from John, and then will come to France the opportunity of gain. So the Act ends with the murder of Arthur, who represents the cause of right and the true spirit of love and innocence, planned by John, and anticipated by those who had called themselves his champions, with equal relish, there being on each side arguments of Commodity.

In the Fourth Act the touching scene between Hubert and Arthur brings into clearest light the true royalty of life, as it is in every soul that can enter the kingdom of God as one of these little ones. The words of Arthur breathe still a childlike innocence and the pure spirit of love.

When the nobles ask liberty for Arthur, are told of his death, and turn from John to become rebels, inviting aid from France, Commodity has tempted them to bring the common enemy into their country for their own advantage in domestic feud. John repents of a murder that has not brought him the expected gain; but when he learns that Arthur lives, his first thought is not of a conscience relieved. Commodity points instantly to the advantage to be got, and his cry is—

"Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers:
Throw this report on their incensed rage,

And make them tame to their obedience."

Arthur falls in attempting his escape from prison walls, and the true royalty lies bleeding on the stones. He is found dead by the peers, who are deaf, therefore, to John's plea.

In the Fifth Act, Commodity brings John to humble yielding of his crown into the Pope's hand, that he may receive it again from Pandulph, and gain thereby the influence of Pandulph in staying the invasion by the French, in league with the rebellious English lords. The breath that blew the coal wants power to quench the fire. War is a-foot. The Dauphin and the French join with the English nobles, and swear league before the altar at Bury St. Edmunds. Their battle is half won, when the English learn that the oath was, for commodity, unsworn by the French within the hour when it was sworn. Before they left that altar, the French had vowed that the rebellious nobles should not live a day beyond the victory they helped to win, since traitors to one sovereign could not be trusted by another. The nobles change their side, and change the issue of the conflict. But Commodity had suggested to a monk a great advantage to the Church in putting out of the way a monarch who found it expedient to plunder churches. At last, therefore, in the person of a monk, Commodity destroys King John.

Thus it is that unity of design is to be found in the main structure and

in every detail of Shakespeare's work. Men false to their country make ill compacts with the enemy, looking only to the moment's fair show of expediency. So do men false to their conscience, in which the true self speaks. Right, for its own sake, is the aim of life, whatever the smoothfaced gentleman may say. And we may very easily translate the last lines of "King John" from the general into the particular; for

CHAPTER VI.

"THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA,' THE COMEDY OF ERRORS," "LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST."

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona."

"THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA" may have been Shakespeare's first original comedy. It is the first named in the list given by Meres, who follows it with "The Comedy of Errors" and "Love's Labour's Lost." These three certainly were earlier than the other comedies named in 1598. One or two of them, produced in 1591-92, would answer well to Henry Chettle's phrase, "facetious grace," associated with the writing of Shakespeare when, in his "Kind-hart's Dream," he expressed regret for having allowed, as Robert Greene's literary executor, a sneer against Shakespeare to be printed.

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona," which was among the first, if not the first, of Shakespeare's original plays, was first printed in the folio of 1623, the first edition of Shakespeare's collected works. It is there given as the second comedy in the collection, which does not attempt chronological order, and places "The Tempest" first. Theories have been formed that associate changes in the character of Shakespeare's plays with changes in the poet's temperament during the course of life. But there is no real change in the character of the plays except such as arises from the growth of power. In that respect the difference is very great between "King

Lear" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Shakespeare's view of life is the same throughout, and his method as a dramatist, from first to last, differs only by advance in thoroughness. Every play represents some problem of life and its solution. All through his plays we learn the spiritual rule of three, by which alone the problems of life can be solved Love God; love your neighbour; do your work. All through his plays we have evil shown as only overcome by good. When, as in "Romeo and Juliet," in "The Merchant of Venice," in "As You Like It," discords of human life are especially set forth, it is always to show Love as the healing power. Some suppose that "The Tempest " was Shakespeare's last play. Certainly, it was written after 1603. In "The Tempest" Prospero, robbed of his rule in Milan, and cast adrift upon the sea by his own brother in league with his inveterate enemy the King of Naples, uses magic power that would have sufficed to keep him independent of the world to reconcile it to himself. When he might revenge himself upon those who have done him wrong by sending them all to the bottom of the sea, he uses his art only to conquer hate with love, unite his daughter to the heir of Naples, and bring the king and others who had done him wrong to the repentance that is at once followed by full reconciliation. In that late, if not last, play, Prospero says of those who had done ill to him

"Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury

Do I take part. The rarer action is

In virtue, than in vengeance: they being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown farther."

In this early, if not first, play,
Verona," Proteus is unfaithful.

"The Two Gentlemen of He is false to his mistress

and false to his friend. At the close of the play, when he

has sunk lowest, he repents, and full forgiveness follows in

stantly:

"Proteus.

Valentine.

My shame and guilt confound me.-
Forgive me, Valentine. If hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,

I tender 't here: I do as truly suffer

As e'er I did commit.

Then I am paid;

And once again I do receive thee honest.

Who by repentance is not satisfied

Is nor of Heaven nor earth; for these are pleased;
By penitence the Eternal's wrath 's appeased.”

The unity preserved by Shakespeare in artistic treatment of each play is of a kind that also makes each play a part of a great whole. In Shakespeare's works we have the life of man set to right music. All the variety of life is there, and Shakespeare's music follows everywhere those laws of the best science of harmony which were set forth in the Sermon on the Mount.

The method is the same in Shakespeare's earlier and later plays, although with time and experience it gathers force. In "The Two Gentlemen of Verona " the theme is Constancy, Fidelity.

"O Heaven, were man

But constant, he were perfect: that one error

Fills him with faults; makes him run through all sins:
Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins."

Use is made even of the dog as a type of fidelity in fitting the clown's part to the play; but as the dog's fidelity to Launce could not be shown in the story, Shakespeare has put in place of it Launce's unflinching fidelity to his dog. He takes a whipping that should have gone to the dog: "How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on