33 and how pretty is old Lafeu's enthusiasm for her! Let those, too, who blame her, notice her drawing back for the time on Bertram's declaring he can't love her and won't try to (ii. 3. 144). Thenceforward she is passive in the king's hands. It is he for his honour's sake who bids Bertram take her; and after the young noble's seemingly willing consent, she must have been more than woman to refuse to marry the man whom she knew her love alone could lift from the mire in which he was willingly wallowing. They are wedded; and the foolish husband takes counsel of his fool and leaves his wife; and then, without the kiss she asks so prettily for, he sends her home. What she has thenceforth to do she tells us: "Like timorous thief most fain would steal What law does vouch mine own." How little like a triumph, and possession of her love! Her husband's brutal letter does but bring into higher relief her noble unselfishness and love for him. Her only desire is to save him. She knows the urgence of his "important blood," and takes advantage of it to work a lawful meaning in a lawful act, and so without disgrace fulfils the condition that his baseness has made precedent to his reunion with her. For Bertram, the question one is obliged to ask is, How came the son of such a father and such a mother to be what he was? Seeing him even with Helena's eyes, what has he to recommend him but his good looks? good quality of him comes out in the play? age alone. Of moral courage he has none. is, a fool, unable to judge men, lustful, a liar, and a sneak. One thing he has to pride himself in, his noble birth, and that does not save him from being a very snob. He lies like Parolles himself, and even more basely, when he wants to get out of a scrape. I cannot doubt that it was one of Shakspere's objects in this play to show the utter worthlessness of pride of birth, as he had done in Love's Labours Lost C What other Physical courHeadstrong he 34 of wit, unless beneath the noble name was a noble soul. As Berowne had to be emptied of the worthless wit he prided himself upon, so had Bertram of his silly aristocraticness, his all, before he could be filled with the love of the lower-born lady of God's own make, which should lift him to his true height. With a word for the countess who, as Mrs. Jameson says, "is like one of Titian's old ladies, reminding us still amid their wrinkles of that soul of beauty and sensibility which must have animated them when young;" with a kindly glance at the shrewd, warm-hearted, true, and generous old Lafeu, we take our leave of the last play of Shakspere's delightful Second Period, whose sunshine has gradually clouded to prepare us for the coming storm. SCENE I. Rousillon. The Countess's Palace. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black. Countess. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. Bertram. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew; but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection. Lafeu. You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, |