A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle,'
That dare leave two together : fare you well. [Exit.
King. Now, fair one, does your business follow

us? Hel. Ay, my good lord. Gerard de Narbon was My father ; in what he did profess, well found."

King. I knew him.
Hel. The rather will I spare my praises towards

him;
Knowing him, is enough. On his 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 The congregated college have concluded That labouring art can never ransome nature From her inaidable estate,-I say we must not So stain our judgment, or currupt our hope, To prostitute our past-cure malady To empiricks; 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 ;

Cressid's uncle,] I am like Pandarus. See Troilus and Cressida.

9

Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one to bear me back again.
King. I cannot give thee less, to be callid

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 sits. 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 barrd:
It is not so with him that all things knows,
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows:
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 ;3

2 When miracles have by the greatest been denied.] i. e. disbelieved, or contemned.

3 Myself against the level of mine aim ;] i. e. I am not an im

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 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
Seard otherwise ; no 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 ;6

postor that proclaim one thing and design another, that proclaira a cure and aim at a fraud.

no worse of worst extended,] i. e. to be so defamed that nothing severer can be said against those who are most publickly reported to be infamous. s And what impossibility would slay

In common sense, sense saves another way.) i. e. and that which, if I trusted to my reason, I should think impossible, I yet, perceiving thee to be actuated by some blessed spirit, think thee capable of effecting. Malone.

in thee hath estimate;] May be counted among the gifts enjoyed by thee. Johnson.

11

fee;

ven.

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call :
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physick I will try;
That ministers thine own death, if I die.

Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;
And well deserv'd : Not helping, death's my
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 hea. 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 cams't, how tended on,-But rest
Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted blest.-

7

prime--) Youth; the sprightly vigour of life.

Give me some help here, ho !-If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Flourish. Ereunt.

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.

Člo. 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!

Clo. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it 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?

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 fore-finger, 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.