We cannot refrain from picking out a sentence, here and there, in the critic’s admirable delineation of Portia. “Eminently practical in her tastes and turn of mind, full of native, home-bred sense and virtue, she unites therewith something of the ripeness and dignity of a sage, a rich, mellow eloquence, and a large, noble discourse, the whole being tempered with the best grace and sensibility of womanhood. . . Nothing can be more fitting and well-placed than her demeanor, now bracing her speech with grave maxims of moral and practical wisdom, now unbending her mind in playful sallies of wit, or innocent, roguish banter. . . . It is no drawback upon Portia’s strength and substantial dignity of character, that her nature is all overflowing with romance; rather, this it is that glorifies her and breathes enchantment about her; it adds that precious seeing to the eye which conducts her to such winning beauty and sweetness of deportment, and makes her the ‘rich-souled’ creature that Schlegel describes her to be.” The introductions to All’s Well that Ends Well, and The Taming of the Shrew, are replete with shrewd remark and acute analysis, but both are inferior to the criticism of As You Like It. The woodland sweetness of this play tasks all the subtlety and all the enthusiasm of Mr. Hudson to do it justice. An exquisite ideal beauty casts its sweet and satisfying charm over the whole of this matchless comedy, and we envy Shakspeare’s delight in its composition more than Campbell envied his happiness in bodying forth A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Even Le Beau, the courtier of Frederic, is an ideal courtier; on inborn gentlemanliness, of the finest kind, stealing out from him in performing his most ungracious duties. This character is commonly performed on the stage by the worst actor the manager has in his company, but we have always noticed that the feeblest performer became lifted into dignity by simply pronouncing one golden sentence in the first act. It is where Le Beau expresses at once his loyal duty to Frederic and his admiration for Orlando’s brave and gentle qualities. As his master has chosen to be Orlando’s enemy, he cannot obey his impulse to be Orlando’s friend, and his parting words to the latter are touchingly noble: “Sir, fare you well: Hereafter in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.”