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behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonicala. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. NATH. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book. HOL. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and pointdevise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt;-d, e, b, t; not d, e, the clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanied; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

NATH. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

HOL. Bone?. -bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 't will serve.

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MOTH. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside.

COST. O, they have lived 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 24: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. MоTH. Peace! the peal begins.

ARM. Monsieur [to HoL.], are you not letter'd?

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MOTH. 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.

here uses it:

"But they their tongues file,

And make a pleasaunte style."

• Thrasonical-from Thraso, the boasting soldier of Terence. Fuller, in his 'Worthies,' speaks of one as "a thrasonical puff, and emblem of mock valour." Farmer asserts that the word was introduced in our language before Shakspere's time, but he furnishes no proof of this.

Picked-trimmed. Falconbridge describes "My picked man of countries." See note on 'King John,' Act I.

* Point-devise-nice to excess, and sometimes, adverbially, for exactly, with the utmost nicety. Gifford thinks this must have been a mathematical phrase. Other examples of its use are found in Shakspere-and in Holinshed, Drayton, and Ben Jonson. The phrase, Douce says, "has been supplied from the labours of the needle. Poinct in the French language denotes a stitch; devisé, anything invented, disposed, or arranged. Point-devisé was therefore a particular sort of patterned lace worked with the needle; and the term point-lace is still familiar to every female." It is incorrect to write point-de-vice, as is usually done.

The early copies have infamie; for which Theobald gave us insanie.

MоTH. Ba, most silly 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 I25. HOL. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

MOTH. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u.

ARM. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit 26: 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 gig.

MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà: A gig of a cuckold's horn!

COST. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens 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 fingers' ends, as they say.

HOL. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

ARM. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain? HOL. Or, mons, the hill.

ARM. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

HOL. I do, sans question.

Do you

ARM. 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: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

ARM. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :-For what is inward between us, let it pass:-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy:-I beseech thee, apparel thy head: -And among other importunate and most serious designs,-and of great import indeed, too;- but let that pass :-for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but,

• Remember thy courtesy. Theobald is of opinion that the passage should read-remember not thy courtesy, that is, do not take thy hat off. Jackson thinks it should be, remember my courtesy. It appears to us that the text is right; and that its construction is-for what is confidential between us, let it pass-notice it not-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy-remember thy obligation to silence as a gentleman. Holofernes then bows: upon which Armado says, I beseech thee, apparel thy head; and then goes on with his confidential communications, which he finishes by saying-Sweet heart, I do implore secrecy.

sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

HOL. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies.-Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,—the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies.

NATH. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

HOL. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.

ARM. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

HOL. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

MOTH. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry, Well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it.

ARM. For the rest of the worthies ?

HOL. I will play three myself.

MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
ARM. Shall I tell you a thing?
HOL. We attend.

ARM. We will have, if this fadge" not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.
HOL. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.

HOL. Allons! we will employ thee.

DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the

worthies, and let them dance the hay.

HOL. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away.

[Exeunt.

Fadge. This word is from the Anglo-Saxon feg-an-to join together, and thence, to fit, to agree. Somner gives this derivation, and explains that things will not fadge when they cannot be brought together, so as to serve to that end whereto they are designed. In Warner's 'Albion's England' we have this passage, which is quoted in Mr. Richardson's valuable Dictionary:

"It hath been when as hearty love

Did treat and tie the knot,

Though now, if gold but lack in grains,

The wedding fadgeth not."

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SCENE II.-Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

PRIN. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,

If fairings come thus plentifully in:

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!

Look you, what I have from the loving king.
Ros. Madame, came nothing else along with that?
PRIN. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhyme,
As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,
Writ on both sides of the leaf, margent and all;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.
Ros. That was the way to make his godhead waxa;
For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

KATH. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; heb kill'd your sister.
KATH. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;

And so she died: had she been light, like you,

Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might have been a grandam ere she died:

And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
KATH. A light condition in a beauty dark.

Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out.
KATH. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff;
Therefore, I'll darkly end the argument.

Ros. Look, what you do; you do it still i' the dark.
KATH. So do not you; for you are a light wench.
Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.
KATH. You weigh me not,—O, that's you care not for me.
Ros. Great reason; for, Past care is still past cure.
PRIN. Well bandied both; a set of witd well play'd.
But, Rosaline, you have a favour too:

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To wax-to grow; as we say, the moon waxeth. The seal and the wax form a pun too good

to be called pardonable.

He. The folio has the more comic a.

Mouse. So 'Hamlet,' Act III., Scene 4, "call you his mouse."

Set of wit. Set is a term used at tennis.

I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!

PRIN. Anything like?

Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise.
PRIN. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
KATH. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
Ros. 'Ware pencils! How? let me not die

My red dominical, my golden lettera :

your

O that your face were not so full of O's!

debtor,

PRIN. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows!

But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumain? KATH. Madam, this glove.

PRIN.

Did he not send you twain?

KATH. Yes, madam; and moreover,

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

MAR. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville;
The letter is too long by half a mile.

PRIN. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart,
The chain were longer, and the letter short?
MAR. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
PRIN. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Biron I'll torture ere I go.

O, that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek;
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes;
And shape his service wholly to my behests";
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So portent-like would I o'ersway his state,

That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

PRIN. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,

As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,

Rosaline, it appears, was a brunette; Katharine fair, perhaps red-haired, marked with smallpox. Tieck says that, in the early alphabets for children, A was printed in red, B, as well as the remainder of the alphabet, in black; and thus the ladies jest upon their complexions.

Rosaline twits Katharine that her face is marked with the small-pox; not so is omitted in the folio. The answer, which we now give to Katharine, is spoken by the Princess, in the original. Not, which is wanting in the first folio, is inserted in the second.

Behests. The quarto and first folio read devise. The correction, which is necessary for the rhyme, was made in the second folio.

War

• Portent-like. The old copies read "pertaunt-like." Have we got the right word? burton explains portent-like by a paraphrase-" I would be his fate, or destiny, and, like a portent, hang over and influence his fortunes."

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