CLO. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

COUNT. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

CLO. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. COUNT. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands. CLO. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to 't: ask me if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.

COUNT. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer-I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?

CLO. O Lord, sir,—There's a simple putting off;—more, more, a hundred of them.

COUNT. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

CLO. O Lord, sir,-Thick, thick, spare not me.

COUNT. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
CLO. O Lord, sir,-Nay, put me to 't, I warrant you.
COUNT. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

CLO. O Lord, sir,-spare not me.

COUNT. Do you cry, "O Lord, sir," at your whipping, and "

spare not me?"

Indeed, your "O Lord, sir," is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to 't 10.

CLO. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my-“O Lord, sir:” I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.

COUNT. I play the noble housewife with the time,

To entertain it so merrily with a foola.

CLO. O Lord, sir,-Why, there 't serves well again.

COUNT. An end, sir: To your business: Give Helen this,

And urge her to a present answer back:

Commend me to my kinsmen, and my son;

This is not much.

CLO. Not much commendation to them.

COUNT. Not much employment for you: You understand me?

CLO. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.

COUNT. Haste you again.

[Exeunt severally.

These lines are ordinarily printed as prose, as they stand in the original. But we have no doubt that they were written as verse, to mark the change in the tone of the Countess.

This is generally printed, "An end, sir, to your business." The Countess means,-an end to this trifling; now to your business.

SCENE III.-Paris. A Room in the King's Palace.

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

LAF. They say, miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

PAR. Why, 't is the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.

BER. And so 't is.

LAF. To be relinquish'd of the artists,

PAR. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.

LAF. Of all the learned and authentic fellows,-
PAR. Right, so I say.

LAF. That gave him out incurable,—

PAR. Why, there't is; so say I too.

LAF. Not to be helped,

PAR. Right: as 't were a man assured of a—

LAF. Uncertain life, and sure death.

PAR. Just, you say well; so would I have said.

LAF. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.

PAR. It is indeed: if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in,-What

do you call there?

LAF. A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.

PAR. That's it: I would have said the very same.

LAF. Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me I speak in respect

PAR. Nay, 't is strange, 't is very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of

it; and he's of a most facinorous spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the

LAF. Very hand of Heaven.

PAR. Ay, so I say.

LAF. In a most weak

PAR. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should,

a

Coleridge has the following note on this passage ('Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 121): "Shakspere, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses the word 'causeless' in its strict philosophical sense; cause being truly predicable only of phenomena, that is, things natural, and not of noumena, or things supernatural." The sentence must be read with a pause after "familiar." The satire is directed against that scepticism which would render things beyond our reason com. mon and familiar, and explain away mysteries by "seeming knowledge."

What do you call there?—equivalent to "What d'ye call it."

• Steevens and Malone have a controversy on this passage. Steevens maintains that your dol phin means the dauphin-the heir-apparent of France. Malone, more rationally, contends that the allusion is to the gambols of the dolphin, and quotes the well-known passage from 'Antony and Cleopatra'-"His delights were dolphin-like."

indeed, give us a further use to be made, than alone the recovery of the king, as to be

LAF. Generally thankful.

Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants.

PAR. I would have said it; you say well.

Here comes the king.

I'll like a maid the better whilst I

LAF. Lustick, as the Dutchman says a:

have a tooth in my head: Why, he 's able to lead her a coranto.

PAR. Mort du Vinaigre! Is not this Helen?

LAF. 'Fore God, I think so.

KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.

[Exit an Attendant.

Enter several Lords.

Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel
Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,

O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
I have to use thy frank election make;

Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.
HEL. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when love please-marry to each—but one.
LAF. I'd give bay Curtal, and his furniture,

My mouth no more were broken than these boys',
And writ as little beard.

Heaven hath, through me, restor'd the king to health. ALL. We understand it, and thank Heaven for you.

HEL. I am a simple maid; and therein wealthiest,

That, I protest, I simply am a maid :—

Lustick. Capell has a valuable note on this passage, which is not found in any of the variorum editions: "An old play that has a great deal of merit, called 'The Weakest Goeth to the Wall' (printed in 1600, but how much earlier written, or by whom written, we are nowhere informed), has in it a Dutchman, called Jacob van Smelt, who speaks a jargon of Dutch and our language, and upon several occasions uses this very word, which in English is-lusty." Lustick is, more properly, gamesome. Lafeu uses it to express the King's renewed vigour.

But one-except one. She wishes each of the lords one fair and virtuous mistress, except one lord. She excepts Bertram, "whose mistress" (says M. Mason)" she hoped she herself should be; and she makes the exception out of modesty, for otherwise the description of a fair and virtuous mistress would have extended to herself."

Please it your majesty, I have done already :
The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,-
“We blush, that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
We'll ne'er come there again."

KING.

Make choice; and, see,

Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me. HEL. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly;

And to imperial Love, that god most high, Do my sighs stream.—Sir, will you hear my suit? 1 LORD. And grant it.

HEL.

Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

LAF. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for

HEL. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,

Before I speak, too threateningly replies:

Love make your fortunes twenty times above

Her that so wishes, and her humble love!

2 LORD. No better, if you please.

Which great Love grant! and so I take my leave.

my life.

LAF. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine, I'd have them whipped; or I would send them to the Turk, to make eunuchs of.

HEL. Be not afraid [to a Lord] that I your hand should take;

I'll never do you wrong for your own sake:

Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed

Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

LAF. These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her: sure they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got them.

HEL. You are too young, too happy, and too good,

To make yourself a son out of my blood.

4 Lord. Fair one, I think not so.

LAF. There's one grape yet,-I am sure thy father drank wine.-But if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already. HEL. I dare not say I take you [to BERTRAM]; but I give

Me and my service, ever whilst I live,

Into your guiding power.-This is the man.

KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her, she's thy wife.
BER. My wife, my liege? I shall beseech your highness,

In such a business give me leave to use

The help of mine own eyes.

KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram, what she has done for me?

BER. Yes, my good lord; but never hope to know why I should marry her. KING. Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.

BER. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down

Must answer for your raising? I know her well;
She had her breeding at my father's charge:
A poor physician's daughter my wife !-Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!

KING. T is only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it, that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty: If she be

All that is virtuous, (save what thou dislik'st,
A poor physician's daughter,) thou dislik'st
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:

From lowest place when a virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour good alone

Is good without a name; vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she 's immediate heir,
And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: Honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers: the mere word 's a slave,
Debosh'd on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb,
Where dust, and damn'd oblivion, is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?

If thou canst like this creature as a maid,

I can create the rest: virtue, and she,

Is her own dower; honour, and wealth, from me.

BER. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.

KING. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose. HEL. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad ;

Let the rest go.

KING. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
I must produce my power: Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
That dost in vile misprision shackle up

My love, and her desert; that canst not dream,
We, poizing us in her defective scale,

When. The original has whence.