PREFACE

ALL needful information in regard to the scope and design of this Edition may be found on p. 439 of the Appendix.

The Text is that of the FIRST FOLIO, as accurately reproduced as a comparison almost letter by letter can make it.

There are many passages in SHAKESPEARE whereon it is desirable to have notes demanding no profundity of antiquarian research or archæological knowledge on the part of the annotator, but requiring solely keenness of intellect with clearness of thought or of expression. On such passages there cannot be, speaking for myself, too many notes nor too much discussion, provided only that we are fortunate enough to conjure into the circle such minds as DR JOHNSON'S, or COLERIDGE'S, HAZLITT's, CAMPBELL'S, CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S, MRS JAMESON's, or CHARLES LAMB'S; or can summon to our aid the traditions of GARRICK, or of KEAN, or of MRS SIDDONS; or listen to MRS KEMBLE or to LADY MARTIN. Indeed, the professions of 'love' and admiration' for SHAKESPEARE from those who can turn aside from such nights and feasts of the gods are of doubtful sincerity. At the same time, to be perfectly fair, it must be confessed that we read our SHAKESPEARE in varying moods. Hours there are, and they come to all of us, when we want no voice, charm it never so wisely, to break in upon SHAKESPEARE's own words. If there be obscurity, we rather like it; if the meaning be veiled, we prefer it veiled. Let the words flow on in their own sweet cadence, lulling our senses, charming our ears, and let all sharp quillets cease. When AMIENS's gentle voice sings of the winter wind that its 'tooth is not so keen because it is not seen,' who of us ever dreams, until wearisome commentators gather mumbling around, that there is in the line the faintest flaw in 'logical sequence'? But this idle, receptive mood does not last for ever. The time comes when we would fain catch every ray of light

flashing from these immortal plays, and pluck the heart out of every mystery there; then, then, we listen respectfully and gratefully to every suggestion, every passing thought, which obscure passages have stirred and awakened in minds far finer than our own. Then it is that we welcome every aid which notes can supply, and find, too, a zest in tracing the history of Shakespearian Comment from the condescending, patronising tone of the early critics toward the 'old bard,' with WARBURTON'S cries of 'rank nonsense,' to the reverential tone of the present day.

It has been a source of entertainment, in this present play of As You Like It, to note, what I think has been but seldom noted, the varied interpretations which the character of JAQUES has received. With the sole exception of HAMLET, I can recall no character in SHAKESPEARE of whom the judgements are as diverse as of this 'old gentleman,' as AUDREY calls him. Were he really possessed of all the qualities attributed to him by his critics, we should behold a man both misanthropic and genial, sensual and refined, depraved and elevated, cynical and liberal, selfish and generous, and finally, as though to make him still more like HAMLET, we should see in him the clearly marked symptoms of incipient insanity. Indeed, so mysterious and so attractive is this character that, outside of England at least, JAQUES has often received a larger share of attention than even ROSALIND. So completely did he fascinate GEORGE SAND that in her version of the play for the French stage JAQUES is the guiding spirit of the whole drama, and is represented, by her, as so madly in love with CELIA that in a fit of jealousy he is only with difficulty restrained from fighting a duel with ORLANDO, and the curtain falls on the prettiest of ring-times between him and his adoration.

If all degrees of surprise had not been, for me, long ago exhausted concerning SHAKESPEARE, not alone at the poet himself, but at every circumstance howsoever connected with him, I should be inclined to wonder that the students of Anthropology, instead of adopting various standards, such as Facial Angles, Craniological Measurements, and the like, had not incontinently adopted one of SHAKESPEARE'S comedies as the supreme and final test in determining nationality, at least as between the Gallic, the Teutonic, and the Anglosaxon races. I suggest a comedy as the test rather than a tragedy, because in what is tragic the whole world thinks pretty much alike; a fount of tears is

in every human breast, and the cry of pain is sure to follow a wound. We are all of us like BARHAM's Catherine of Cleves, who

didn't mind death, but she couldn't stand pinching;'

it makes no difference whether the unshunnable outcry is in French, or German, or English, the key-note is the same in all. But in Comedy it is far different. We may all cry, but we do not all laugh; and when we laugh, we are by no means all tickled by the same straw. And it is just here wherein the difference of nationality or race consists. THEOPHILE GAUTIER, in the short but good Preface to his translation of Münchhausen, has admirably explained the cause of this difference: Le génie des peuples,' he says, 'se révèle surtout dans la plaisanterie. Comme les œuvres sérieuses chez toutes les nations ont pour but la recherche du beau qui est un de sa nature, elles se ressemblent nécessairement davantage, et portent moins nettement imprimé le cachet de l'individualité ethnographique. Le comique, au contraire, consistant dans une déviation plus ou moins accentuée du modèle idéal, offre une multiplicité singulière de ressources; car il y a mille façons de ne pas se conformer à l'archétype.'

