MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT II. SCENE I.

FRIENDSHIP IN LOVE.

Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

ACT V. SCENE I.

COUNSEL OF NO WEICHT IN MISERY.

Before LEONATO's House.

Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO.

Ant. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself; And 'tis not wisdom, thus to second grief

Against yourself.

Leon.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless

As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;

Nor let no comforter delight mine ear,

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Bring me a father, that so loved his child,

Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,

And bid him speak of patience;

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine, And let it answer every strain for strain;

BEAUCOUP DE BRUIT POUR RIEN.

ACTE I.

SCÈNE II.

L'AMITIÉ EN AMOUR.

En tout, sauf en amour, constante est l'amitié ;
En affaires d'amour, mais elle est sans pitié.
Donc que les amoureux se servent de leur langue,
Que l'oeil de chacun d'eux exprime sa harangue.
La beauté se formule en caprices divers

Et jamais ne se fie au quart, pas plus qu'au tiers.

ACTE V. SCÈNE I.

LES CONSEILS N'ONT PAS DE POIDS DANS LE
MALHEUR.

Devant la Maison de LEONATO.

Entrent LEONATO et ANTONIO.

Ant. Si vous allez ainsi, vous vous tuerez vous

Nourrir une douleur est folie à l'extrême.

même,

Léon. Ah! cesse des conseils infructueux et vains, Ils ne sauraient donner soulas à mes chagrins : Ma douleur ne pourrait recevoir allégeance Que d'un cœur éprouvé par la même endurance. Que l'on m'amène un père ayant autant que moi Aimé sa chère enfant, et dans pareil émoi, Un jour ayant perdu ce trésor d'espérance, Et qu'on lui dise de me prêcher patience. Mésurez son chagrin au chagrin que je sens, Et tous ses sentiments, tenans, aboutissans,

As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:
If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Cry-sorrow, wag! and hem, when he should groan;
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man: For, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,

To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself: therefore give me no counsel:
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ.

Leon. I pray thee, peace; I will be flesh and blood;

For there was never yet philosopher,
That could endure the toothach patiently;
However they have writ the style of gods,
And make a pish at chance and sufferance.

Comparez-les aux miens;-si trouvez un tel père
Prêt à sourire,-à dire au chagrin de naguère,
Va-t-en chagrin ! va-t-en! quand il devrait gémir,
Et soûler son malheur pour le faire dormir,
Alors......amenez-moi ce père, et, sans doutance,
J'apprendrai de ce père à prendre patience!
Mais, un tel homme, frère ! il n'exista jamais.
Les hommes, vois-tu bien, ont des propos tout prêts
Pour donner des conseils, calmer douleur amère,
Qu'eux, ils n'éprouvent pas. Sentent-ils, au con-

traire,
Eux-mêmes le chagrin, que soudain en fureurs
Se changent les conseils de ces consolateurs.
Enchaîner la folie avec un fil de soie,
Endormir la douleur, l'arrêter dans sa voie,
Prétendre la guérir, en lui donnant de l'air,
Croire avec de vains mots, subjuguer un enfer!
Non!...Des gens sans chagrin c'est le lot ordinaire,
De penser que pour tout ils ont un vulnéraire;
Donc, trève à tes conseils, mes chagrins crient plus

haut

Que des banalités; sur eux rien ne prévaut. Ant. Les hommes, dans ce cas, des enfants ont l'étoffe !

Léon. La paix, frère! la paix!...Jamais un philosophe

N'a paru supporter le mal de dents, je crois,
Sans être impatient, et sans être aux abois !
Dans le style des dieux, avec outrecuidance,
Quoiqu'ils eussent écrit: Nargue de la souffrance!"
Je suis de chair, de sang, je suis homme,-je veux
Rester seul à souffrir quand je suis malheureux

66

AS YOU LIKE IT.

THE Comedy of "As you like it" contains an odd jumble of characters. Take, first of all, a wicked Duke, (as in the "Tempest,") who has usurped his brother's patrimony; which brother, instead of being cast upon the island inhabited by Caliban, has been driven within the more prosaic recesses of the forest of Ardennes ;-add to these ingredients the primitive and singular "Coke's Tale of Gamlyn," from Chaucer's "Canterbury Pilgrims," sprinkled with the pleasing characters of the two fascinating damsels named Rosalind and Celia, who surrender their hearts, as if payable at sight, with rather unmaidenly haste, on the principle of "first come first served;' -and you have the bill of fare which Shakespeare has dished up for his readers, beneath the luxuriant shades of the forest of Ardennes, to the, by no means, obbligato accompaniment of the roaring of its somewhat apocryphal lions.

It cannot be denied that there are great defects in this play. The same details that seem charming in a narrative, are often mawkish when exhibited on the stage. Nevertheless, several pleasing scenes induce us to overlook the shortcomings of the play in other respects; for in all Shakespeare's works we always find some masterly touches that reveal "the god within," although he may occasionally be caught napping.