Le Beu, A Courtier attending on Frederick. Oliver, Eldeft Son to Sir Rowland de Boys, who 6 9 evidence which French adduces is sufficient, I think, to show that the name as a monosyllable was well known in Shakespeare's day. If more be needed in proof of this monosyllabic pronunciation it is settled beyond a peradventure by the coarse, unsavory anecdote with which Harington begins his Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596 (p. 17 of Singer's Reprint), which need not be repeated here; Halliwell's word and mine may be taken for the fact. Assuming, then, this monosyllabic pronunciation, I think it is not impossible to reconcile it with the passages where the metre demands two syllables by supposing that, like many other words, such as commandment (see II, vii, 115 post), England, children and the like, there can be, when needed, the subaudition of an extra syllable. The fact that Jaques was an old Warwickshire name takes it out of the rule which applies to foreign names, like Parolles. To me the evidence is conclusive that it was in general pronounced as a monosyllable, Jakes, and, when metre required it, there was, I believe, the suggestion of a faint, unemphatic second syllable. Having thus discerned the right, let us be human and the wrong pursue. The name Jakes is so harsh, and so indissolubly associated with the old time Bowery boys,' that surely the fervent hope may be pardoned that the name Jaques will never be pronounced other than Jaq-wes.—ED. 6. Le Beu] This is the uniform spelling in the Folio, except in the Stage direction, I, ii, 88, which reads Enter le Beau. 7. Rowland de Boys] FRENCH (p. 316): It is very probable that Shakespeare took the name of his knight from an old but extinct family of great note in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, whose memory was long preserved in the latter county, Sir Ernald or Arnold de Boys, Arnold being easily transposed to Roland, and thence we have Orlando. The manor of Weston-in-Arden was held by Sir Ernald de Boys, temp. Edw. I, paying yearly to the Earl of Leicester 'one hound called a Brache, and seven pence in money for all services.' There were four generations in succession of the lords of the manor of Weston-in-Arden, each of whom is called Sir Ernald de Bosco, or de Boys. 9. Jaques] To avoid confusion with the melancholy Jaques,' WIELAND changed this to Jakob. LE TOURNEUR adopted James in his Dramatis Persona, but by the time the Fifth Act was reached he had forgotten the substitution, and Jaques, not James, enters on the scene. It was Wieland, I am afraid, who started the custom in Germany, which has survived, I am sorry to say, even to the present hour, of translating, and of changing at will, the names of Shakespeare's characters. The infection spread even to that most admirable translator, François-Victor Hugo. Scarcely a play of Shakespeare's can be read in German wherein names with which we are all familiar from our childhood are not distorted and disguised beyond recognition, and however often they may occur in reading it is always an effort to recall the original. Who of us, however at home he may be in German, can recognize at first sight Frau Hurtig? or Schaal and Stille, or those two associates lost to everlasting redemption under the disguise of Holzapfel and Schleewein? Perhaps it may be urged that these Adam, an old Servant of Sir Rowland de Boys, Charles, A Wrefiler, and Servant to the Ufurping Duke Frederick. Touchstone, a Clown attending on Celia and Rosalind. Corin, Sylvius,} Shepherds. William, a Clown, in Love with Audrey. Sir Oliver Mar-text, a Country Curate. ΙΟ 15 17 names, in that they have a meaning, ought to be translated, and there might be some justice in the plea if that meaning were always a key to the character. But it is rarely so. The names are simply those of the lower orders, and to bear, originally, a meaning is characteristic of all such names; the meaning, however, had long before ceased to have any special connection with the present owner of the name. In the play before us, in the translation of Dr Alexander Schmidt and in that of Herwegh, the two most recent translators and among the very best, mention is made of Hannchen Freundlich; who would recognise under this disguise Touchstone's Jane Smile? Touchstone himself figures as Probstein, and Audrey is Käthchen; and they come near to be married by Ehren Olivarius Textdreher. Perhaps we should be grateful that we are not called upon to read the tragedy of Dörfchen, Prince of Denmark.' Would our German brothers relish the retaliation which should speak