of Damon and Pythias (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iv. 31) the following passage occurs: 'Pythagoras said, that this world was like a stage, Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the sage The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to Cervantes has the same comparison in Don Quixote (part ii, cap. 12). We find in Arnold's Chronicle (ed. 1811), p. 157, quoted by Staunton : 'The vij. Ages of Mã liuing ī the World. The furst age is infancie and lastith from ye byrth vnto vij. yere of age. The ij. is childhod and endurith vnto xv. yere age. The iij. age is adholocencye and endurith vnto xxv. yere age. The iiij. age is youthe and endurith vnto xxxv. yere age. The v. age is manhod and endurith vnto 1. yere age. The vi. age is [elde] and lasteth vnto lxx. yere age. The vij. age of ma is crepill and endurith vnto dethe.' A good deal of the literature of this subject has been collected by Mr. Winter Jones, in an interesting paper which he published in the Archæologia (xxxv. 167–189) on a block print of the fifteenth century which is in the British Museum. The so-called verses of Solon, quoted by Philo, De opificio mundi, are there given, as well as the passage in which Philo attributes to Hippocrates the division of man's life into seven periods. In the Mishna (Aboth, V. 24) fourteen periods are given, and a poem upon the ten stages of life was written by the great Jewish commentator Ibn Ezra. The Midrash on Ecclesiastes i. 2 goes back to the seven divisions. The Jewish literature is very fully given by Löw in his treatise Die Lebensalter in der Jüdischen Literatur. Sir Thomas Browne devotes a chapter of his Vulgar Errors (iv. 12) to a consideration of the various divisions which have been proposed. Some verses of an early German poem on the ages of man's life are quoted by Mr. Winter Jones and illustrated by quaint woodcuts. The subject was one with which Shakespeare might have become familiar from many sources, and as an instance of one of the forms in which it is emblematically treated I would refer to the pavement of the Cathedral of Siena, of which a description is given by Professor Sidney Colvin in the Fortnightly Review for July 1875 (pp. 53, 4). After describing other portions he says, 'And then, about 1473, begins a period of immense activity. One little set of emblems in the south transept, defaced but singularly beautiful, belongs to this period, and differs strangely from all the other work done in it. The seven ages of man are shewn in single white figures set in squares or diamonds of black. These ages are not divided as usual: four divisions are given to the time before manhood, as if to draw out as much as possible that season when life is life indeed. There is no mewling and puking, nor any whining schoolboy: Infantia is a naked child playing among flowers; Pueritia an Italian boy in short cloak and cap walking in the fields; the season of youth is spun out, always among flowers, through Adolescentia and Juventus; manhood is not a soldier full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard, but a studious citizen walking with open book; Decrepitas moves, over a land flowerless at last, on crutches to his open grave.' I cannot conclude this Preface without especially mentioning a work which marks an era in Shakespeare literature, the Shakespeare Lexicon of Dr. Alexander Schmidt of Königsberg. My own obligations to it are too numerous to record, for I have used it constantly and always with advantage. It is a book which every real student of Shakespeare should have at hand. TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE, 2 October, 1876. W. A. WRIGHT. ADDITIONAL NOTE. III. 2. 243. The statement that 'moe' is used only with the plural requires a slight modification. So far as I am aware there is but one instance in Shakespeare where it is not immediately followed by a plural, and that is in The Tempest, v. I. 234 (first folio), 'And mo diversitie of sounds.' But in this case also the phrase 'diversity of sounds' contains the idea of plurality. AS YOU LIKE IT. DRAMATIS PERSONE. DUKE, living in banishment. FREDERICK, his brother, and usurper of AMIENS, lords attending on the banished LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Frede- CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar. WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with A person representing Hymen. JAQUES, sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. AUDREY, a country wench. ORLANDO, Lords, pages, and attendants, &c. SCENE: Oliver's house; Duke Frederick's court; and the Forest of Arden. ་ ACT I. SCENE I. Orchard of Oliver's house. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM. Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives B me, the something that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it. Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. 22 Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. Enter OLIVER. Oli. Now, sir! what make you here? Orl. Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. Oli. What mar you then, sir? Orl. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness. Oli. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile. 32 Orl. Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should come to such penury? Oli. Know you where you are, sir? Orl. O, sir, very well: here in your orchard. Oli. Know you before whom, sir? I know Orl. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is nearer to his reverence. Oli. What, boy! 46 Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this. |