The beaded bubbles winking at the brim' of English wit may, therefore, be to German eyes merely insipid froth to be lightly blown aside.

Hence it is that such a sparkling comedy as this of As You Like It may be made to yield the test I have spoken of. It is through and through an English comedy, on English soil, in English air, beneath English oaks; and it will be loved and admired, cherished and appreciated, by English men as long as an English word is uttered by an English tongue. Nowhere else on the habitable globe could its scene have been laid but in England, nowhere else but in Sherwood Forest has the golden age, in popular belief, revisited the earth, and there alone of all the earth a merry band could, and did, fleet the time carelessly. England is the home of As You Like It, with all its visions of the Forest of Arden and heavenly ROSALIND; but let it remain there; never let it cross 'the narrow seas.' No Forest of Arden, 'rocking on its towery top, all throats that gurgle sweet,' is to be found in the length and breadth of Germany or France, and without a Forest of Arden there can be no ROSALIND. No glimpses of a golden age do German legends afford, and time, of old in Germany, was fleeted carelessly only by 'bands of gypsies.' Such a life as ROSALIND led in the Forest, which all English-speaking folk accept without a

thought of incongruity, is to the German mind wellnigh incomprehensible, and refuge is taken, by some of the most eminent Germans, in explanations of the 'Pastoral drama,' with its 'sentimental unrealities' and 'contrasts,' or of SHAKESPEARE'S intentional 'disregard of dramatic use and wont,' &c. &c. ROSALIND ceases to be the one central figure of the play, her wit and jests lose all prosperity in German ears, and Germans consequently turn to JAQUES and to TOUCHSTONE as the final causes of the comedy and as the leading characters of the play. The consequence is that this almost flawless chrysolite of a comedy, glittering with ROSALIND'S brightness and reflecting sermons from stones and glowing with the good in everything, becomes, as seen through some German eyes, the almost sombre background for SHAKESPEARE'S display of folly; nay, one distinguished German critic goes so far as to consider the professional Fool as the most rational character of all the Dramatis Persona. Indeed, it is to be feared that of some of the German criticisms on this comedy it may be truthfully said, that were the names of the characters omitted to which these critics refer, it would be almost impossible to discover or to recognise which one of all SHAKESPEARE's plays is just then subjected to analysis; so difficult is it for an alien mind to appreciate this comedy of As You Like It.

Stress has been laid in these later days on the Chronological Order in which SHAKESPEARE wrote his plays, and attempts have been made to connect their tragic or their comic tone with the outward circumstances of Shakespeare's own life; it has been assumed that, in general, he wrote tragedies when clouds and darkness overshadowed him, and comedies when his outer life was full of sunshine.

For my part, I believe that SHAKESPEARE wrote his plays, like the conscientious playwright that he was, to fill the theatre and make money for his fellow-actors and for himself; and I confess to absolute scepticism in reference to the belief that in these dramas SHAKESPEARE'S self can be discovered (except on the broadest lines), or that either his outer or his inner life is to any discoverable degree reflected in his plays it is because SHAKESPEARE is not there that the characters are so perfect,-the smallest dash of the author's self would mar to that extent the truth of the character, and make of it a mask.

But assuming, for the nonce, that this belief of recent days is well grounded, and that from the tone of his dramas we may infer the experiences of his life, I cannot but think that it is an error to infer

from his tragedies that his life was certainly sad, or that because his life was sad we have his tragedies. Surely, it was not then, when his daily life was overcast with gloom, and he was 'troubling deaf Heaven with his bootless cries,' that he would turn from real to write fictitious tragedies. Do we assuage real tears with feigned ones? From an outer world of bitter sorrow SHAKESPEARE would surely retreat to an inner, unreal world of his own creation where all was fair and serene; behind that veil the stormy misery of life could be transmuted into joyous calm. If, therefore, this belief of recent days be true, it was, possibly, from a life over which sorrow and depression brooded that there sprang this jocund comedy of As You Like It.

The extracts from KREYSSIG, who, of all German commentators, seems to have best caught the spirit of this play, have been translated for me by my Father, the REV. DR FURNESS, to whom it is again my high privilege and unspeakable pleasure to record my deep and abiding thanks.

February, 1890.

H. H. F.