with delight of Glitter's 'Song of the Bell,' or of the tragedy of Faust and Peggie,' or, better still, 'Fist and Peg'? If this be wellnigh sacrilege, let them be gently reminded that our Shakespeare names have become a part of the language of our hearths and homes, and can be no more translated or changed than can the meaning at this late day be extracted from the Aztec name, America, and our country be referred to as The Hills. -ED. 17. Sir Oliver] JOHNSON: He that has taken his first degree at the University is in the academical style called Dominus, and in common language was heretofore termed Sir. This was not always a word of contempt; the graduates assumed it in their own writings; so Trevisa, the historian, writes himself Syr John de Trevisa. CRITICAL REVIEW (Dec. 1765, p. 409): Had Mr Johnson been more of an antiquarian, he would have been a much better editor of Shakespeare. He would then have known that this is no academical, but a pontifical style. The popes, not to be behindhand with our kings before the Reformation, arrogated to themselves a power of knighthood, both in England and Scotland; and the honour was sold by their legates or agents to churchmen who could pay for it, which great numbers did in both kingdoms. STEEVENS: We find the same title bestowed on many divines in our old comedies. NICHOLS: A clergyman, who hath not been educated at the universities, is still distinguished in some parts of North Wales by the appellation of Sir. Hence the Sir Hugh Evans in the Merry Wives is not a Welsh knight who hath taken orders, but only a Welsh clergyman without any regular degree from either of the universities. WRIGHT: The corresponding Latin' Dominus' still exists in the Cambridge Tripos lists in its abbreviated form Ds. Lords belonging to the two Dukes, with Pages, The SCENE lyes firft near Oliver's Houfe, and after- 25 17. Mar-text] NEIL (p. 45): Martext was perhaps employed during the Marprelate controversy as a satirical designation for one who could not be expected to give such expositions of Scripture as more learned vicars were able to do, with a soupçon of puritanical reference to 'blind leaders of the blind.' 18. Rosalind] FLETCHER (p. 200): Few readers may now be aware that Rosalinda is, in truth, a Spanish name, the adjective lindo or linda having no complete synonym in English, but expressing beauty in the most exalted, combined with the ordinary sense,-meaning, in short, exquisitely graceful, beautiful, and sweet. The analogy will at once be seen which the image of the graceful rose bears to the exquisite spirit of Rosalind, no less than to her buoyant figure in all its blooming charms. 21. Audrey] HALLIWELL: 'Audry, Sax., it seemeth to be the same with Etheldred, for the first foundresse of Ely church is so called in Latine histories, but by the people of those parts, S. Audry.'-Camden's Remaines, ed. 1629, p. 77. The name was occasionally used in Warwickshire in the time of Shakespeare. Anno 1603, the ix.th of May, Thomas Poole, and Audry Gibbes, were maried.'—Parish Register of Aston Cantlowe. Awdrey Turfe is one of the characters in Jonson's Tale of a Tub. As you Like it. Actus primus. Scana Prima. Enter Orlando and Adam. Orlando. SI remember Adam, it was vpon this fashion and 5 Dyce i, Sta. fashion,-he Dyce iii, 4. me by me. By Johns. me: By Steev. poore a] a poore F, a poor F,F, Rowe+, Cap. Var. Steev. Coll. Sing. Hal. 5. Crownes] Crowns FF. 'tis As you Like it] TIECK, in Schlegel's translation (vol. iv, p. 308) suggests that the title of this play, which may have been, he thinks, originally different, was adopted by Shakespeare as a playful answer either to Ben Jonson's boastfulness in the Epilogue to Cynthia's Revels, or else to his contempt for his audience expressed in the Induction to Every Man Out of his Humour. In the former, the Epilogue himself, at a loss to know how to characterise the play, bursts forth in the last line with, By — good, and if you like 't you may;' and in the latter, Asper, the poet, before he leaves the stage to take his part as an actor in the performance, says: 'Now I go To turn an actor, and a humorist, Where, ere I do resume my present person, We hope to make the circles of your eyes Flow with distilled laughter: if we fail, We must impute it to this only chance, Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance.' Whereto, according to Tieck, Shakespeare gives answer in the title to this play: 'As you like it, or, just as you please, it is a Comedy. Not in itself, but just as you, the spectators, choose to pronounce it by your approval.' This reference