This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne.* -They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love

*Seriously carried on.

come from her; they say, too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection.-I did never think to marry:— I must not seem proud :-happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous;-'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me;-by my troth, it is no addition to her wit;-nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage :-but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice: by this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.

FAVOURITES COMPARED TO HONEYSUCKLES.

Bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it.

A VILLAIN TO BE NOTED.

Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes;

That when I note another man like him,

Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about

Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

COUNSEL OF NO WEIGHT IN MISERY.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve: give not me counsel:
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear,

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Bring me a father that so loved his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine,
And bid him speak of patience;

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain;
As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form :
If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Cry-sorrow, wag! and hem, when he should groan;
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man: for, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow :
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,

To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself: therefore give me no counsel,
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

Dost thou love pictures; we will fetch thee straight Adonis painted by a running brook:

And Cytherea all in sedges hid;

Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

WOMAN'S TONGUE.

Think you, a little din can daunt mine ears?

Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,
Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat ?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies ?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard

Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue;
That gives not half so great a blow to the ear,
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?

E

THE MIND ALONE VALUABLE.

For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich:
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
To honour peereth* in the meanest habit.

What is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?

Or is the adder better than the eel,

Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.

Fie, fie

THE WIFE'S DUTY TO HER HUSBAND.

unknit that threatening, unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty, as frosts bite the meads;
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds;
And in no sense is meet, or amiable.

A woman moved, is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body

To painful labour, both by sea and land;

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;-
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;

Appeareth.