A PASTORAL FESTIVAL. To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend, Flo. What, like a corse? Per. No, like a bank for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse; or if, - not to be buried, 9 But quick, and in mine arms. - Come, take your flowers: In Whitsun pastorals: sure, this robe of mine Does change my disposition. Flo. What you do Still betters what is done.1 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 So singular in each particular, Crowning what you have done i' the present deed, Per. O Doricles! Your praises are too large but that your youth, With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way. Flo. 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. Per. I'll swear for 'em. Pol. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the greensward: nothing she does or seems • Quick in its original sense of living or alive. 1 Surpasses what is done. 15 Cam. He tells her something That makes her blood look out :2 good sooth, she is The queen of curds and cream. Clo. Come on, strike up! Dor. Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with! Мор. Now, in good time! Clo. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners. strike up! A Dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses. Pol. Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain is this Shep. They call him Doricles; and boasts himself Upon his own report, and I believe it; He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter : I think so too; for never gazed the Moon Upon the water, as he 'll stand, and read, As 't were, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain, I think there is not half a kiss to choose Who loves another best. Pol. She dances featly. Come, [Music. SHAKESPEARE. FLORIZEL AND PERDITA. In the last two Acts of The Winter's Tale we have a most artful interchange and blending of romantic beauty and comic drollery. The lost Princess and the heir-apparent of Bohemia, two of the noblest and loveliest beings that ever fancy conceived, occupy the centre of the picture, while around them are clustered rustic shepherds and shepherdesses amid their pastimes and pursuits, the 2 That is, makes, her blush; which is caused by a flow of blood to the face. FLORIZEL AND PERDITA. 17 whole being enlivened by the tricks and humours of a merry pedler and pickpocket. For simple purity and sweetness, the scene which unfolds the loves and characters of the Prince and Princess is not surpassed by any thing in Shakespeare. Whatsoever is enchanting in romance, lovely in innocence, elevated in feeling, and sacred in faith, is here concentrated; forming, all together, one of those things which we always welcome as we do the return of Spring, and over which our feelings may renew their youth for ever. So long as flowers bloom and hearts love, they will do it in the spirit of this scene. It is a pastoral frolic, where free thoughts and guileless hearts rule the hour, all as true and as pure as the tints and fragrances with which field and forest and garden have beautified the occasion. The neighbouring swains and lasses have gathered in, to share and enhance the sport. The old Shepherd is present, but only as a looker-on, having for the nonce resigned the command to his reputed daughter. Under their mutual inspiration, the Prince and Princess are each in the finest rapture of fancy, while the surrounding influences of the rustic festival are just enough to enfranchise their inward music into modest and delicate utterance. He has tastefully decked her person with flowers, till no traces of the shepherdess can be seen, and she seems herself a multitudinous flower; having also attired himself" with a swain's wearing," so that the prince is equally obscured. Perdita, notwithstanding she occupies so little room in the play, fills a large space in the reader's thoughts, almost disputing precedence with the Queen. And her mother's best native qualities reappear in her, sweetly modified by pastoral associations; her nature being really much the same, only it has been developed and seasoned in a different atmosphere; a nature too strong indeed to be displaced by any power of circumstances or supervenings of art, but at the same time too delicate and susceptive not to take a lively and lasting impress of them. So that, while she has thoroughly assimilated, she nevertheless clearly indicates, the food of place and climate, insomuch that the dignities of the princely and the simplicities of the pastoral character seem striving which shall express her goodliest. We can hardly call her a poetical being; she is rather poetry itself, and every thing lends and borrows beauty at her touch. A playmate of the flowers, when we see her with them, we are at a loss whether they take more inspiration from her or she from them; and while she is the sweetest of poets in making nosegays, the nosegays become in her hands the richest of crowns. If, as Schlegel remarks, the Poet is "particularly fond of showing the superiority of the innate over the acquired," he has surely nowhere done it with finer effect than in this unfledged angel. There is much to suggest a comparison of Perdita and Miranda ; yet how shall I compare them? Perfectly distinct indeed as individuals, still their characters are strikingly similar; only Perdita has perhaps a sweeter gracefulness, the freedom, simplicity, and playfulness of nature being in her case less checked by external restraints; while Miranda carries more of a magical and mysterious charm woven into her character from the supernatural influences of her whereabout. So like, yet so different, it is hard saying which is the better of the two; or rather, one can hardly help liking her best with whom he last conversed. It is an interesting fact also, for such it seems to be, that these two glorious delineations were produced very near together, perhaps both the same year; and this too when Shakespeare was in his highest maturity of poetry and wisdom; from which it has been not unjustly argued that his experience both in social and domestic life must have been favourable to exalted conceptions of womanhood. Be that as it may, with but one great exception, I think the world now finds its best ideas of moral beauty in Shakespeare's women. Florizel's character is in exquisite harmony with that of the Princess. To be sure, it may be said that if he is worthy of her, it is mainly her influence that makes him so. But then it is to be observed, on the other hand, that as in such cases men find only what they bring the faculties for finding, so the meeting with her would not have elicited such music from him, had not his nature been originally responsive to hers. For he is manifestly drawn and held to her by a powerful instinct of congeniality. And none but a living abstract and sum-total of all that is manly could have so felt the perfections of such a woman. The difference between them is, that she was herself before she saw him, and would have been the same without him; whereas he was not and could not be himself, as we see him, till he caught inspiration from her. Neverthe TWO KINDS OF PHILOSOPHY. 19 less it is a clear instance of the pre-established harmony of souls: but that his spirit were akin to hers, he could not have recognized his peer through such a disguise of circumstances. For any one to be untouched and unsweetened by the heavenly purity of their courtship, were indeed a sin almost too great to be forgiven. TWO KINDS OF PHILOSOPHY. THE elder Daniel now stroked his forehead, and, looking mildly but seriously at the boy, addressed him thus: 66 'Daniel, there are two sorts of men in all ranks and ways of life, the wise and the foolish; and there are a great many degrees between them. That some foolish people have called themselves philosophers, and some wicked ones, and some who were out of their wits, is just as certain as that persons of all these descriptions are to be found among all conditions of men. "Philosophy, Daniel, is of two kinds; that which relates to conduct, and that which relates to knowledge. The first teaches us to value all things at their real worth, to be contented with little, modest in prosperity, patient in trouble, equal-minded at all times. It teaches us our duty to our neighbours and ourselves. It is the wisdom of which King Solomon speaks in our rhymebook. "The philosophers of whom you have read in the Dictionary possessed this wisdom only in part, because they were heathens, and therefore could see no further than the light of mere reason sufficed to show the way. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and they had not that to begin with. So the thoughts which ought to have made them humble produced pride; and so far their wisdom proved but folly. The humblest Christian who learns his duty, and performs it as well as he can, is wiser than they. He does nothing to be seen of men; and that was their motive for most of their actions. "Now for the philosophy which relates to knowledge. Knowledge is a brave thing. I am a plain, ignorant, untaught man, and know my ignorance. But it is a brave thing, when we look around us in this wonderful world, to understand something of what we |