Rofa. You must be purged too, your fins are rank,
You are attaint with fault and perjury;
Therefore if you my favour mean to get,

A twelve-month fhall you fpend, and never reft,
But feek the weary beds of people fick.]

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Cath, (55) A wife!-a beard, fair health and honesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

Dum. O, fhall I fay, I thank you, gentle wife? Cath. Not fo, my Lord; a twelve-month and a day I'll mark no words that fmooth-fac'd wooers fay.. Come, when the King doth to my Lady come; Then if I have much love, I'll give you fome. Dum. I'll ferve thee true and faithfully till then. Cath. Yet fwear not, left ye be forfworn again. Long. What fays Maria?

Mar. At the twelve-month's end,

I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll ftay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you; few taller are fo young.
Birdn. Studies my Lady!? miftrefs, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble fuit attends thy answer there;
Impofe fome fervice on me for thy love.

Rofa. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,
Before I faw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts;

burton conjectures, that Shakespeare is not to answer for the present abfurd repetition, but his actor editors; who, thinking Rofalind's speech too long in the fecond plan, had abridg'd it to the lines above quoted : but, in publishing the play, ftupidly printed both the original speech of Shakespeare, and their own abridgment of it.

(55) A wife, a beard, fair health, and honefty;

With threefold love I give you all thefe three.

Thus our fagacious modern editors. But if they had but the reckoning of a tapfter, as our author fays, they might have been able to distinguish four from three. I have, by the direction of the old impreffions, reform'd the pointing; and made Catharine fay what the intended. Seeing Dumaine,, fo very young, approach her with his addreffes, "Your "fhall have a wife, indeed! Jays fhe; no, no, I'll with you three "things you have more need of, a beard, a found conftitution, and "bonefly enough to preserve it fuch."

Which

Which you on all eftates will execute,

That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won;

You fhall this twelve-month term from day to day
Vifit the fpeechless fick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
T'enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be, it is impoffible:

Mirth cannot move a foul in agony.

Rofa. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fcols:

A jeft's profperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if fickly ears,
Deaft with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle fcorns; continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal:
But if they will not, throw away that spirit;
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelve-month? well; befal, what will befal,

I'll jeft a twelve-month in an hospital.

Prin. Ay, fweet my Lord, and fo I take my leave.

[to the King. King. No, Madam; we will bring you on your way. Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play ; Jack hath not Jill; thefe Ladies courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, Sir, it wants a twelve-month and a day, And then 'twill end.

Biron. (56) That's too long for a play.

Enter

(56) That's too long for a play.] Befides the exact regularity to the rules of art, which the author has happen'd to preferve in fome few of his pieces; this is demonftration, I think, that tho' he has more frequently tranfgrefs'd the unity of time, by cramming years into the

compafs

Enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dun. That worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kifs thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary; I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her fweet love three years. But, moftefteem'd greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckow? it should have follow'd in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly, we will do fo.
Arm. Holla! approach.-

Enter all.

This fide is Hiems, winter.

This Ver, the fpring; the one maintain'd by the owl,
The other by the cuckow.

Ver, begin.

(57) When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And Lady-fmocks all filver white,
And cuckow-buds, of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight;
The cuckow then on every tree
Mocks married men; for thus fings he,
Cuckow!

Cuckow! cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmens clocks:

When turtles tread, and rooks and daws;
And maidens bleach their fummer fmocks;

The

compafs of a play, yet he knew the abfurdity of fo doing, and was

not unacquainted with the rule to the contrary.

(57) When daizies py'd, and violets blue,

And cuckow-buds of yellow hue

The cuckow then on every tree

Mocks married men; for thus fings he,
Cuckow !

Cuckow! cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!

WINTER.

When ificles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail;
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nift, and ways be foul,
Then nightly fings the staring owl
Tu-whit! to-who!

A merry note,

While greafy Jone doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the Parfon's faw;
And birds fit brooding in the fnow,

And Marian's nofe looks red and raw ;
When roafted crabs hifs in the bowl,
Then nightly fings the ftaring owl,
Tu-whit! to-who!

A merry note,

While greafy Jone doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury

Are harsh after the fongs of Apollo:
You, that way; we, this way.

And Lady-fmocks all filver white,

[Exeunt omnes.

Do paint the meadows with delight;] Tho' all the printed copies range thefe verfes in this order, I have not fcrupled to tranfpofe the fecond and third verfe, that the metre may be conformable with that of the three following ftanzas, in all which the rhymes of the first four lines are alternate.I have now done with this play, which in the main may be call'd a very bad one: and I have found it fo very troubletome in the corruptions, that, I think, I may conclude with the old religious editors, Deo gratias!

AS :