and make foul the clearnefs of our defe svings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this kõave here: get you gone, forrah: the complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe zi’tis my low refs that I do aco, tor, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fubh knaveries yours.

Cho. 'Tis not unknown to you, Madam, I am a

poor fellow.

Count. Well, Sir.

Cla. No, Madam; 'tis not fo well that I am poor, tho' many of the rich are damn'd; but if I have your Ladyship's good will to go to the world, Ifeel thie woman and I will do as we may

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
Clo. I do beg your good will in this case.
Count. In what case!

Clo. In ijbel's case, and mine own; service is no heritage, and, I think, I fhall never have the blefling of God, 'till I have issue o' my body; for they say, bearns are bleffings.

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
Clo. My poor body, Madam, requires it.

I am driven on by the Aesh ; and he must needs go, that the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason 3 : Clo. Faith, Madam, I have other holy reafors, such as they are.

Count. May the world know themd: . Cto. I have been, Madam, wicked creature, as you and all felh and blood are ; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent.

Count. Thy marriage, fooner than thy wickedness.

Cto. I am out of friends, Madam, and I hope to have fiiends for my wife's fake. Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

-åri' vous iubes
Alneīvi wap dados Xpå sóda prirodai yépaço
But to be prais'd with honour, is a tribuie
That must be paid us from anothtr's tongue.

Clo. Y' are fhallow, Madam, in great friends ; for she knaves come to do that for me, which I am weary of; he, that cares my land, spares my team, and gives me leave to inne the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge; he, that comforts my wife, is the che risher of my fela and blood; he, that cherishesh my flesh and blood, loves my Hesh and blood ; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend ; ergo, he, that kisses my wife, is my friend. If men could be. contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage ; for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poysam the papist, howsoe'er their hearts are sever'd in religion, their heads are both one; they may joul. horns together, like any deer i'th' herd.

Count. Wilt thou ever be a foulmouth'd and calum-
nious knave?

Clo. A prophet, I, Madam ; and I speak the truth
the next way ;
" For I the ballad will repeat, which men full trud

« shall find ;
" Your marriage comes by destiny, your cuckow finge

by kin'."
Count. Get you gone, Sir, I'll talk with you more

Stew. May it please you, Madam, that he bid Helen
come to you ; of her i am to speak.

Count. Sirrah, tell, my gentlewoman I would speak
with her, Helen I mean.
Clo. “ Was this fair face the cause, quoth she (6),

[Singingo

anon.

Why

(6) Was this fair face the cause, quorb foeng

Wby sbe Grecians facked Troy?

Was ibis King Priam's joy?] As the stanza, that follows, is:
in alternate rhyme, and as a rhyme is here wanting to the in the ift
verse ; 'tis evident, the 3d line is wanting. The old folio's give us a
part of it; but how to supply the lost part, was the queftion. Mr.
Rowe has given us the fragment honeftly, as he found it : but Mie
Pope, rather than to seem founder'd, has funk it upon us.--I com-
municated to my ingenious friend Mr. Warburton how I.found the
Ballage in the old books,

(Fond done, done, fond,
Wastbis King Priam's jour

Aud:

" Why the Grecians facked Troy
“ Fond done, fond done ;--for Paris he
“ Was this King Priam's joy.
" With that he úghed as The stood (7),

46 And

And from him I received that fupplement, which I have given to
the text, and the following juftification of it. "I will first proceed
" to juftify my fenfe and emendation, and then account for the cor-
“ ruption. In the first place, 'tis plain, the laft line should not
“ have been read with an interrogation : For was Helen King
“ Priam's joy? No, surely, she was not. Who then? why, the
* hiftorians tell us ic was Paris, who was his favourite son. And
"how natural was it, when this pe (whoever she was,) had said,
“ was this the face that ruin'd Troy? to fall into a moral reflection,
" and say, what a fond deed was this ! Priam's misery proceeded
" from him, that was his only joy. This is exactly agreeable to
“the fimplicity of those ancient fongs : as the phrase, For Paris
"bemis io their mode of locution. So far we bave the genius of
"the Ballad, history, and the context, to make it probable. An
“ observation upon the ensuing Aanza may make it clear to demon. :
* Aration."

