The affectation of the King and his courtiers begins at the very beginning of the play. The mistake upon which they set out, in their desire to make their court "a little academe," is not an uncommon one. It is the attempt to separate the contemplative from the active life; to forego duties for abstractions; to sacrifice innocent pleasures for plans of mortification, difficult to be executed, and useless if carried through. Many a young student has been haunted by the same dream; and he only required to be living in an age when vows bound mankind to objects of pursuit that now present but the ludicrous side, to have had his dreams converted into very silly realities. The resistance of Biron to the vow of his fellows is singularly able, his reasoning is deep and true, and ought to have turned them aside from their folly:

'Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others' books."

But the vow is ratified, and its abjuration will, only be the result of its practical inconvenience. The "French king's daughter," the "admired princess," is coming to confer with the King and his court, who have resolved to talk with no woman for three years :

:

"So study evermore is overshot."

But the "child of fancy" appears-the "fantastic”—the "magnificent"—the "man of great spirit who grows melancholy"—he who is "ill at a reckoning, because it fitteth the spirit of a tapster" he who confesses to be a “gentleman and a gamester," because "both are the varnish of a complete man." How capitally does Moth, his page, hit him off, when he intimates that only "the base vulgar" call deuceace three ! And yet this indolent piece of refinement is

"A man in all the world's new fashions planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain ;”

and he himself has no mean idea of his abilities-he is "for whole volumes in folio." Moth, who continually draws him

out to laugh at him, is an embryo wag, whose common sense is constantly opposed to his master's affectations; and Costard is another cunning bit of nature, though cast in a coarser mould, whose heart runs over with joy at the tricks of his little friend, this "nit of mischief."

We have

The Princess and her train arrive at Navarre. already learnt to like the King and his lords, and have seen their fine natures shining through the affectations by which they are clouded. We scarcely require, therefore, to hear their eulogies delivered from the mouths of the Princess's ladies, who have appreciated their real worth. But with all this disposition to think highly of the nobles of the selfdenying court, the "mad wenches" of France are determined to use their "civil wits" on "Navarre and his bookmen," for their absurd vows; and well do they keep their determination. Boyet is a capital courtier, always ready for a gibe at the ladies, and always ready to bear their gibes. Costard thinks he is "6. a most simple clown;" but Biron more accurately describes him :—

"Why, this is he

That kiss'd away his hand in courtesy:

This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice.

Before the end of Navarre's first interview with the Princess, Boyet has discovered that he is "infected." At the end of the next Act, we learn from Biron himself that he is in the same condition. Away then goes the vow with the King and Biron. In the fourth Act we find that the infection has spread to all the lords; but the love of the King and his courtiers is thoroughly characteristic. It may be sincere enough, but it is still love fantastical.—It hath taught Biron "to rhyme and to be melancholy." The King drops his paper of poesy; Longaville reads his sonnet, which makes flesh “a deity;” and Dumain, in his most beautiful anacreontic, as sweet a piece of music as Shakspere ever penned—shows "how love can vary wit." The scene in which each lover is detected by the other, and all laughed at by Biron, till he is detected himself, is thoroughly dramatic; and there is perhaps nothing finer in the whole range of the Shaksperean comedy than the passage where Biron casts

aside his disguises, and rises to the height of poetry and eloquence. The famous speech of Biron is perhaps unmatched as a display of poetical rhetoric, except by the speeches of Ulysses to Achilles in the third Act of 'Troilus and Cressida.' The rhetoric of Biron produces its effect. "Now to plain dealing," says Longaville; but Biron, the merry man, whose love is still half fun, is for more circuitous modes than laying their hearts at the feet of their mistresses. He is of opinion that

"Revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Forerun fair Love;"

and he therefore recommends 66

some strange pastime" to

solace the dames. But "the gallants will be task'd."

King and Princess, lords and ladies, must make way for the great pedants. The form of affectation is now entirely changed. It is not the cleverness of rising superior to all other men by despising the "affects" to which every man is born; it is not the cleverness of labouring at the most magnificent phrases to express the most common ideas;—but it is the cleverness of two persons using conventional terms, which they have picked up from a common source, and which they believe sealed to the mass of mankind, instead of employing the ordinary colloquial phrases by which ideas are rendered intelligible. This is pedantry. They each address the other in their freemasonry of learning. They each flatter the other. But for the rest of the world, they look down upon them. "Sir," saith the curate, excusing the "twicesod simplicity" of Goodman Dull, "he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished." But Goodman Dull has his intellect stimulated by this abuse. He has heard the riddles of the "ink-horn" men, and he sports a riddle of his own :—

"You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?"

The answer of Holofernes is the very quintessence of pedantry. He gives Goodman Dull the hardest name for the moon in

the mythology. Goodman Dull is with difficulty quieted. Holofernes then exhibits his poetry; and he "will something affect the letter, for it argues facility." He produces, as all pedants attempt to produce, not what is good when executed, but what is difficult of execution. Satisfied with his own performances "the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it"-he is profuse in his contempt for other men's productions. He undertakes to prove Biron's canzonet "to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention." The portrait is two hundred years old, and yet how many of the present day might sit for it!

The ladies have received verses and jewels from their lovers; but they trust not to the verses-they think them "bootless rhymes,”—the effusions of "prodigal wits :”

"Folly in fools bears not so strong a note

As foolery in the wise."

When Boyet discloses to the Princess the scheme of the mask of Muscovites, she is more confirmed in her determination to laugh at the laughers

"They do it but in mocking merriment ;

And mock for mock is only my intent."

The affectation of "speeches penn'd" is overthrown in a moment by the shrewdness of the women, who encounter the fustian harangue with prosaic action. Moth comes in crammed with others' affectations :

"All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!

A holy parcel of the fairest dames"

The ladies turn their backs on him

"That ever turn'd their-backs-to mortal views!"

Biron in vain gives him the cue-" their eyes, villain, their eyes:""the pigeon-egg of discretion" has ceased to be discreet-he is out, and the speech is ended. will try for themselves. They each take a apart, and each finds a wrong mistress, who

The maskers masked lady has no sym

pathy with him.

The keen breath of "mocking wenches"

has puffed out all their fine conceits :

"Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps."

The King and his

The sharp medicine has had its effect. lords return without their disguises; and, being doomed to hear the echo of the laugh at their folly, they come down from their stilts to the level ground of common sense :from "taffeta phrases" and "figures pedantical" to

"Russet yeas, and honest kersey noes."

But the Worthies are coming; we have not yet done with the affectations and the mocking merriment. Biron maliciously desires "to have one show worse than the King's and his company." Those who have been laughed at now take to laughing at others. Costard, who is the most natural of the Worthies, comes off with the fewest hurts. He has performed Pompey marvellously well, and he is not a little vain of his performance "I hope I was perfect." When the learned curate breaks down as Alexander, the apology of Costard for his overthrow is inimitable: "There, an 't shall please you; a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth; and a very good bowler; but, for Alisander, alas! you see how 't is; a little o'erparted." Holofernes comes off worse than the curate—“Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited!" Lastly, comes Armado. His discomfiture is still more signal. The malicious trick that Biron suggests to Costard shows that Rosaline's original praise of him was not altogether deserved-that his merriment was not always

"Within the limit of becoming mirth."

The affectations of Biron are cast aside, but he has a natural fault to correct, worse than any affectation; and beautifully does Rosaline hold up to him the glass which shows him how

"To choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools."