Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir: O, sir plantain, a plain plantain ; no l'envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain !

Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my spleen: the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling: O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and the word, l'envoy, for a salve?

Moth. Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve?

Arm. No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain

Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
I will example it:

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,

Were still at odds, being but three.

There's the moral: Now the l'envoy.

Moth. I will add the l'envoy: Say the moral again.
Arm. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three :

Moth. Until the goose came out of door,

And stay'd the odds by adding four.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three: Arm. Until the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by adding four.

Moth. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; Would you desire more?

Cost. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's

flat:

Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat,-. To sell a bargain well, is as cunning as fast and loose : Let me see a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.

Arm. Come hither, come hither: How did this argument begin?

Moth. By saying, that a Costard was broken in a shin. Then cah'd you for the l'envoy.

Cost. True, and I for a plantain; Thus came your
argument in;

Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought.
And he ended the market.

[3] Male or Mail, for a packet or bag, was a word then in use. STEEVENS

Arm. But tell me; how was there a Costard broken in a shin ?"

Moth. I will tell you sensibly.

Cost. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that l'envoy :

I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin.

Arm. We will talk no more of this matter.
Cost. Till there be more matter in the shin.
Arm. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

Cost. O, marry me to one Frances;-I smell some l'envoy, some goose, in this.

Arm. By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, re› strained, captivated, bound.

Cost. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me loose.

Arm. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: Bear this significant to the country-maid Jaquenetta: there is remuneration; [Giving him money.] for the best ward of mine honour, is, rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow. [Exit.

tion.

Moth. Like the sequel, I.-Signior Costard, adieu. Cost. My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my in-cony Jew! [Exit Moth.]-Now will I look to his remuneraRemuneration! O, that's the Latin word for three farthings three farthings-remuneration.-What's the price of this inkle? a penny :-No, I'll give you a remuneration why, it carries it.-Remuneration !-why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word.

:

[4] Costard is the name of a species of apple. JOHNSON.

It has been already observed that the head was anciently called the costard. So in King Richard III: "* Take him over the costard with the hilt of thy sword." A costard likewise signified a crab-stick. STEEVENS.

[5] Sequele, in French. signifies a great man's train. The joke is, that a single page was all his train. THEOBALD.

Sequelle, by the French, is never employed but in a derogatory sense.

They

use it to express the gang of a highway-man, but not the train of a lord; the followers of a rebel, and not the attendants on a general. STEEVENS.

[6] Incony or kony in the north, signifies, fine, delicate-as a kony thing, a fine thing. WARBURTON.

There is no such expression in the North as either kony or incony. The word canny, which the people there use, and from which Dr. Warburton's mistake may have arisen, bears a variety of significations, none of which is fine, delicate, or applicable to a thing or value. RITSON.

Enter BIRON.

Biron. O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met. Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?

Biron. What is a remuneration?

Cost. Marry, sir, half-penny farthing.

Biron. O, why then, three-farthings-worth of silk.
Cost. I thank your worship: God be with you!
Biron. O, stay, slave; I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
Cost. When would you have it done, sir?
Biron. O, this afternoon.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: Fare you well.
Biron. O, thou knowest not what it is.
Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first.

Cost. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
Biron. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave,

it is but this ;

The princess comes to hunt here in the park,

And in her train there is a gentle lady;

When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name, And Rosaline they call her ask for her;

:

And to her white hand see thou do commend

This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go. [Gives him money. Cost. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better: Most sweet guerdon-I will do it, sir, in print.-Guerdon--remu

neration.

[Exit.

Biron. O! And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;

A very
beadle to a humourous sigh;
A critic; nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o'er the boy,

Than whom no mortal so magnificent!

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;

[7] The wimple was a hood or veil which fell over the face. Had Shakespeare been acquainted with the flammeum of the Romans, or the gem which represents the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, his choice of the epithet would have been much applauded by all the advocates in favour of his learning. In Isaiah, iii. 22, we fad: "the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins." STEEVENS

Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator, and great general

Of trotting paritors,O my little heart!-
And I to be a corporal of his field,'

And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock,
Still a repairing; ever out of frame;
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watch'd that it may still go right?
Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;
And, among three, to love the worst of all;
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard
And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
That Cupid will impose for my neglect
Of his almighty dreadful little might.

Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan;
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

1 [8] A placket is a petticoat. DOUCE.

[Exit.

[9] An apparitor, or paritor, is an officer of the Bishop's court, who carries ont ritations; as citations are most frequently issued for fornication, the paritor is put under Cupid's government. JOHNSON.

[] It appears from Lord Stafford's Letters, Vol. II. p. 199, that a corporal of the field was employed as an aid-de-camp is now," in taking and carrying to and fro the directions of the general, or other the higher officers of the field."

TYRWHITT.

[2] The following extract is taken from a book, called The Artificial ClockMaker, 1714. Clock-making was supposed to have had its beginning in Germany within less than these two hundred years. It is very probable that our balanceclocks or watches and some other automata, might have had their beginning there," &e. To the inartificial construction of these first pieces of mechanism, executed in Germany, we may suppose Shakespeare alludes. The clock at Hampton Court, which was set up in 1540, (as appears from the inscription affixed to it) is said to be the first ever fabricated in England. STEEVENS.

"In some towns in Germany, (says Dr. Powel in his Human Industry, 8vo. 1661,) there are very rare and elaborate clocks to be seen in their town-halls, wherein a man may read astronomy, and never look up to the skies.-In the townhall of Prague there is a clock that shows the annual motions of the sun and moon, the names and numbers of the months, days, and festivals of the whole year, the time of the sun rising and setting throughout the year, the equinoxes, the length of the days and nights, the rising and setting of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, &c.-But the town of Strasburgh carries the bell of all other steeples of Germany in this point." These elaborate clocks were probably often "out of frame." ALONE.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-Another part of the same.

Enter the Princess,

ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attend

ants, and a Forester.

Princess.

WAS that the king, that spur'd his horse so hard
Against the steep uprising of the hill?

Boyet. I know not; but, I think, it was not he.
Prin. Whoe'er he was, he show'd a mounting mind.
Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch;
On Saturday we will return to France.

-Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush,
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
For. Here by, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand, where you may make the fairest shoot.
Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.
For. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
Prin. What, what? first praise me, and again say, no?
O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe!

For. Yes, madam, fair.

Prin. Nay, never paint me now;

Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true;

[Giving him money.

Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
For. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Prin. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
O heresy in fair, fit for these days!

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.-
But come, the bow:--Now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
If wounding, then it was to shew my skill,
That more for praise, than purpose, meant to kill.
And, out of question, so it is sometimes;
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes;

When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart: