LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

WAS unquestionably written by Shakespeare not long after he commenced his career as a dramatist; but its exact date is uncertain. The quarto of 1598 (the earliest edition known) professes to give the play, "As it was presented before her Highness this last Christmas. Newly corrected and augmented."-Robert Tofte, in a poem called Alba, or the Months Minde of a Melancholy Lover, 1598, mentions it in terms which indicate that a considerable time had elapsed since he saw it acted;

"Love's Labour Lost! I once did see a play

Ycleped so, so called to my paine,

Which I to heare to my small joy did stay,

Giving attendance on my froward dame," &c.—

No novel, from which Shakespeare derived the incidents of this comedy, has been discovered: but Mr. Hunter (New Illust. of Shakespeare, i. 256) has pointed out a passage in Monstrelet's Chronicles, which appears to show that the original tale had an admixture of historic truth: "Charles King of Navarre came to Paris to wait on the King. He negociated so successfully with the King and Privy Council, that he obtained a gift of the castle of Nemours, with some of its dependent castle-wicks, which territory was made a duchy. He instantly did homage for it, and at the same time surrendered to the King the castle of Cherburgh, the county of Evreux, and all other lordships he possessed within the kingdom of France, renouncing all claims or profits in them to the King and to his successors, on condition that with the duchy of Nemours the King of France engaged to pay him two hundred thousand gold crowns of the coin of the King our lord." Johnes's trans., vol. i. 108. Compare the speech of the King in act ii. sc. 1;

"Madam, your father here doth intimate

The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;
Being but the one-half of an entire sum

Disbursed by my father in his wars."

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I.

SCENE I. A park, with a palace in it.

Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.

King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors,-for so you are,
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires,-
Our late edíct shall strongly stand in force :
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.

You three, Birón, Dumain, and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes

That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein:

If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.(1)

Long. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast: The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:

Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all these living in philosophy.

Biron. I can but say their protestation over;
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances:
As, not to see a woman in that term,—
Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
And one day in a week to touch no food,
And but one meal on every day beside,-
The which I hope is not enrollèd there;
And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day
(When I was wont to think no harm all night,
And make a dark night too of half the day),—
Which I hope well is not enrolled there:
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,-
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
Biron. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
I only swore to study with your grace,
And stay here in your court for three years' space.
Long. You swore to that, Birón, and to the rest.
Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study? let me know.

King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.
Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common

sense?

King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.
Biron. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,

To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus,-to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast(2) expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,

When mistresses from common sense are hid;

Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If study's gain be this, (3) and this be so,

Study knows that which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.

King. These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.

Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain : As, painfully to pore upon a book

To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile:
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save bare authority from others' books. (4)
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Too much to know, is to know naught but fame;
And every godfather can give a name.

King. How well he's read, to reason against reading!
Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
Biron. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breed-

That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

King. Birón is like an envious-sneaping frost,