DUM. A gallant lady! Monfieur, fare you well. [Exit. LONG. I befeech you, a word; What is the in the white?

BOYET. A woman fometimes, an you saw her in the light.

LONG. Perchance, light in the light: I defire her name.

BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to defire that, were a fhame.

LONG. Pray you, fir, whofe daughter?
BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.

LONG. God's bleffing on your beard! ♦
BOYET. Good fir, be not offended:
She is an heir of Falconbridge.

LONG. Nay, my choler is ended.

She is a moft fweet lady.

BOYET. Not unlike, fir; that may be.

[Exit LONG.

BIRON. What's her name, in the cap?

BOYET. Katharine, by good hap.

BIRON. Is the wedded, or no?

BOYET. To her will, fir, or so.

BIRON. You are welcome, fir; adieu!

BOYET. Farewell to me, fir, and welcome to you. [Exit BIRON. Ladies unmask. MAR. That laft is Biron, the merry mad-cap

lord;

4 God's bleffing on your beard!] That is, may'ft thou have fenfe and ferioufnefs more proportionate to thy beard, the length of. which fuits ill with fuch idle catches of wit. JOHNSON.

I doubt whether fo much meaning was intended to be conveyed by these words. MALONE.

Not a word with him but a jeft.

BOYET.

And every jeft but a word. PRIN. It was well done of you, to take him at his word.

BOYET. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to

board.

MAR. Too hot fheeps, marry !

BOYET.

And wherefore not ships?

No fheep, fweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.' MAR. You fheep, and I pasture; Shall that finish the jest?

BOYET. So you grant pafture for me.

MAR.

[Offering to kifs ber. Not fo, gentle beaft;

My lips are no common, though feveral they be."

unless we feed on your lips.] Our author has the fame expreffion in his Venus and Adonis :

"Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or on dale;

"Graze on my lips." MALONE.

My lips are no common, though feveral they be.] Several is an inclofed field of a private proprietor; fo Maria fays, her lips are private property. Of a lord that was newly married, one obferved that he grew fat; "Yes," faid fir Walter Raleigh," any beast will grow fat, if you take him from the common and graze him in the feveral." JOHNSON.

So, in The Rival Friends, 1632:

my fheep have quite difgreft

"Their bounds, and leap'd into the several."

Again, in Green's Difputation, &c. 1592: " rather would have mewed me up as a henne, to have kept that feverall to himself by force," &c. Again, in Sir John Oldcastle, 1600:

"Of late he broke into a severall

"That does belong to me."

Again, in Fenton's Tragical Difcourfes, 4to, bl. 1. 1597.-" he entered commons in the place which the olde John thought to be referved feverall to himself," p. 64. b. Again, in Holinfbed's Hift. of England, B. VI. p. 150,-" not to take and pale in the commons, to enlarge their feveralles." STEEVENS.

Borer. Belonging to whom?

MAR.

To my fortunes and me.

PRIN. Good wits will be jangling: but, gentles, agree:

My lips are no common, though feveral they be.] In Dr. Johnson's note upon this passage, it is said that SEVERAL is an inclofed field of a private proprietor.

Dr. Johnfon has totally mistaken this word. In the first place it should be spelled feverell. This does not fignify an inclosed field or private property, but is rather the property of every landholder in the parish. In the uninclofed parishes in Warwickshire and other counties, their method of tillage is thus. The land is divided into three fields, one of which is every year fallow. This the farmers plough and manure, and prepare for bearing wheat. Betwixt the lands, and at the end of them, fome little grafs land is interfperfed, and there are here and there fome little patches of green fwerd. The next year this ploughed field bears wheat, and the grafs land is preserved for hay; and the year following the proprietors fow it with beans, oats, or barley, at their difcretion; and the next year it lies fallow again; fo that each field in its turn is fallow every third year; and the field thus fallowed is called the common field, on which the cows and sheep graze, and have herdsmen and thepherds to attend them, in order to prevent them from going into the two other fields which bear corn and grafs. These last are called the feverell, which is not separated from the common by any fence whatever; but the care of preventing the cattle from going into the feverell, is left to the herdsmen and thepherds; but the herdsmen have no authority over a town bull, who is permitted to go where he pleases in the feverell. DR. JAMES.

Holinfhed's Defcription of Britain, p. 33, and Leigh's Accedence of Armourie, 1597, p. 52. fpell this word like Shakspeare. Leigh alfo mentions the town bull, and says, "all feverells to him are common." TOLLET.

My lips are no common, though feveral they be.] A play on the word feveral, which, befides its ordinary fignification of feparate, diftin, likewife fignifies in uninclofed lands, a certain portion of ground appropriated to either corn or meadow, adjoining the common field. In Minfheu's Dictionary, 1617, is the following article: "TO SEVER from others. Hinc nos pafcua et campos feorfim ab aliis feparatos Severels dicimus." In the margin he spells the word as Shakspeare does-feverels. Our author is feldom careful that his comparifons fhould anfwer on both fides. If feveral be under

The civil war of wits were much better ufed
On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.
BOYET. If my obfervation, (which very feldom
lies,)

By the heart's ftill rhetorick, difclofed with eyes,"
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

PRIN. With what?

BOYET. With that which we lovers intitle,affected. PRIN. Your reafon?

BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire

8

To the court of his eye, peeping thorough defire:
His heart, like an agate, with your print impreffed,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride expreffed:
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not fee,
Did ftumble with hafte in his eye-fight to be;
All fenfes to that fenfe did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair:
Methought, all his fenfes were lock'd in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for fome prince to buy ;

ftood in its ruftick fenfe, the adverfative particle ftands but awkwardly. To fay, that though land is feveral, it is not a common, feems as unjuftifiable as to affert, that though a houfe is a cottage, it is not a palace. MALONE.

By the heart's ftill rhetorick, difclofed with eyes,] So, in Daniel's Complaint of Rofalind, 1594:

"Sweet filent rhetorick of perfuading eyes;

"Dumb eloquence-." MALONE.

8 His tongue, all impatient to speak and not fee,] That is, his tongue being impatiently defirous to fee as well as speak. JOHNSON.

Although the expreffion in the text is extremely odd, I take the fenfe of it to be that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes, and frove to be as rapid in its utterance, as they in their perception. Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. STEEVENS.

To feel only looking-] Perhaps we may better read:
"To feed only by looking." JOHNSON.

Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they were glafs'd,

Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd. His face's own margent did quote fuch amazes,* That all eyes faw his eyes enchanted with gazes: I'll give you Aquitain, and all that is his,

An you give him for my fake but one loving kiss. PRIN. Come, to our pavilion: Boyet is difpos'd

BOYET. But to speak that in words, which his eye hath difclos'd:

I only have made a mouth of his eye,

By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st fkilfully.

MAR. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.

Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim.

BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?

2 His face's own margent did quote, &c.] In our author's time, notes, quotations, &c. were ufually printed in the exterior margin of books. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"And what obfcur'd in this fair volume lies,
"Find written in the margin of his eyes."

Again, in Hamlet : "I knew you must be edified by the margent."

MALONE.