* * * * *

Orlando is altogether such a piece of young-manhood as it does one good to be with.  He has no special occasion for heroism, yet we feel that there is plenty of heroic stuff in him.  Brave, gentle, modest, and magnanimous; never thinking of his high birth but to avoid dishonouring it; in his noble-heartedness, forgetting, and causing others to forget, his nobility of rank; he is every way just such a man as all true men would choose for their best friend.  His persecuting brother, talking to himself, describes him as “never school’d, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly beloved; and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised”; and this description is amply justified by his behaviour.  The whole intercourse between him and his faithful old servant Adam is replete on both sides with that full-souled generosity in whose eye the nobilities of Nature are always sure of recognition.

Shakespeare evidently delighted in a certain natural harmony of character wherein virtue is free and spontaneous, like the breathing of perfect health.  And such is Orlando.  He is therefore good without effort; nay, it would require some effort for him to be otherwise; his soul gravitating towards goodness as of its own accord:  “In his proper motion he ascends; descent and fall to him is adverse.”  And perhaps the nearest he comes to being aware of his virtue is when his virtue triumphs over a mighty temptation; that is, when he sees his unnatural brother in extreme peril;

    “But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
    And nature, stronger than his just occasion,”

made him risk his own life to save him; and even in this case the divine art of overcoming evil with good seems more an instinct than a conscious purpose with him.  This is one of the many instances wherein the Poet delivers the highest results of Christian discipline as drawing so deeply and so creatively into the heart, as to work out with the freedom and felicity of native, original impulse.

I must dismiss Orlando with a part of his tilt of wit with Jaques, as that very well illustrates the composition of the man: 

    “Jaq.  I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as
    lief have been myself alone.

    Orlan.  And so had I; but yet, for fashion’s sake, I thank you
    too for your society.

    Jaq.  God b’ wi’ you:  let’s meet as little as we can.

    Orlan.  I do desire we may be better strangers.

    Jaq.  I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in
    their barks.

    Orlan.  I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them
    ill-favouredly.

    Jaq.  Rosalind is your love’s name?

    Orlan.  Yes, just.