King. It shall suffice me : at which interview, Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace! (Exeunt King and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own beart. Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations ; I would be glad to see it. Biron. I would, you heard it groan. (Retiring. were a shame. Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter? Boyet. Her mother's, I have heard. Long. God's blessing on your beard ! [A] She means to say, ay. The old spelling of the affirmative particle has been retained here for the sake of the rhyme D] Vo point was a negation borrowed from the French. See the note on the same 10] That is, mayai tba have sense and seriousness more proportionate to thy beard, tbe length of which guits i!l with soch idle catches of rit. 1 MALONE words. Act V sc. ii. MALONE JOHNSON Boyet. Good sir, be not offended : She is an heir of Falconbridge. Long. Nay, my choler is ended. Boyet. Not unlike, sir; that may be. [Exit Loxa. [Exit Biron.-Ladies unmask. Mar. That last is Biron, the merry mad-cap lord ; Not a word with him but a jest. Boyet. And every jest but a word. Boyet. And wherefore not ships ? Mar. You sheep, and I pasture ; Shall that finish the jest ! kiss her. My lips are no common, though several they be. Boyet. Belonging to whom? Prin. Good wits will be jangling but, gentles, agree : Boyet. If my observation, (which very seldom lies,) Prin. With what ? Boyet. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire (2) A play on the word several, wbich besides its ordinary signification of sepa tale, distinct, likewise signifies ia upincloser ladds, a vertaio portion of ground ap propriated to either corn or meadow, a joining the common field MALONE Vol. III. H2 12 Did stumble with haste in his eye-sight to be ;: glass'd, Prin. Come, to our pavilion : Boyet is dispos'd- hath disclos'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 skilfully. Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him. Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim. (Exeunt. ACT III. SCENE I.- Another part of the same. Enter ARMADO and Moth. Armado. WARBLE, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. Moth. Concolinel (Singing (3) Although the expression in the text is extremely odd. I take the sense of it to be that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes, and s:rore to be as rapid in its utterance, as they in their perceptions.--Edin May. STEEVENS (4] Here is apparently a song lost. JOHNSON I have observed in the old comedies, that the songs are frequently omitted. On this occasiou the stage direction is generally-Hire they sing-or, Cantant. Pro bably the performer was left to choose bis own vitty, and therefore it could not witb propriety be exbibited as a part of a new performance. STEEVENS. Arm. Sweet air !-Go, tenderness of years ; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither ;' I must employ him in a letter to my love. MothMaster, will you win your love with a French brawl ?6 Arin. How mean'st thou ? brawling in French ? Moth. No, my complete master : but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eye-lids ; sigh a note, and sing a note ; sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love ; sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love ; with your hat penthouse-like, o'er the shop of your eyes ; with your arins crossed on your thin belly-doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting ;' and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away : These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches—that would be betrayed without these ; and make them men of note, (do you note, men ?) that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience ? Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a coit, and your love, perhaps, a hackney.. But have you forgot your love ? [5] i. e hastily. STEEVENS. (6) A branl is a kind of dance, and (as Mr. M. Mason observes,) seems to be what we bow call a cotillion. STEEVENS. (7) It was a common trick among some of the most indolent of the ancient masers, to place the hands in the busom or the pockets, or conceal there in some other part of the drapery, to avoid the labour of representing them, or to sisguise their ons kant of skill to employ them with grace and propriety. STEEVENS. [8] In the celebration of May-day, hesides the sports now used of hanging o pole with garlands, and dancing round it, formerly a boy way dressed up representing Maid Mariad: another like a friar; and another rode on a hobby-horse, with bells jingling, and painted streamers. After the reormation took place, and precisiana multiplied, these latter rites were looked upon to favour of paganism; and then Maid Marian, the friar, and the poor hobby-horse were turned out of the garues. Sore who were not so wisely precise, but regretted the disuse of the hobby-horse, no soubt, satirized this suspicion of idolatry, and archly wrote the epitaph above alluded to. THEOBALD. Moth. And out of beart, master: all those three I will prove. Arm. What wilt thou prove ? Moth. A man, if I live ; and this, by, in, and without, upon the instant: By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her: in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her. Arm. I am all these three. Moth. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all. Arm. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter. Moth. A message well sympathised; a horse to be embassador for an ass ! Arm. Ha, ha! what sayst thou ? Moth. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited : But I go. Arm. Thy way is but short; away. Arm. The meaning, pretty ingenious ? Moth. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no. Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so: Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric ! Erit. Re-enter Moth and CostaRD. Moth. A wonder, master; here's a Costard broken in a shin,' Arm. Some enigma, some riddle : come,-thy l'envoy; -begin. [9] Welkin is the sky, to which Arma to, with the false dignity of a Spaniard, makes 10 apology for sighing in its face. JOHXSON. nie a heal. STEEVENS. 2) The l'envoy is a term borrowed from the old French poetry. It appeared always at the head of a few concluding verses to each piece, which either served to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some particular person. It was frequently adopted by the ancient English writers. STEEVENS., |