In conflict that you get the sun of them." Long. Now to plain dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France ? King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents. Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither; Then, homeward, every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress in the afternoon We will with some strange pastime solace them, Bir. Allons! Allons !-Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn; ACT V. SCENE I.—Another part of the same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. SATIS quod sufficit. Holofernes. Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection,' audacious without [9] In the days of archery, it was of consequence to have the sun at the back of the bow men, and in the face of the enemy. This circumstance was of great advantage to our Henry the Fifth at the battle of Agincourt -Our poet, however, I believe, had also an equivoque in his thoughts. MALONE. [1] This proverbial expression intimates, that beginning with perjury, they can expect to reap nothing but falsehood. WARBURTON. [2] I know not well what degree of respect Shakespeare intends to obtain for hi vicar, but he has bere put into his mouth a finished representation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to his character of the schoolmaster's table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly delineated, so widely dilated. and so nicely limited.- It may be proper just to nete, that reason bere, and in many other places, signises discourse; and that audacious is used in a good sense for spirited, animated, confident. Opinion is the same with obstinacy or opiniatrele. JOHNSON. impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked,* too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t: not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominables (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo Hol. Bone?-bone, for bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve. Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and Costard. Nath. Videsne quis venit? Hol. Video, & gaudeo. Arm. Chirra! Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. [То Мотн. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside. [4] To have the beard piqued or shorn so as to end in a point, was, in our author's time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions. JOHNSON. Piqued may allude to the length of the shoes then worn. Bulwer says," We weare our forked shoes almost as long again as our feete, not a little to the hindrance of the action of the foote; and not only so, but they prove an impediment to reverentiall devotion, for our bootes and shooes are so long snouted, that we can hardly kneele in God's house " STEEVENS. I believe picked (for so it should be written) signifies nicely drest in general, without reference to any particular fashion of dress It is a metaphor taken from birds, who dress themselves by picking out or pruning their broken or superfluous feathers TYRWHITT. [5] Abrominable,-Thus the word is constantly spelt in the old moralities and other antiquated books. STEEVENS. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon." Moth. Peace; the peal begins, Arm. Monsieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book :What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on his head? Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:-You hear his learning. Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant? Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I. Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.— Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u.9 Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit. Moth. Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuck old's horn! Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. [6] The refuse meat of families was put into a basket in our author's time, and given to the poor. MALONE. [7] This word, whencesoever it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known. JOHNSON. [8] A flap-dragon is a small inflammable substance, which topers swallow in a glass of wine STEEVENS [9] By O U, Moth would mean—Oh, you-i, e. You are the sheep still, either way; no matter which of us repeats them. THEOBALD. the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the chargehouse on the top of the mountain ?' Hol. Or, mons, the hill. Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon. Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :-For what is inward between us, let it pass I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-1 beseech thee, apparel thy head; and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too;-but let that pass-for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is,-but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate, and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance. Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance, the king's command, and this most [1] The charge-house-I suppose, is the free-school. STEEVENS. By" remember thy courtesy," I suppose Armado means" remember that all this time thou art standing with thy hat off." STEEVENS. [3] The author calls the beard valour's excrement in The Merchant of Venice. [4] i. e. chicken; an ancient term of endearment. VOL. III. 14 JOHNSON. STEEVENS. gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies ? Hol. I will play three myself. Hol. We attend. Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antick. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via, good man Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Hol. Allons! we will employ thee. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. SCENE II. [Exeunt. Another part of the same. Before the Princess' pavilion. En- A lady wall'd about with diamonds!- Look you, what I have from the loving king. Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that? Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhyme, As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, |