Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good owl. [Exeunt Boyet and Maria. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear!

And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit! Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Sola, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit Costard, running.

SCENE II.-The same. Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.

Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,— blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo,-the sky, the wel-. kin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,-the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explica. tion; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show as it were, his inclination,-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest, uncon (1) A species of apple.

firmed fashion-to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts;

And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be

(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he. For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

So, were there a patch1 set on learning, to see him in a school:

But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.

Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

*Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam

was no more;

And raught2 not to five weeks, when he came to five score.

The allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the

exchange.

Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I

sion holds in the exchange.

(1) A low fellow.

say, the allu

(2) Reached.

Dull. And I say the pollution holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket.

Nath. Perge, good master Holofornes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket;

Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put L to sore,

from thicket;

then sorel jumps

Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hooting.

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; O sore L!

Of one sore I a hundred make, by adding but one more L.

Nath. A rare talent!

Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us.

Enter Jaquenetta and Costard.

Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. Hol. Master parson, quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it.

Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrâ.

Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice:

Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.— Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, domine.

Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed;

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine

eyes;

Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;

Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend:

All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;)

Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

* Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss. the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider.-But damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto :

Your ladyship's in all desired employment,

BIRON.

Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a se

(1) Horse adorned with ribbands.