ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE.

THE fable of this play, (written in 1598,) is taken from a novel of which Boccace is the original author; but it more than probable that our poet read it in a book called The Palace of Pleasure; a collection of novels translated from different authors, by one William Painter, 1566, 4to. Shakspeare has only borrowed from the novel a few leading circumstances in the graver parts of the drama: the comic characters are entirely of his own formation: one of them, Parolles, a boaster and a coward, is the sheet-anchor of the piece. The plot is not sufficiently probable. Some of the scenes are forcibly written, whilst others are impoverished and uninteresting. The moral of the play may be correctly ascertained from Dr. Johnson's estimate of the character of Bertram: "I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helena as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate: when she is dead, by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness."

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Rousillon.-A Room in the
Countess' Palace.

Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of ROUSILLON,
HELENA, and LAFEU, in mourning.
Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a
second husband.

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward,• evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam ;-you, Sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's ameudment?

Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope; and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by

time.

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (Oh! that had!‡ how sad a passage 'tis !) whose

The heirs of great fortunes were always the king's

wards.

The countess recollects her o vn loss of a husband, and observes how heavily had passes through her mind.

skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, it would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think, it would be the death of the king's disease.

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madain ?

Count. He was famous, Sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly, and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

Luf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. 1 beard not of it before.

Laf. I would, it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon ?

Count. His sole child, my lord and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good, that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer for where an unclean mind carries there commendations virtuous qualities, with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in

• Qualities of good breeding and erudition,

go

ber they are the better for their simpleness; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones she derives her honesty, and achieves her good- Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, fa oft we see

ness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from

her tears.

Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood+ from her cheek. No more of this, Helena, go to, no more ; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have.

Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.
Hel. And you, monarch.
Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity ?

Hel. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the liv-valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us ing.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?
Count. Be thou bless'd, Bertram and succeed
thy father

In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright; Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more
will,

That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck
down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.

Lof. He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.
Count. Heaven bless him!--Farewell, Ber-
tram.
[Exit COUNTESS.
Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in
your thoughts, [To HELENA] be servants to you !
Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and
make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU. Hel. Oh! were that all!-I think not on my father;

And these great tears grace his remembrance

more

Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him my imagination
Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me :
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The bind, that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though

plague,

To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; || heart, too capable
Of every line and trick ¶ of his sweet favour :*
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
Enter PAROLLES.

a

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit to tit in him,

some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men ?

Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the coinmonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was Dever virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of selflove, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't: Out with't; within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Away with't.

Hel. How might one do, Sir, to lose it to ber own Mking?

Par. Let me see: Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a cominodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth : off with't, while 'tis vendible; auswer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your check: And your virginity, your old virginity, is like oue of our French withered pears; it looks ìli, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: Will you any thing with it?!

Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,

• Her excellencies are the better because they are That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall be~*

artless.

All appearance of life.

1 I.e. That may help thee with more and better qualifications.

1.e. May you be mistress of your wishes, and have

power to bring them to effect.

Helena considers her heart as the tablet on which] his resemblance was pourtrayed. Peculiarity of feature.

• Countenance.

I know not what he shall :-God send him
well!-

The court's a learning-place ;—and he is one---
Par. What one, i'faith?

• A quibble on date, which means age, and ránécd fruit.

a charitable star.

Par. Under Mars, F.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.
Par. Why under Mars?

1 Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that
you must needs be born under Mars.

Par. When he was predominant.

Hel. When he was retrograde, 1 think, rather.
Par. Why think you so

Hel. You go so much backward, when you fight.

Par. That's for advantage.

Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: But the composition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and 1 like the wear well.

4

me

As when thy father, and myself, in friendship First tried our soldiership! He did look fa Into the service of the time, and was Discipled of the bravest he lasted long; But on us both did haggish age steal on, And wore us out of act. It much repairs To talk of your good father: In his youth Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer He had the wit, which I can well observe thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in To-day in our young lords; but they may jest, the which, my instruction sball serve to natur-Till their own scorn return to them onnoted, alize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a cour- Ere they can hide their levity in bonour. tier's counsel, and understand what advice shall So like a courtier, contempt not bitterness thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine un- Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were, thankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee His equal had awak'd them; and his honour, away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say Clock to itself, knew the true minute when thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember Exception bid him speak, and, at this time, thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use His tongue obey'd his band: who were below him as be uses thee: so farewell. [Exit. He used as creatures of another place ; [him And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks, Making them proud of his humility, In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times; Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate thei But goers backward. [now

Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to beaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it, which mounts my love so
high;

That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye ?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things. †
Impossible be strange attempts, to those
That weigh their pains in sense; and do sup-
pose

What hath been cannot be: Who ever strove
To show her mérit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease-my project may deceive me.
But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.
[Exit.
SCENE II-Paris.-A Room in the King's

Palace.

