Biron. By heaven, all dry beaten with pure scoff.--
King. Farewel, mad wenches, you have simple wits.

[Exeunt King and Lords.
Prin. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovitès.
Are these the breed of wits so wondred at?

Boyet. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puftout.
Rofa. Well-liking wits they have ; gross, gross; fat, fat.

Prin. O poverty in wit, kingly poor flout:
Will they not (think you) hang themselves to-night?

Or ever, but in vizors, fhew their faces?
This pert Biron was out of count'nance quite.

Rosa. O! they were all in lamentable cases.
The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.

Prin. Biron did swear himself out of all fuit.

Mar. Dumain was at my service, and his sword :
No, point, quoth I; my servant strait was mute.

Cath. Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart;
And, trow you, what he callid me!

Prin. Qualm, perhaps.
Cath. Yes, in good faith.
Prin. Go, fickness as thou art !

Rosa. Well, better wits have worn plain statute caps.
But will you hear the King is my love sworn.

Prin. And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me.
Cath. And Longaville was for my service born.
Mar. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.

Boyet. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
Immediately they will again be here
In their own shapes ; for it can never be,
They will digest this harsh indignity.

Prin. Will they return?

Boyet. They will, they will, God knows;
And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows:
Therefore change favours, and when they repair,
Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.

Prin. How blow ? how blow? speak to be understood.
Boyet. Fair Ladies, malkt, are roses in their bud; (46)

Or (46) Fair Ladies maskt are roses in the bud :

Dismaskt, their damask sweet con mixture shown,
Are angels vailing clouds, or rojes blown.]

As

.

Or angel-veiling clouds : are roses blown,
Disinaskt, their damask sweet commixture shewn.

Prin. Avaunt, perplexity! what shall we do,
If they return in their own shapes to woo?

Roj. Good Madam, if by me you'll be advis'd, Let's mock them ftill, as well known, as disguisd; Let us complain to them what fools were here, Disguis’d, like Muscovites, in shapeless gear ; And wonder what they were, and to what end Their shallow shows, and prologue vildly pen’d, And their rough carriage so ridiculous, Should be presented at our tent to us.

Boyet. Ladies, withdraw, the Gallants are at hand. Prin. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er the land.

[Exeunt.

А ст

V.

SCENE, before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the King, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, in

their own habits ; Boyet, meeting them.

, .

KING.
Air Sir, God save you. Where's the Princess ?

. Please it your Majesty, command me any service to her?

King. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.
Boyet. I will; and so will fhe, I know, my Lord. [Exit.

Biron. This fellow picks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again, when Jove doth please : As these lines stand in all the editions, there is not only an Anticlimax with a vengeance; but such a jumble, that makes the whole, I think, stark nonsense. I have ventur'd at a vaniposition of the 2d and 3d lines, by the advice of my friend Mr. Warburton; and by a minute change, or two, clear'd up the sense, I hope, to the poet's intention.

He

He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares
At wakes and waffals, meetings, markets, fairs :
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This Gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve,
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
He can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he,
That kift away his hand in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, Monsieur the nice,
That when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms : nay, he can fing
A mean most mainly ; and, in ufhering,
Mend him who can; the ladies call him sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
This is the flower, that smiles on every one, (47)
To fhew his teeth, as white as whale his bone.

And (47) This is the flow'r, that smiles on ev'ry one,---] A flower smiling, is a very odd image. I once suspected, that the poet might have wrote;

This is the fieerer, smiles on ev'ry one. But nothing is to be alter'd in the text. The metaphor is to be justified by our author's usage in other passages,

Romeo and Juliet.
Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

Rom. Pink for ficwer.
And again;

