King. No devil will fright thee then so much as

she.
Dun. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear,

Long. Look, here's thy love; my foot and her face )

fee. Biror. O, if the streets were paved with thine

eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread. Dum. O vile ! then as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see as the walk'd over-head. King. But what of this, are we not all in love? Biron. Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. [prove

Dum. Ay, marry, there ; fome fattery for this

Long. O, fome authority how to proceed ; [evil, Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron. 0, 'tis more than need.
Have at you then, Affection's men at arms;
Consider what you first did swear unto :
To fast, to study, and to see no woman ;
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you
fast? your

stomachs are too young:
And abstinence ingenders maladies.
And where that you have vow'd to study, (Lords),
In that each of you hath forsworn his book,
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look ?
For when would you, my Lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries ;
As motion and long-during action tires
The finewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes ?
And study too, the causer of your vow.
For where is any author in the world
Teaches such duty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself;
And where we are, our learning likewise is.

Then, when ourselves we fee in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, Lords;
And in that vow we have forsworn our books :
For when would you, my Liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd

you

with ? Other slow arts entirely keep the brain ; And therefore finding barren practisers, Scarce shew a harvest of their heavy toil. - But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,

Lives not alone immured in the brain :
• But with the motion of all elements,
· Courses as swift as thought in every power;
• And gives to every power a double power,
• Above their functions and their offices.
• It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
• A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind !
• A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
• When the fufpicious head of theft is stopt.

Love's feeling is more soft and sensible,
· Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste;
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ?
Subtle as Sphinx ; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair :
And when Love speaks the voice of all the gods,
Mark, 'heaven drowsy with the harmony !
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs ;
O then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.-
From womens' eyes this doctrine I derive :
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ;
They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That Thew, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then fools you were these women to forswear :
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove focls.
For Wildom's fake, (a word tiat all men love);

Or for Love's fake, (a word all women love);
Or for mens' sake, (the author of these women);
Or womens' sake, (by whom we men are men):
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves;
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity itself fulfils the law :
And who can sever love from charity ?

King. Saint Cupid, then ! and, foldiers, to the field !

Birox. Advance your standards, and upon them, Lords; Pell-mell, down with them; but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the fun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing, lay thefe glozes by; Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France ?

King. And win them too; therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thiThen homeward every man attach the hand [ther; Of his fair mistress; in the afternoon We will with some strange pastime solace them, Such as the shortness of the time can shape : For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours, Forerun fair love, strewing her way with flowers.

King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted, That will be time, and may by us be fitted,

Biron. Allons ! allons ! fown cockle reap'd no corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure; Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;

If so, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt.

А ст

V.

S C Ε Ν Ε

I.

The street.
Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, and Dull.
Hol. Atis, fufficit.
Nath. I God you,

reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious ; pleasant without fcurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without herefy. I did converse this quondam

day with a companion of the King's, who is intitled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol, Novi hominem, tanquam te.

His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gate majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too piqued, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were; too peregrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A most fingular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the ftaple of his argument, I abhor such phanatical phantasms, such infociable and point-devise companions ; such rackers of orthography, as do speak dout fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he Thould pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abbreviated ne. This is abominable, which we would call abhominable : it insinuateth me of insanity : Ne intelligis, Domine, to make frantic, lunatic ?

Nath. Laus Deo, bone, intelligo.

Hol. Bone? bone, for benè; Priscian a little scratch'd ; 'twill serve. SCENE II. Enter Armado, Moth, and Coftard.

Nath. Videsne quis venit ?
Hol. Video, & gaudeo.
Arm. Chirra.
Hol. Quare chirra, not firrah ?
Arm. Men of peace, well encounter’d.
Hol. Most military, Sir, falutation.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stole the scraps.

Coft. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word ; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus : thou art easier swallow'd than a flap-dragon.

Moth. Peace, the peal begins.
Arm. Monsieur, are you not letter'd ?
Mloth. Yes, yes, he teaches boys the horn-book :

What is A B spelt backward with a horn on his head ?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most filly sheep, with a horn. You hear his learning

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant ?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, 1.-
Moth. The flieep; the other two concludes it, 0, u.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit ; snip, snap, quick and home ; it rejoiceth my intellect ; true wit.

Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man : which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure ?
Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant; go, whip thy gigg.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà ; a gigg of a cuckold's horn.

Coft. An' I had but one penny in the world, thou fhouldst have it to buy ginger-bread; hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pidgeon-egg of discretion. O, that the heav'ns were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard ! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me? go to, thou hast it ad dunghill ; at the finger's ends, as they say.

Hollo, I smell false Latin, dunghill for unguem.

Arm. Arts-man, præambula ; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the chargehouse on the top of the mountain ?

Hol. Or mons the hill.
Arm. At

your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Hol. I do, sans question. Arni. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous Sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon :