Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE.

Ros. Patience once more, whiles our compáct is urg'd:

You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, [To the Duke. You will bestow her on Orlando here?

DUKE S. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.

Ros. And you say, you will have her, when I bring her? [TO ORLANDO. ORL. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. Ros. You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing? [To PHEBE. PHE. That will I, should I die the hour after. Ros. But, if you do refuse to marry me, You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd? PHE. So is the bargain.

Ros. You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will ?

[TO SILVIUS.

SIL. Though to have her and death were both

one thing.

Ros. I have promis'd to make all this matter even. Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;— You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter :Keep your word, Phebe", that you'll marry me; Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd :Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her, If she refuse me :-and from hence I go, To make these doubts all even 7.

[Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA. DUKE S. I do remember in this shepherd-boy

realized; and yet at the same time they well know that there is reason for their fears. MALONE.

6 Keep YOUR word, Phebe,] The old copy reads-" Keep you your word;" the compositor's eye having probably glanced on the line next but one above. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 7 TO MAKE THESE doubts ALL EVEN.] Thus, in Measure for Measure:

"That makes these odds all even." STEEVENS.

Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.

ORL. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him, Methought he was a brother to your daughter: But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born; And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments Of many desperate studies by his uncle, Whom he reports to be a great magician, Obscured in the circle of this forest.

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY.

JAQ. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools".

TOUCH. Salutation and greeting to you all!

JAQ. Good my lord, bid him welcome; This is the motley-minded gentleman, that I have so often met in the forest: he hath been a courtier, he

swears.

TOUCH. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; I have

8 Here comes a pair of VERY STRANGE beasts, &c.] What strange beasts? and yet such as have a name in all languages? Noah's ark is here alluded to; into which the clean beasts entered by sevens, and the unclean by two, male and female. It is plain then that Shakspeare wrote, here come a pair of unclean beasts,' which is highly humorous. WARBURTON.

Strange beasts are only what we call odd animals.

need of any alteration. JOHNSON.

There is no

A passage, somewhat similar, occurs in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Here come two noble beasts in, a moon and a lion." STEEVENS.

9

Sc. II. :

trod a measure;] So, in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V.

"To tread a measure with you on this grass."

See note on this passage. REED.

Touchstone, to prove that he has been a courtier, particularly mentions a measure, because it was a very stately solemn dance. So, in Much Ado About Nothing: "the wedding mannerly modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry." MALONE.

flattered a lady; I have been politick with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.

JAQ. And how was that ta'en up?

TOUCH. 'Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause 1.

JAQ. How seventh cause ?-Good my lord, like this fellow.

DUKE S. I like him very well.

TOUCH. God'ild you, sir2; I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear, and to forswear; ac

and found the quarrel was upon the SEVENTH CAUSE.] So, all the copies; but it is apparent, from the sequel, that we must read-the quarrel was not upon the seventh cause. JOHNSON.

By the seventh cause, Touchstone, I apprehend, means the lie seven times removed; i. e. the retort courteous, which is removed seven times (counted backwards) from the lie direct, the last and most aggravated species of lie. See the subsequent note on the words" a lie seven times removed." MALONE.

2 GOD'ILD you, sir;] i. e. God yield you, reward you. So, in the Collection of Chester Mysteries, Mercer's play, p. 74, b. MS. Harl. Brit. Mus, 2013:

"The high father of heaven, I pray,

"To yelde you your good deed to day."

See note on Macbeth, Act I. Sc. VI. STEEVENS.
See before, p. 448 of this play. WOODHAM.

3

I desire you of the like.] We should read-I desire of you the like. On the Duke's saying, "I like him very well," he replies, "I desire you will give me cause, that I may like you too." WARBURTON.

I have not admitted the alteration, because there are other examples of this mode of expression. JOHNSON.

See a note on the first scene of the third Act of A MidsummerNight's Dream, vol. v. p. 255, where many examples of this phraseology are given.

