This exquisite song reappears in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bloody Brother; where, however, it is accompanied by another stanza of almost equal beauty, which begins, as all will remember, "Hide, oh hide those hills of snow." Both stanzas are generally printed and quoted, as Shakespeare's; but there has been for nearly a hundred years a grave discussion among the critics as to the authorship of the song; and the point is not considered as decided yet. Some think that Shakespeare wrote both stanzas; others that only the first is his; and a few that he has no part in it. What is denied to him is given to Fletcher [or some forgotten lyric writer of Shakespeare's day]. Mr. Charles Knight, after stating the question as to who wrote the song, Shakespeare or Fletcher, and Malone's opinion that "all the songs in our author's plays appear to have been of his own composition," with Weber's conjecture that Shakespeare wrote the first stanza and Fletcher the second, says: "There is no evidence, we apprehend, external or internal, by which the question can be settled." The Rev. Alexander Dyce concludes a note upon the song, in his careful and scholarlike edition of Beaumont and Fletcher (Vol. X., p. 459,) by saying, "I am inclined to believe that it was from the pen of the great dramatist." Bishop Percy, on the contrary, sneers at Sewel and Gildon for attributing it to Shakespeare; and Mr. Collier says: "It may be doubted whether either stanza was the authorship of Shakespeare but his claim may perhaps be admitted until better evidence is adduced to disprove it." In spite of all this learned uncertainty and disagreement, the problem appears to me to be of easy solution by internal evidence. The song has such a peculiar and subduing beauty, that an examination of its structure can hardly fail to afford a greater and more aesthetic pleasure than the mere settlement of a point in criticism. It would seem either that the learned and lynx-eyed critics already mentioned, forgot that it was a song about which they were disputing, and a song, too, which was sung upon the stage, or else that there was no singer or musician among them. These verses were written for music; and the author of the stanza which appears in Measure for Measure so constructed his lines that the last phrase of the last two strains of the air to which it was sung, might be repeated. They are thus printed in the original folio, and in all subsequent editions of the play : "But my kisses bring again, bring again, Seals of love but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain." How touching, how full of pathos, the repetition! How skilfully adapted for musical effect ! It gives a tender, yearning sadness to the strain, without which the expression of deserted, heart-broken love would lack the last and most subtle expression of its pang. Now, if the writer of this stanza had written another, which Mariana is supposed to tell the boy not to sing, he must necessarily have constructed the last two lines of the second in a similar nanner; as every musician, or song writer, or singer knows. But the second stanza in the Bloody Brother is not so constructed. Here it is: "Hide, oh hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears,* Are of those that April wears; * As an example of the incomprehensible way in which absurd and inexplicable typographical errors creep into the text, it may interest the reader to know, that in the first edited edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's Works (8 vols., 8vo., 1711), this line is printed. And even if we allow that musical license will admit the repetition of "my poor heart free," which the sense would. require, we still find that the sense will not admit the division of "icy," and the repetition of "-y chains by thee" which the music would then require. Indeed there is no possible mode of singing the first stanza of this song, as it appears in Measure for Measure, to an air adapted to the second stanza; and, vice versa. Although, perhaps, only "Which thy frozen blossom bears." In the copy of the song set to Dr. Wilson's music, which will be referred to hereafter, and which was published more than half a century before, (1652), this same strange error also occurs; the line there being printed, "That thy frozen Blossome bears; " and yet there are several variations in other lines which show that the song published in the text of the edition of 1711 was not taken from this; and, consequently, that one error is not a mere perpetuation of the other. It also occurs in the folio of 1679; where, by the way, the last line is printed, "Bound in those Ivy chains by thee." In a copy of this folio once in my possession, this line was corrected in a handwriting contemporaneous with the volume, "Bound in those Ivory chains by thee," a reading which has as much of authority to support it as any one of these in Mr. Collier's second folio of Shakespeare. The frequently repeated error, -blossom for "bosom," does not occur in the original quarto, as I find by examination of a copy of that edition in Mr. Burton's rich collection of early dramatic literature. It seems strange that such a mistake should have crept into the folio edition of the play from a copy of the song set to music. those who know something of the manner in which the music and words of songs are adapted to each other, can feel the full force of this argument, to them it must be conclusive; and the point is one upon which there is no appeal from their decision. Shakespeare evidently wrote the first stanza, and some one else,-probably Fletcher, the second. To this demonstration, not the less conclusive because it does not address itself to all the readers of Shakespeare, there is to be added a moral certainty which can hardly fail of universal apprehension. Having been accustomed to see the two stanzas printed together, I had, in very early youth, thoughtlessly taken it for granted that both were addressed by a lover to his false mistress; and that impression was of course deepened by all that I ever heard or read about it. Such is the universal opinion as far as I know; but while musing over it one day, the conviction flashed upon me that though the second verse was written to a woman, the first was as unquestionably addressed by a woman to a man. Reflection upon the following italicised phrases must produce the same conviction in every mind. "Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; bring again, Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain." The tone of this entire stanza is that of a woman whose love has been betrayed, and who still loves,-as the Duke says of Mariana, who "hath still in her the continuance of her first affection." There is, with all the accusation of deliberate falsehood, a manifest upward looking, which is a peculiarity of woman's love, and which she does not entire ly lose, even if she be deserted by him who awakened it. Man, even supposing that he has this feeling under any circumstances, never has it for a woman who has been false to him. The beautiful likening of the eyes to "the break of day," is better suited to the light which beams from a countenance of manly beauty than to the softer and more tender, though not less brilliant glance of a woman. A woman would be very likely to say that her lover's eyes "mislead the morn;" but the figure is rather grand for a lover's address to his mistress. But this, however, is mere opinion upon generalities: let us reason from particulars. The person into whose mouth the lines are put, first entreats the person to whom they are addressed, to take away those lips that were forsworn. Plainly, those lips were masculine; for women do not swear love, they confess it; men swear their devotion. Besides, the lips are to be taken away: the kiss then was offered, not simply yielded or returned. But again the singer next says, bring again my kisses which were seals of love. Plainly, again, the kisses to be restored were feminine; for it is woman who gives a kiss as a seal of love. The process has formality and signification to her; while to man it is a dear delight, a ceremony, or a recreation, as the case may be the light in which he regards it being determined entirely by the sentiment which the woman has been able to inspire. To this proof that the two stanzas were written by different persons and with different motives, there is to be added a radical, though not very wide, difference in spirit between the stanzas. The first is animated purely by sentiment; the second, delicately beautiful as it is, is the expression of a man carried captive solely through his sense of beauty. The reproaches in the first, tell of regret for the love uttered by those "lips that so sweetly were forsworn," of a spell that yet lingers in "those eyes, |