Dramatis Perfona. ME N. A DUXE, exiled from his dominions. AMIENS, JAQUES, A LORD, attending upon the Duke in his banish ment. OLIVER, eldest Son to Sir Rowland de Boys. ADAM, an old Steward of Sir Rowland de Boys. TOUCHSTONE, an Attendant on Celia and Rofalind, CORIN, an old Shepherd. SYLVIUS, a young one. WOMEN. ROSALIND, Daughter to the Duke. CELIA, Daughter to Frederick, his Brother, the Ufurper. AS YOU LIKE IT. ACTI, SCENE I, TH HIS Play begins with a reflection on the first, and I may add the principal, concern in life, the education of children. Men are often more fedulous in training the brutes of their kennels, their mews and their stables, than they feem to be about the heirs of their blood, their fortunes, or their honours. In fad truth may it be faid, that we feldom meet with a jockey, an huntsman, or a fportiman, who is half fo well-bred as his horfes, his hawks, or his hounds. Orlando, fpeaking of the unkindness of his elder brother and guardian, fays, For my part, he keeps me ruftically at home; or, to speak more properly, flies me here at home, unkept; for call you that keeping, for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the falling of an ox? His horfes are bred better; for befides 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 the animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Befides this Nothing that he fo plentifully gives me, the Something that Nature gave me his countenance feems 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. SCENE III. The laft fpeech, here, though it prefents us with no moral, I cannot pafs by without remarking, that it feems to be a perfect defcription of our author's own character. Oliver, fpeaking of Orlando, his younger brother, fays, Yet he's gentle; never fchooled, and yet learned; full of noble device; and of all forts enchantingly beloved • Mines, for undermines. F 3 SCENE SCENE IV. There are fome paffages very tender, generous, and affecting, in the first part of the dialogue between Rofalind and Celia, who had been bred up from their infancy in friendship together; the firft, daughter to the exiled Duke; and the other, child to his brother, the Ufurper. Celia. I pray thee, Rofalind, fweet my coz, be merry. Rejalind. Dear Celia, I fhew more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. Celia, Herein I fee thou loveft me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the Duke my father, fo thou hadft been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; and fo wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were fo righteously tempered, as mine is to thee. Rofalind. Well, I will forget the condition of my eftate, and rejoice in yours. Celia. You know, my father hath no child but me, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir; for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection-By mine honour, I will-And when I break that oath, let me turn monster-Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rofe, be merry. The fame fondness between them is repeated in the tenth Scene of the fame Act, upon Rofalind's being commanded to quit the dominions of the Ufurper. Cela. O my poor Rofalind, where wilt thou go? Cela. Thou haft not, coufin ; Prithee, be chearful knowest thou not, the Duke Refund. That he hath not. Clin. No? Hath not? Rofalind lacks then the love Whither |