was this

for me.

very sword entrenched it: say to him, I live; and observe his reports

2 LORD. We shall, noble captain.

PAR. Mars dote on you for his novices! [Exeunt Lords.] What will you do? BER. Stay; the king[Seeing him rise. PAR. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrained yourself within the list of too cold an adieu; be more expressive to them: for they wear themselves in the cap of the time; there, do muster true gait, eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most received star; and though the devil lead the measure such are to be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell.

BER. And I will do so.

PAR. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy swordsmen.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES.

Enter LAFEU.

LAF. Pardon, my lord [kneeling], for me and for my tidings.
KING. I'll see thee to stand up.

LAF. Then here's a man stands that has brought his pardon.
I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,
And that, at my bidding, you could so stand up?.
KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
And ask'd thee mercy for 't.

LAF. Good faith, across: But, my good lord, 't is thus ;
Will you be cur'd of your infirmity?

KING. NO.

LAF. O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?

Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if

My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a medicine,
That's able to breathe life into a stone;

Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary,

With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch

Is powerful to araise king Pepin, nay,

To give Great Charlemain a pen in 's hand

And write to her a love-line.

LAF. Why, doctor she; My lord, there's one arriv'd,

* See. So the original. In modern editions, fee. "I'll see thee to stand up" is, I'll notice you when you stand up.

b Profession-declaration of purpose.

HEL. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;
Knowing him is enough. On his a bed of death.
Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience the only darling,
He bad me store up, as a triple eye,

Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so:
And, hearing your high majesty is touch'd
With that malignant cause wherein the honour
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it, and my appliance,

With all bound humbleness.

KING.

We thank you, maiden;

But may not be so credulous of cure,

When our most learned doctors leave us; and

[Exit.

On his. The original has on's. Such elisions are not systematically made in the folio edition; and therefore we do not follow them when they occasionally occur. Shakspere himself has laughed at the practice of eliding verse, which he would imply is scarcely necessary, except for very unrhythmical ears: "You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent," says Holofernes, after Sir Nathaniel has read Biron's canzonet.

The congregated college have concluded.

That labouring art can never ransom nature
From her inaidable estate,-I say, we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady

To empirics; or to dissever so

Our great self and our credit, to esteem

A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
HEL. My duty then shall pay me for my pains:
I will no more enforce mine office on you;
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one, to bear me back again.
KING. I cannot give thee less to be call'd grateful :
Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give,
As one near death to those that wish him live:
But, what at full I know thou know'st no part;
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

HEL. What I can do can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy:
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
From simple sources; and great seas have dried,
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits,

Where hope is coldest, and despair most shifts.
KING. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;
Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid:
Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.
HEL. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:

It is not so with Him that all things knows,

As 't is with us that square our guess by shows:

Shifts. We print these three lines as in the original copy, and the subsequent ancient copies, Pope changed shifts to sits; and, as a rhyme seemed wanting, the correction has always been acquiesced in. Before we change a word we should ask if there is any necessity for change. Should we change shifts to sits, if the surrounding passages were in blank verse? We think not. The apparent necessity for rhyme has alone demanded the change. Expectation, says Helena, oft hits-is rewarded,-where hope is coldest, and where despair most shifts-resorts to expedients, depends upon chances, catches at straws. When Falstaff is "almost out at heels," he says, “I must shift." The shifts of despair often realize the promises of expectation. Why, then, should not the word stand? A rhyme, it is said, is required to hits. Is it so? Have we a rhyme to

this line

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there?"

The couplets are dropped; and we have three lines of blank verse. As well that as one line without a corresponding line.

But most it is presumption in us, when

The help of Heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent:
Of Heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;

But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power, nor you past cure.
KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop'st thou my cure?

HEL.

The greatest Grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;

Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp;
Or four-and-twenty times the pilot's glass a
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence,

What dar'st thou venture?

HEL.

Tax of impudence,

A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,-
Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise; norb worse of worst extended,
With vilest torture let my life be ended.

KING. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak;
His powerful sound within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay

In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life in thee hath estimate;
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, alle

That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
That ministers thine own death, if I die.
HEL. If I break time, or flinch in property

The pilot's glass must be a two-hour glass.

Nor. In the original ne, the old word for nor.

The line is usually printed—

Virtue was added by Warburton, "to supply a defect in the measure." This mode of emendation is most unsatisfactory. The King enumerates all the qualities which are apparent in Helenawhich she has displayed in her interview with him.

Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;

And well deserv'd: Not helping, death 's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me?

KING. Make thy demand.

HEL.

But will you make it even?

KING. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven a.
HEL. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,
What husband in thy power I will command:
Exempted be from me the arrogance

To choose from forth the royal blood of France ;
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state:
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,
Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd;
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust;
From whence thou cam'st, how tended on,- But rest
Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted blest.—
Give me some help here, hoa!-If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Clown.

COUNT. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. CLO. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court.

COUNT. To the court? why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt-But to the court?

it

CLO. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off 's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.

COUNT. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

CLO. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

COUNT. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

• Heaven. In the original, help. The rhyme requires the correction.