[1] In this play the king says:-- "Ah, Tom, your former life greeves me, And makes me to abandon and abolish your company for ever, And therefore not upon pain of death to approach my presence By ten miles' space, then if I heare well of you, It may be I will do somewhat for you." In Shakespeare:-- "Till then I banish thee on pain of death As I have done the rest of my misleaders, Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life I will allow you." XXVIII _THE INTERVAL OF SERENITY--AS YOU LIKE IT--THE ROVING SPIRIT--THE LONGING FOR NATURE--JAQUES AND SHAKESPEARE--THE PLAY A FEAST OF WIT_ Never had Shakespeare produced with such rapidity and ease as in this bright and happy interval of two or three years. It is positively astounding to note all that he accomplished in the year 1600, when he stood, not exactly at the height of his poetical power, for that steadily increased, but at the height of his poetical serenity. Among the exquisite comedies he now writes, _As You Like It_ is one of the most exquisite. The play was entered in the Stationers' Register, along with _Much Ado About Nothing_, on the 4th of August 1600, and must in all probability have been written in that year. Meres does not mention it, in 1598, in his list of Shakespeare's plays; it contains (as already noted, page 36) a quotation from Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, published in 1598-- "Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?" a quotation, by the way, which sums up the matter of the comedy; and we find in Celia's words (i. 2), "Since the little wit that fools have was silenced," an allusion to the public and judicial burning of satirical publications which took place on the 1st of June 1599. As there does not seem to be room in the year 1599 for more works than we have already assigned to it, _As You Like It_ must be taken as dating from the first half of the following year.