as a queer little postscript. "To-morrow" is to be "the joyful day" also for Touchstone and Audrey, and with some of the Clown's exquisite fooling the night falls and the great day ends. In the last scene of Act V. the famous "to-morrow" and promise-keeping Rosalind arrive togethHer tongue now for the first time finds but little to do, it being remembered that she has a last opportunity in the epilogue, and with five charming words, where, if her heart were less full, a hundred would not have sufficed, she makes her lover and her father happy.

er.

The time in Measure for Measure is for the most part distinctly marked, although the repeated and important "tomorrows are at first rather confusing, and need to be closely scrutinized. Scene 1 of Act I. stands by itself, and is devoted to the Duke's announcement of his temporary retirement from the government of Vienna, and to the commissioning of Angelo as regent during his absence. There is then an unknown interval, which may be safely surmised to be a few weeks long, for within it Angelo, "still newly in his seat," begins the sharp enforcement of laws nineteen years obsolete (Scene 3, Act I.), while the Duke is supposed to have reached Poland (Scene 4, Act I.), or to be "with the Emperor of Russia," or "in Rome' (Scene 2, Act III.). After the opening scene the remainder of the action occupies parts of four consecutive days, being greatly condensed, and on the second day much hurried. Scenes 2 and 3 of Act I. are early in the morning. Claudio is on the way to prison, and begs Lucio to seek Isabella, who "this day should the cloister enter," and urge her mediation with Angelo. Lucio promises to be at the nunnery "" within two hours," and his interview with Isabella is described in Scene 5, where she agrees to go about the business" straight, no