Flourish of Cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters; LORDS and others attending.

King. The Florentines and Senoys are by
the ears;

Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
A braving war.

1 Lord. So 'tis reported, Sir.

King. Nay, 'tis most credible; we here re-
ceive it

A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution, that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To bave us make deuial.

Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out
With several applications :-nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
My son's no dearer.

Ber. Thank your majesty. [Exeunt. Flourish.

SCENE 111.-Ron sillon.-A Room in the
Countess' Palace.

Enter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN. Count. I will now hear what say you of this gentlewoman?..

Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty, and make fout the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here! Get you gone, sirrah: The complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my slowness, that I do not for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, Sir.

Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well, that I am poor; though many of the rich are damned: But, if I may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar ?
Clo. I do beg your good-will in this case.
Count. In what case ?

Clo. In Isbel's case and mine own.

Service

is no heritage and I think I shall never have the blessing of God, till I have issue of iny body; for, they say, bearns are blessings.

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it; 1 an driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason? Clo. Faith, madain, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.

Count. Get you gone, Sir; I'll talk with yel

more anon.

Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her l`am to speak.

Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman 1 would speak with her; Helen I mean.

Clo. Was this fair face the cause, quoth
she,
[Singing.
Why the Grecians sacked Trøy ?
Fond done, done fond,

Was this king Priam's joy1
With that she sighed as she stood,
With that she sighed as she stood,

And gave this sentence then j
Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad, if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.

Count. What, one good in ten? yon corrupt the song, sirrah.

Clo. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the soug: "Would God would serve the world so all the year!, we'd find so fault with the tythe-woman, if I were the parson: One in teu, quoth a'! au we might have a good woman born but every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck

one.

Count. You'll be gone, Sir knave, and do as I command you?

Clo. That man should be at woman's command, and yet, no hurt done!-Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt: it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither.

Count. Well, now.

[Bait CLOWN.

Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

Count. Faith, I do her father bequeathed her to me and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as mech love as she finds: there is more owing her, than is paid; and more shall be paid ber, than she'll demand.

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, she wished me: alone she was and did communicate to herself, her own words

Count. May the world know them? Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and indeed, I do marry that I may repent. Count. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wicked-to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for

ness.

Clo. I am out of friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake.

her, they touched not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son; Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love, no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Diana, no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight to be surprised, without rescue, in the first assault, or rausom afterward: This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow, that e'er I beard virgin exclaim in which I held my duty, speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence, ↑ in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave. Clo. You are shallow, madam; e'en great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a-weary of. He, that ears | ny land, spares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop if 1 be his cuckold, he's my drudge He, that comforts my wife, is the cherisher of my flesh and blood, he that cherishes my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife, is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there Count. You have discharged this honestly; were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed the puritan, and old Poysam the papist, how-me of this before, which hung so tottering in soe'er their hearts are severed in religion, their beads are both one, they may joll horns together, like any deer i'the herd.

Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and

calumnious knave?

the balance, that I could neither believe, nor
misdoubt: Pray you leave me: stall this in
your bosom, and I thank you for your hourst
care: I will speak with you further anon.
[Exit STEWARD.

Where love's strong passion is impress'd in Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love you son :-

our

I care no more for, than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister: Can't no other,
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daugh-
ter-in-law;

God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and
mother,

So strive upon your pulse: What, pale again?
My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see
The mystery of your loneliness, and find

Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis

You love my son; invention is asham'd,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so :-for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it: only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected: Speak, is't so ?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.

Hel. Good madam, pardon me!
Count. Do you love my son?
Hel. Your pardon, noble mistress!
Count. Love you my son ?

Hel. Do not you love him, madam?

Count. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,

Whereof the world takes note: come, come, dis