it ever: when you sing,
I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function. Each your doing is
So singular in each particular,
Crowning what you have done i' the present deed,
That all your acts are queens.

_Perdita_. O Doricles!
Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
And the true blood that peeps so fairly through 't,
Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You woo'd me the false way.

_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.

_Polix_. This is the prettiest low-born 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.

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

_Polix_. 'Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
Which dances with your daughter?

_Shep_. They call him Doricles; and boasts himself
To have a worthy feeding: I but have it
Upon his own report, and I believe it;
He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter:
I think so too; for never gaz'd the Moon
Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read,
As 't were, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain,
I think there is not half a kiss to choose
Who loves another best.

_Polix_. She dances featly.

_Shep_. So she does any thing, though I report it,
That should be silent."

Perdita, notwithstanding she occupies so little room in the play,
fills a large space in the reader's thoughts, almost disputing
precedence with the Queen. And her mother's best native qualities
reappear in her, sweetly modified by pastoral associations; her nature
being really much the same, only it has been developed and seasoned in
a different atmosphere; a nature too strong indeed to be displaced by
any power of circumstances or supervenings of art, but at the same
time too delicate and susceptive not to take a lively and lasting
impress of them. So that, while she has thoroughly assimila