to Ben Jonson,' continues Tieck, 'can be discerned throughout the whole play by the attentive reader who is familiar with the times and with the works of the rival dramatists.' There seems to be no foundation for Tieck's surmise; he overlooked the date of Cynthia's Revels, which was first issued in 1601; and in Every Man Out of his Humour, Jonson in a foot-note expressly disclaims any specific allusions either to the author, that is, to himself, or to the actors. LLOYD, in Singer's edition, thinks that this title was given in the same spirit of idleness that pervades and informs so many of the scenes; 'it seems to Enter Orlando and Adam. reply carelessly to such a question as "How shall we entitle it?" asked by men who are fleeting the time after the fashion of the golden world. "Laud it as you like it," it seems to say, or “as you like it allow it," and this is the tenour of the epilogue of Rosalind, "I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of the play as pleases you," and so with little more strenuousness of exhortation it is left to its fate, that could not be other than a kind one.' In the Epistle Dedicatorie To the Gentlemen Readers,' Lodge, referring to his Novel, says: If you like it, so.' This phrase HALLIWELL surmises may have suggested to Shakespeare the title to the play; and WRIGHT thinks 'it can scarcely be doubted' that it is so. Even if we have to yield assent, as I suppose we must, surely a little fretting and fuming may be pardoned over this filching, as it were, from Shakespeare of the originality of this title. At any rate, the words were changed in the transfer, and As You Like It has a charm which to If You Like It is denied—a charm which Shakespeare infused into all the titles of his plays, affording therein a notable contrast to all his contemporaries. Furthermore, HALLIWELL says: Braithwait, however, in his Barnaby's Journal speaks of as you like it as a proverbial motto, and this seems more likely to imply the true explanation of the title of Shakespeare's play. The title of the comedy may, on this supposition, be exactly paralleled with that of Much Ado about Nothing. The proverbial title of the play implies that freedom of thought and indifference to censure which characterizes the sayings and doings of most of the actors in this comedy of human nature in a forest.' It is well to remember that Barnaby's Journal was not printed until 1648-50; in it 'drunken Barnaby' finds the shop where Officina juncta Baccho Juvenilem fere tobacco “Uti libet,” tunc signata, Quæ impressio nunc mutata, "Uti fiet," nota certa Quæ delineatur charta.' Which is thus translated: 'A shop neighboring near Iacco, Where Young vends his old tobacco: "As you Like it;" sometime sealed, Which impression's since repealed: "As you make it;" he will have it, And in chart and font engrave it.'-p. 57, ed. 1805.-ED. ་ 3. The abruptness of this opening sentence, and the need of a nominative to be understood before charged' have occasioned some discussion, and several emendations. WARBURTON pronounces the whole sentence as it stands' confused and obscure.' But the very small alteration in the reading and pointing' which he is about to give will 'set all right.' It is this:-'As I remember, Adam, it was upon this my father bequeathed me,' &c. The grammar,' continues Warburton, 'is now rectified and the sense also; which is this: Orlando and Adam were discoursing together on the cause why the younger brother had but a thousand crowns left him. They agree upon it; and Orlando opens the scene in this manner-"As I remember, it was upon this, i. e. for the reason we have been talking of, that my father left me but a thousand crowns; however, to make amends for this scanty provision, he charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well." This emendation CAPELL adopted with unwonted alacrity, and asserted (Notes, i, 54) that there never was one more certain; seeing that it is pointed out and confirm'd by the context in so plain a manner as to need no enforcing: The words "upon this" relate (probably) to some over-spirited action of Orlando's first youth, that displeas'd his father, and occasion'd the bequest that is spoken of, and the injunction concerning his breeding: a hint of it was proper; more than a hint had been injudicious, as being foreign to the business in hand.' 'There is,' says JOHNSON, 'nothing but a point misplaced and an omission of a word which every hearer can supply, and which therefore an abrupt and eager dialogue naturally excludes. I read thus: "As I remember, Adam, it was on this fashion bequeathed |