neral happiness by rejoining
the husband who has so long mourned her.

Dr. Simon Forman, the first critic of this play, made note to "remember"
two things in it, "how he sent to the orakell of Appollo," and "also the
rog that cam in all tottered like Coll Pipci." He drew from it this
moral lesson, that one should "Beware of trustinge feined beggars or
fawninge fellouse."

The moral lesson is still of value to the world, and it is most
certainly one which Shakespeare strove to impress. Shakespeare's mind
was always brooding on the working of fate. He was always watching the
results of some obsession upon an individual and the people connected
with him. He saw that a blindness falling upon a person suddenly, for no
apparent reason, except that something strikes the something not quite
sound in the nature, has the power to alter life violently. It was his
belief that life must not be altered violently. Life is a thing of
infinitely gradual growth, that would perfect itself if the blindness
could be kept away. Any deceiving thing, like a passion or a feigned
beggar, is a cause of the putting back of life, indefinitely.

In this play, he followed his usual practice, of showing the results of
a human blindness upon human destiny. The greater plays are studies of
treachery and self-betrayal. This play is a study of deceit and
self-deception. Leontes is deceived by his obsession, Polixenes by his
son, the country man by Autolycus, life, throughout, by art. In the last
great scene, life is mistaken for art. In the first great scene a true
friendship is mistaken for a false love.

It may be called the gentlest of Shakespeare's plays. It is done with a
tenderer hand than the other works. The name, _A Winter's Tale_, is
taken from a scene in the second act. Hermione sits down with her son,
by the winter fire, to listen to his story. It is the last time she ever
sees her son. He has hardly opened his lips when Leontes enters to
accuse her of adultery. She is hurried off to prison, and Mamillius dies
before the oracle's message comes to clear her. The sudden shocks and
interruptions of life, which play so big a part in the action of these
late romances, have full power here. The winter's tale is interrupted.
The rest of the play results from the interruption. Much of it is very
beautiful. To us, the wonderful thing is the strangeness of the
tenderness which makes some scenes in the fifth act so passionate with
grief for old