He is not the flower of courtesy; but, I warrant him as gentle as But the complex metapbor, as it stands in the passage before us, will be much better justified by a fine piece of criticism, which my ingenious friend Mr. W'arburton sent me upon this subject. I'li fubjoin it in his own words, “ What the criticks call the broken, disjointest, and mixt " metaphor are very great faults in writing. But then observe this “ rule, which, I think, is of general and constant use in writing, and “ very necessary to direct one's judgment in this part of style. That when “ a metaphor is grown so common as to defert, as 'twere, the figura

tive, and to be receiv'd into the simple or conimon slyle, then what “ may be affirm'd of the substance, may be affirmd of the image, i. e. “ the metaphor : for a metaphor is an inage. To illustrate this rule by " the example before us. A very complaisant, fi nical, over-gracious “ person was in our author's time so commonly calld a flower, (or " as he elsewhere ftyles it, the pink of courtesy,) that in common talk, “ or in the lowest style, it might be well used, without continuing “ the discourse in the terms of that metaphor, but turning them on

" the

a lamb.

L 3

And consciences, that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongu'd Boyet.
King. A blister on his sweet tongue

with
my

heart, That put Armado's Page out of his part ! Enter the Princess, Rosaline, Maria, Catharine, Boyet,

and Attendants. Biron. See, where it comes; behaviour, what wert thou, 'Till this man thew'd thee? and what art thou now? King. All hail, sweet Madam, and fair time of day!

Prin. Fair in all hail is soul, as I conceive.
King. Contrue my speeches better, if you may;

Prin. Then with me better, I will give you leave.
King. We come to visit you, and purpose now

To lead you to our court ; vouchlafe it then.
Prin. This field fail hold me, and fo hold your vow :

Nor God, nor I, delight in perjur'd men.
King. Rebuke me not for that, which you provoke ;

The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
Prin. You nick-name virtue; vice you should have

fpoke:
For virtue's office never breaks mens troth.

" the person so denominated. And now I will give the reason of my

rule. In the less-used metaphors, our mind is so turn'd upon the " image which the metaphor conveys, that it expects that thai image “ should be for a little time continued, by terms proper to keep it up. « But if, for want of these terms, the image bę no sooner presented, “ but dropt; the mind suffers a kind of violence by being callid off “ unexpectedly and suddenly from its contemplation, and from hence " the broken, disjointed, and mixt metaphor focks vs. But when the “ metaphor is worn and hack ney'd by 'common use, even the first “ mention of it does not raise in the mind the image of itself, but “ immediately presents the idea of the substance: and then to endea- your to continue the image, and keep it up in the mind by proper " adapted terms, would, on the other hand, have as ill an affect; be's cause the mind is already gone off from the metaphorical image to “ the subftance. Grammatical criticks would do well to confider « what has been here said, when they set upon amending Greek and “ Roman writings. For the much-used, hackney'd metaphors in “ those languages must now be very imperfectly known : and con“ sequently, without great caution, they will be subject to act temesi sаriously."

Now,

+

Now, by my maiden honour, yet as pure

As the unfully'd lilly, I protest,
A world of torments though I should endure,

I would not yield to be your house's guest :
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
Of heav'nly oaths, vow'd with integrity.
King. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,

Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
Prin. Not so, my Lord; it is not so, I swear ;

We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game.
A mess of Ruffians left us but of late.

King. How, Madam? Ruffians ?

Prin. Ay, in truth, my Lord;
Trim gallants, full of courtship, and of fate.
Rofa. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my

Lord:
My Lady (to the manner of the days)
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four, indeed, confronted were with four,
In Ruffian habit: here they stay'd an hour,
And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my Lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

Biron. This jeft is dry to me. Fair, gentle, sweet,
Your wit makes wise things foolish ; when we greet
With eyes best seeing heaven's fiery eye,
By light we lose light; your capacity
Is of that nature, as to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor.

Rofa. This proves you wise and rich; for in my eye-
Biron. I am a fool, and full of poverty.

Roja. But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

Biron. 0, I am yours, and all that I poifeis.
Rofa. All the fool mine?
Biron. I cannot give you less.
Rofa. Which of the vizors was it, that you wore ?
Biron. Where? when? what vizor? whydemandyou this?
Rofa. There, then, that vizor, that fuperfluous case,

That

:

14