I will only subjoin, in confirmation of my friend's ingenious conje&ture, that, in The Maid in the Mill by Beaumont and Fletcher, I kind a scrap of another old ballad upon the same subject, most nearly corresponding with ours.

And here fair Paris comes,
The hopeful youth of Troy ;
Queen Hecuba's darling lon,

King Priam's only joy.
(7) With that pe figbed, as fhe food,

And gave rbis fentence iben;
Among nine bad if one be good,

There's yet one good in ten.}.
This ad fanza is a joke turn'd upon the women : a confeffion that
there was one good in ten. Upon which the Countess says, " What!
“one good in ten! you corrupt the fung, frrab."This thews, that
the fenfe of the song was, one bad only in ten; or, nine good in ten ::
and this clears up the mystery. The 2d stanza was certainly thus in.
the old ballad.

Witb ebar fhe sigbed as she flood,
And

gave ibis fentence then ;
If one be bad amongf nine good,

Tbere's but one bad in ten, A vifible continuation of the thought, as amended, in the latter part of the firft Aanza : and it relates to the ten fons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well except this. Paris. But why Priam's ten: lons, may it not be alk'd, when universal tradition has given him

mand you.

" And gave this sentence then;
as Among nine bad if one be good,
« There's yet one good in ten.”

Count. What, one good in ten? You corrupt the fong, firrah.

Clo. One good woman in ten, Madam, which is a purifying o' th' fong : would, God would serve the world for all the year! we'd find no fault with the tithe- - woman, if I were the parson ; one in ten, quoth: a'! an we might have a good woman born bat every blazing far, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one. Count. You'll be gone, Sir

, knaye, and do as I com: Clo. That man that should be at a woman's com, mand, and yet no hurt done ! tho' honesty be no. pyritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplis. of humility over the black gown of a big heart : 1 am going, forfooth, the business is for Helen to come. hither.

[Exit, Count. Well; now.

Stew. I know, Madam, you love your gentlewoman intirely.

Count. Faith, I do; her father bequeath'd her' to. me ; and she herself, without other advantages, may lawfully make citle to as much love as the finds ; there. is more owing her, than is paid; and more shall be: paid her, than she'll demand,

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her, than,. I think, the wish'd me; alone the was, and did.com, municate to herself her own words to her own ears i: the thought, I dare vow. for her, they touch'd not any;

Aranger sense. Her matter was, fhe lov'd your fons Fortune, she said, was no goddess (8), that had put such difference betwixt their two eftates; Love, no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Diana no Queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor Knight to be surpriz'd without rescue in the first affaolt, or ransom afterward. This he deliver'd in the most bitter touch of sorrow, that e'er I heard a virgin exclaim in ; which I held it my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; fithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

Count. You have discharg'd this honestly, keep it to yourself; many likelihoods inforın'd me of this before, which hung lo tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe nor misdoubt; pray you, leave me ; ftall this in your bosom, and I thank you for your honeft care ; I will speak with you further anon,

[Exit Stewards Enter Helena. Count. Ev’n so it was with me, when I was young

If we ate nature's, these are ours: this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong :

Our blood to us, this to our blood, is borish;

(8) Fortune, she said, was no goddess, &c. Lode, no god, &c. tomplain'd against the Queen of virgins, &c.] This paffage Aands thus in the old copies,

Love, no god, that would not extend bis might only wbere qualities were level, Queen of virgins, that would Juffer ber poor Knight; &c. "Tis evident to every senfible reader that something must have flip'á. out here, by which the meaning of the context is render'd defective There are no traccs for the words, (complain'd ogainst tbe] which. I take to have been firt conjecturally fupply'd by Mr. Rowe. But the form of the renience is iniisely alter'd by their intertion; and they, at bent, make but a borch. The Beward is speaki.gʻin the very words he over heard of the young Lady's fortune was bo gbodefs, the said, for one reason ; love no god, for another;-what could the chen more naturally lubjoin, iban as I have amended in the text?

Diana no Queen of virgins, that would suffer ber poor Knight to be furpriz'd without rescue, &c. For io' poetical history Diana was as well known fe preside over cbaffiry, as Cupid over leve, of Fortune over the bange or regulation of ous circumstances,