Dia.

I never gave it him. Laf. This woman is an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at pleasure.

King. This ring was mine; I gave it his first wife. Dia. It might be yours, or hers, for aught I know. King. Take her away, I do not like her now; To prison with her and away with him.

Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring Thou diest within this hour.

Dia.

King. Take her away.

I'll never tell you.

Dia.
King. I think thee now some common customer.
Dia. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
King. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this

I'll put in bail, my liege.

while?

Dia. Because he's guilty, and he's not guilty: He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to 't: I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not. Great King, I am no strumpet, by my life; I am either maid, or else this old man's wife. [Pointing to Lafeu. King. She does abuse our ears; to prison with

The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abus'd me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him.
He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd,

And at that time he got his wife with child :

Dead though she be, she feels the young one kick; So there's my riddle, One that's dead is quick;

And now behold the meaning.

King.

Enter Widow, with HELENA.

Is there no exorcist

Beguiles the true office of mine eyes?

Is't real that I see?

Hel.

No, my good lord;

'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see;

The name, and not the thing.

Ber.

Both, both; O, pardon! Hel. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring, And, look you, here's your letter: This it says,

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When from my finger you can get this ring, And are by me with child," &c. - This is done : Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?

Ber. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,

I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

Hel. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you! O, my dear mother, do I see you living?

Laf. Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon: [TO PAROLLES.] Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkerchief. So; I thank thee: wait on me home; I'll make sport with thee. Let thy court'sies alone, they are scurvy ones.

King. Let us from point to point this story know, To make the even truth in pleasure flow:

[To DIANA.] If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,

Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess, that, by thy honest aid,
Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
Of that and all the progress, more and less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express:

All yet seems well; and, if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

[Advancing.]

[Flourish.

The King's a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,

That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day :
Ours be your patience, then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

[Exeunt.

NOTES ON ALL'S WELL THAT

ENDS WELL.

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ACT FIRST.

SCENE I.

to whom I am now in ward":- By a feudal custom, often alluded to in old writers, the infant heirs of titles and estates which had been granted or confirmed by the crown, in consideration of any kind of service, were wards of the King, who exercised a power quite absolute over them, even to giving them in marriage.

"You shall find of the King a husband": -' - This purely French construction is noteworthy. It is a literal rendering of the French idiom, Vous trouverez de le Roi un mari. Had the Scene and characters of the play an influence in producing it?

66— rather than lack it": - Theobald, on Warburton's suggestion, read "slack it." This is plausible, but needless; for it is quite in Shakespeare's manner to use 'lack' transitively.

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would have made Nature immortal": - In this sentence there is no nominative for would' expressed; but it,' referring to skill,' is so clearly impressed upon the mind as the subject, that the grammatical need is not noticed except upon particular observation. The nominative was frequently omitted in such cases by our earlier writers. Mr. Singer prints "'twould."

"A fistula, my lord": - The nature of the disease which Helena cured appears more fully in the novel than in the play. This is the corresponding passage in the former: "She heard by reporte that the Frenche Kyng had a swellyng upon his breast, whiche by reason of ill cure, was growen to be a fistula, which did putte him to marvellous pain and grief," &c.

66—

VOL. V.

in her they are the better for their simpleness": (113)

H