King. It shall suffice me at which interview,
All liberal reason I will yield unto.

Mean time, receive such welcome at my hand,
As honour, without breach of honour, may
Make tender of to thy true worthiness:
You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
But here without you shall be so receiv'd,
As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,
Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
To-morrow shall we visit you again.

Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!
King. Thy own wish wish I thee, in every place!

[Exeunt King and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart. Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

Biron. I would, you heard it groan.

Ros. Is the fool sick?

Biron. Sick at heart.

Ros. Alack, let it blood.

Biron. Would that do it good?

Ros. My physic says, I.

8

Biron. Will you prick't with your eye?

Ros. No poynt, with my knife, 9
Biron. Now, God save thy life!
Ros. And yours from long living!
Biron. I cannot stay thanksgiving.

[Retiring.

Dum. Sir, I pray you, a word: What lady is that same?
Boyet. The heir of Alençon, Rosaline her name.
Dum. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well. [Exit.
Long. I beseech you, a word; What is she in the white?
Boyet. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light,
Long. Perchance, light in the light: I desire her name
Boyet. She hath but one for herself; to desire that,
were a shame.

Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
Boyet. Her mother's, I have heard.
Long. God's blessing on your beard!'

[8] She means to say, ay. The old spelling of the affirmative particle has been retained here for the sake of the rhyme. MALONE.

[9] No point was a negation borrowed from the French. See the note on the same words, Act V. sc. ii. MALONE.

[1] That is, may'st thou have sense and seriousness more proportionate to thy beard, the length of which suits ill with such idle catches of wit. JOHNSON

Boyet. Good sir, be not offended: She is an heir of Falconbridge. Long. Nay, my choler is ended. She is a most sweet lady.

Boyet. Not unlike, sir; that may be.
Biron. What's her name, in the cap?
Boyet. Katharine, by good hap.
Biron. Is she wedded, or no?
Boyet. To her will, sir, or so.

[Exit LONG.

Biron. You are welcome, sir; adieu!

Boyet. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

[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.

Prin. It was well done of you to take him at his word. Boyet. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to board. Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry!

Boyet. And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
Mar. You sheep, and I pasture; Shall that finish the jest?
Boyet. So you grant pasture for me.

Mar. Not so, gentle beast:

2

[Offering to kiss her.

My lips are no common, though several they be.
Boyet. Belonging to whom?

Mar. To my fortunes and me.

Prin. Good wits will be jangling but, gentles, agree: The civil war of wits were much better used

On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.
Boyet. If my observation, (which very seldom lies,)
By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now,
Navarre is infected..

Prin. With what?

Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle, affected.
Prin. Your reason?

Boyet. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire
To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire :
His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed:
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,

[2] A play on the word several, which besides its ordinary signification of sepa rate, distinct, likewise signifies in uninciosed lands, a certain portion of ground ap propriated to either corn or meadow, adjoining the common field MALONE

12

Vol. III.

H 2

Did stumble with haste in his eye-sight to be;
All senses to that sense did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair:

3

Methought, all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;

Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they were glass'd,

Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.
His face's own margent did quote such amazes,
That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes :
I'll give you Aquitain, and all that is his,

An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.
Prin. Come, to our pavilion: Boyet is dispos'd-
Boyet. But to speak that in words, which his eye 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.

Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches?

Mar. No.

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 strove to be as rapid in its utterance, as they in their perceptions.-Edin. Mag. STEEVENS

[4] Here is apparently a song lost. JOHNSON.

$ I have observed in the old comedies, that the songs are frequently omitted. On this occasion the stage direction is generally-Here they sing or, Cantant. Probably the performer was left to choose his own ditty, and therefore it could not with propriety be exhibited 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.

Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl ?6

Arm. 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 arms 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. By my penny of observation.

Arm. But O, but 0,

Moth. the hobby-horse is forgot.

8

Arm. Callest thou my love, hobby-horse?

Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love, perhaps, a hackney. But have you forgot your love?

Arm. Almost I had.

Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart.
Arm. By heart, and in heart, boy.

[5] i. e. hastily. STEEVENS.

(6) A brawl is a kind of dance, and (as Mr. M. Mason observes,) seems to be what we now call a cotillion. STEEVENS.

[7] It was a common trick among some of the most indolent of the ancient masters, to place the hands in the bosom or the pockets, or conceal them in some other part of the drapery, to avoid the labour of representing them, or to disguise their own want of skill to employ them with grace and propriety. STEEVENS.

[8] In the celebration of May-day, besides the sports now used of hanging a pole with garlands, and dancing round it, formerly a boy was dressed up representing Maid Marian; another like a friar; and another rode on a hobby-horse, with bells jingling, and painted streamers. After the reformation took place, and precisians 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 games. Some who were not so wisely precise, but regretted the disuse of the hobby-horse, no doubt, satirized this suspicion of idolatry, and archly wrote the epitaph above alluded to. THEOBALD.

Moth. And out of heart, 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.

Moth. As swift as lead, sir.

Arm. The meaning, pretty ingenious?

Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

Moth. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no. Arm. I say, lead is slow.

Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so:

Is that lead slow, which is fir'd from a gun?
Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric !

He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he :-
I shoot thee at the swain.

Moth. Thump then, and I flee.

[Exit. Arm. A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace! By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face: Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. My herald is return'd.

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 Armado, with the false dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for sighing in its face. JOHNSON.

[1] i. e. a head. 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.