Florizel.  I think you have
     As little skill to fear, as I have purpose
     To put you to’t.  But come, our dance, I pray. 
     Your hand, my Perdita:  so turtles pair,
     That never mean to part.

   Perdita.  I’ll swear for ’em.

   Polixenes.  This is the prettiest low-bom lass that ever
     Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does, or seems,
     But smacks of something greater than herself,
     Too noble for this place.

   Camillo.  He tells her something
     That makes her blood look out:  good sooth she is
     The queen of curds and cream.

This delicious scene is interrupted by the father of the prince discovering himself to Florizel, and haughtily breaking off the intended match between his son and Perdita.  When Polixenes goes out, Perdita says,

Even here undone!  I was not much afraid; for once or twice I was about to speak; and tell him plainly The self-same sun that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on’t alike.  Wilt please you, sir, be gone? [To Florizel.] I told you what would come of this.  Beseech you, Of your own state take care; this dream of mine, Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch further, But milk my ewes and weep.

As Perdita, the supposed shepherdess, turns out to be the daughter of Hermione, and a princess in disguise, both feelings of the pride of birth and the claims of nature are satisfied by the fortunate event of the story, and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest court-etiquette.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

All’s well that ends well is one of the most pleasing of our author’s comedies.  The interest is, however, more of a serious than of a comic nature.  The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy.  She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife:  yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated.  There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem.  Perhaps the romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when young Roussillon leaves his mother’s house, under whose protection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the French king’s court.

   Helena.  Oh, were that all—­I think not on my father,
     And these great tears grace his remembrance more
     Than those I shed for him.  What was he like? 
     I have forgot him.  My imagination
     Carries no favour in it, but Bertram’s. 
     I am undone, there is no living, none,
     If Bertram be away.