So also, in Spenser's Faery Queen, book ii. c. ix. :

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If it be so, of pardon I pray you."

Again, b. iv. c. viii.:

"She dear besought the prince of remedy."

Again, in Heywood's Play of the Wether:

"Besechynge your grace of wynde continual." STEevens.

cording as marriage binds, and blood breaks *:-A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will: Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor-house; as your pearl, in your foul oyster.

DUKE S. By my faith, he is very swift and sen

tentious.

TOUCH. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases".

JAQ. But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?

TOUCH. Upon a lie seven times removed" ;

4 according as marriage binds, and blood breaks :] To swear according as marriage binds, is to take the oath enjoined in the ceremonial of marriage. JOHNSON.

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to swear, and to forswear; according as marriage binds, and blood breaks." A man, by the marriage ceremony, SWEARS that he will keep only to his wife; when therefore, to gratify his lust, he leaves her for another, BLOOD BREAKS his matrimonial obligation, and he is FORSWORN. HENLEY.

5

dulcet diseases.]

This I do not understand. For diseases it is easy to read discourses: but, perhaps, the fault may lie deeper. JOHNSON.

Perhaps he calls a proverb a disease. Proverbial sayings may appear to him the surfeiting diseases of conversation. They are often the plague of commentators.

Dr. Farmer would read-in such dulcet diseases; i. e. in the sweet uneasiness of love, a time when people usually talk nonsense. STEEVENS.

Without staying to examine how far the position last advanced is founded in truth, I shall only add, that I believe the text is right, and that this word is capriciously used for sayings, though neither in its primary or figurative sense it has any relation to that word. In The Merchant of Venice the Clown talks in the same style, but more intelligibly:-" the young gentleman (according to the fates and destinies, and such odd sayings, the sisters three, and such branches of learning,) is indeed deceased.” MALONE.

6 Upon a lie seven times REMOVED;] Touchstone here enumerates seven kinds of lies, from the Retort courteous to the seventh and most aggravated species of lie, which he calls the lie direct. The courtier's answer to his intended affront, he

Bear your body more seeming', Audrey :-as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was

expressly tells us, was the Retort courteous, the first species of lie. When therefore, he says, that they found the quarrel was on the lie seven times REMOVED, we must understand by the latter word, the lie removed seven times, counting backwards, (as the word removed seems to intimate,) from the last and most aggravated species of lie, namely, the lie direct. So, in All's Well That Ends Well:

"Who hath some four or five removes come short

"To tender it herself."

Again, in the play before us: "Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling," i. e. so distant from the haunts of men.

When Touchstone and the courtier met, they found their quarrel originated on the seventh cause, i. e. on the Retort courteous, or the lie seven times removed. In the course of their altercation, after their meeting, Touchstone did not dare to go farther than the sixth species, (counting in regular progression from the first to the last,) the lie circumstantial; and the courtier was afraid to give him the lie direct; so they parted. In a subsequent enumeration of the degrees of a lie, Touchstone expressly names the Retort courteous, as the first; calling it therefore here "the seventh cause," and "the lie seven times removed," he must mean, distant seven times from the most offensive lie, the lie direct. There is certainly, therefore, no need of reading with Dr. Johnson in a former passage-" We found the quarrel was

not on the seventh cause."

The misapprehension of that most judicious critick relative to these passages must apologize for my having employed so many words in explaining them. MALOne.

7- seeming,] i. e. seemly. Seeming is often used by Shakspeare for becoming, or fairness of appearance. Winter's Tale :

So, in The

Seeming and savour all the winter long." STEEVENS.

8 as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard ;] This folly is touched upon, with high humour, by Fletcher, in his Queen of Corinth:

Has he familiarly

"Dislik'd your yellow starch, or said your doubtlet
"Was not exactly frenchified?

or drawn your sword,

Cry'd, 'twas ill mounted? Has he given the lie