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seek the most public and frequented place; but when you are there, desire to be alone, and permit neither friend nor stranger to associate with you; for these things are the ruin and destruction of power and empire."*

* Sale of Philosophers. Franklin's Translation.

289

WINTER'S TALE.

1611.

THE origin of the Winter's Tale is a novel, entitled, Dorastus and Fawnia, the work of one of Shakspeare's contemporaries, Robert Greene, a child of genius and misfortune.

Shakspeare's prevailing, and not the least singular, deviation from his authority, is his ascribing to the king of Bohemia circumstances which in the novel are related of the king of Sicily, and to the latter, the actions of the former.

Leontes, king of Sicily, is, according to Shakpeare married to the beautiful and virtuous Hermione, by whom he has one son. From his earliest youth he had maintained the closest intimacy with Polixenes, king of Bohemia, who, at the opening of the play, is about to conclude a visit

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to the Sicilian court. Leontes in vain solicits his friend to remain; the entreaties, however, of Hermione prevail, and Leontes is immediately jealous. The novel marks the growth of this passion in the king; in the play, it is instantaneous and uncontrollable, and Leontes commands Camillo, under pain of death, to infuse poison into the drink of Polixenes. The novel describes the king as intending also to destroy his wife but Camillo prevails on Leontes to restore her to favour on Polixenes being removed. The good Camillo unfolds the sanguinary purpose of his sovereign to Polixenes, and, as the only means of avoiding the vengeance of Leontes, they make their escape together to Bohemia.

The flight of Polixenes confirms Leontes in his unjust suspicions, and he hastens to the queen, whom he finds, as related in the novel, playing with her little son. He accuses her of infidelity, and of conspiring with Polixenes and Camillo. She is conveyed to prison, and there gives birth to a daughter. The king's rage is increased by this event: he brands the infant with the name of bastard, and orders it instantly to be burnt. The humane intercessions of his nobles prevail against so barbarous a determination, but one scarcely less cruel is adopted: with the forlorn hope of saving the infant's life, Anti

gonus, a courtier, consents to carry it to a desert place, remote from the Sicilian dominions, and there leave it,

"Without more mercy to its own protection,

And favour of the climate.”

In the novel, the king exposes the child in an open boat to the mercy of the winds and waves.

Another variation from the original story occurs in the conduct pursued towards the queen. Greene's tyrant resolves to burn both the mother and the child; but the queen's demand for an open trial is warmly seconded by the nobility, and the king prudently consents to send six of the nobility to the Isle of Delphos, to question the oracle of Apollo, respecting the queen's innocence or guilt. In the Winter's Tale, the embassy originates with Leontes himself:

"I have despatch'd in post,

To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know

Of stuff'd sufficiency: now, from the oracle
They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,
Shall stop, or spur me."

Leontes summons a session of his nobility for the reception of the ambassadors on their return,

"for, as she hath

Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have

A just and open trial."

The ensuing scene abounds with instances of the dramatist's close adherence to the sentiments and language of the novel, from which the following reply of the queen to the accusations against her is quoted:- "If the divine powers be privie to human actions, as no doubt they are, I hope my patience shall make fortune blush, and my unspotted life shall stayne spiteful discredit How I have lead my life before Egisthus' coming, I appeal, Pandosto, to the gods, and to thy conscience." Thus improved by Shakspeare:

"If powers divine

Behold our human actions, as they do,

I doubt not then, but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny

Tremble at patience.

I appeal

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
How merited to be so."

To which in Dorastus and Fawnia it is replied :-
"It is her part to deny such a monstrous
crime, and to be impudent in foreswearing the
fact, since she had passed all shame in commit-
ting the fault."

Shakspeare generalises this observation into

a maxim:

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