Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

Perdita. For I have heard it said

There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.

Polixenes. Say, there be :

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry.
A gentler scyon to the wildest stock;

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather: but

The art itself is nature.

Perdita. So it is.

Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them bastards.

Perdita. I'll not put

The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them;

No more than, were I painted, I would wish

This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore
Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given

To men of middle age. You are very welcome.
Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.

Perdita. Out, alas!

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through. Now my fairest

friends,

I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might

Become your time of day; and your's, and your's,

That wear upon your virgin branches yet

Your maiden-heads growing: O Proserpina,

For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty: violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength (a malady
Most incident to maids); bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The fleur-de-lis being one! O, these I lack
To make you garlands of; and, my sweet friend
To strow him o'er and o'er.

Florizel. What, like a corse?

Perdita. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on;

Not like a corse; or if not to be buried,

But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers;
Methinks, I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.

Florizel. What you do,

Still betters what is done.

When you speak, sweet,

I'd have you do it ever: when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so; so, give alms;

Pray, so; and for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that: move still, still so,

And own no other function. Each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

Perdita. O Doricles,

Your praises are too large; but that your youth

And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it,

Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd;
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You woo'd me the false way.

Florizel. I think you have

As little skill to fear, as I have purpose

To put you to't. But come, our dance, I pray:
Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,

That never mean to part.

Perdita. I'll swear for 'em.

Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does, or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself,

Too noble for this place.

Camillo. He tells her something

That makes her blood look out: good sooth she is
The queen of curds and cream."

This delicious scene is interrupted by the father of the prince discovering himself to Florizel, and haughtily breaking off the intended match between his son and Perdita. When Polixenes goes out, Perdita says,

"Even here undone :

I was not much afraid; for once or twice
I was about to speak; and tell him plainly,
The self-same sun that shines upon his court,
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on't alike. Wilt please you, sir, be gone?
[To Florizel.

I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,
Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,
But milk my ewes and weep."

As Perdita, the supposed shepherdess, turns out to be the daughter of Hermione, and a princess in disguise, both feelings of the pride of birth and the claims of nature are satisfied by the fortunate event of the story, and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest court-etiquette.

C

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is one of the most pleasing of our author's comedies. The interest is however more of a serious than of a comic nature. The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem. Perhaps the romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when young Roussillon leaves his mother's house, under whose protection she has