Prin. Welcome, Macard, but that thou interruptest our merriment.

Mac. I'm sorry, Madam; for the news I bring Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father Prin. Dead, for

my

life. Mac. Even so : my tale' is told. Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.

Arm. For my own part, I breathe free breath ; I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.

[Exeunt Worthies. King. How fares your Majesty ? Prin. Boyet, prepare ; I will away to-night. King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.

Prin. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious Lords, For all

your

fair endeavours; and entreat,
Out of a new-fad soul, that you vouchsafe
In
your

rich wisdom to excuse, or hide,
The liberal opposition of our spirits ;
If over-boldly we have born ourselves
In the converse of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it. Farewel, worthy Lord;
An heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue : (53)
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks,
For my great suit so easily obtain'd.

King. The extreme part of time extremely forms
All causes to the purpose of his speed ;
And often, at his very loose, decides
That, which long process could not arbitrate.
And though the mourning brow of progeny
Forbid the smiling courtely of love,
The holy suit which fain it would convince;
Yet fince love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it

(53) An heavy heart bears not an humble tougue.) Thus all the editions ; but, surely, without either sense or truth. None are more bumble in speech, than they who labour under any oppression. The Princess is defiring, her grief may apologize for her not expreffing her obligations at large ; and my correction is conformable to that sentiment.

From

1

From what it purpos’d: fince, to wail friends loft,
Is not by much so wholsome, profitable,
As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Prin. I understand you not, my griefs are double.

Biron. Honeft plain words best pierce the ear of grief; And by these badges understand the King. For your fair fakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, Ladies, Hath much deform’d us, fashioning our humours Even to th' opposed end of our intents; And what in us hath feem'd ridiculous, As love is full of unbefitting strains, All wanton as a child, skipping and vain, Form'd by the eye, and therefore like the wye, Full of straying shapes, of habits, and of forms, Varying in subjects as the eye doth rowl, To every varied object in his glance; Which party-coated presence of loose love Put on by us, if, in your heav'nly eyes, Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities; Those heav'nly eyes, that look into these faults, Suggested us to make them : therefore, Ladies, Our love being yours, the error that love makes Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false, By being once false, for ever to be true To those that make us both; fair Ladies, you: And even that falfhond, in itself a fin, Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love,
Your favours, the embassadors of love:
And in our maiden council rated them
At courtship, pleasant jeft, and courtesy;
As bumbast, and as lining to the time :
But more devout, 'than these are our respects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment,

Dum. Our letters, madam, shew'd much more than jefte
Long. So did our looks.
Rosa. We did not coat them fo.

King. Now at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.

Prin

go

Prin. A time methinks, too short, To make a world-without-end bargain in ; No, no, my Lord, your Grace is perjur'd much, Full of dear guiltiness ; and therefore, this. If for my love (as there is no such cause) You will do ought, this shall you do for me; Your oath I will not trust; but with speed To some forlorn and naked hermitage, Remote from all the pleasures of the world ; There stay until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about their annual reckoning. If this auftere insociable life Change not your offer made in heat of blood; If froits, and fafts, hard lodging, and thin weeds Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, But that it bear this trial, and last love ; Then, at the expiration of the year, Come challenge me ; challenge me, by these deferts ; And by this virgin palm, now kifling thine, I will be thine; and 'till that instant shut My woeful self up in a mourning house, Raining the tears of lamentation, For the remembrance of my father's death. If this thou do deny, let our hands part; Neither intitled in the other's heart. King. If this, or more than this, I would deny,

To flatter up these powers of mine with rest ; The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!

Hence, ever then, my heart is in thy breaft. Biron. (54) [And what to me, my lover and what to me?

Rofa. (54) Biron. [ And what to me, my love? and what to me ? Rosa. 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 twelaemonth all you spend, and never refi,

But seck the weary beds of people fick.] These fix verses boih Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concur to think should be expung'd; and therefore I have put them between crotchets: not that they were an interpolation, says the Dostor, but as the author's first draught, which he afterwards rejected; and executed the fame thought a little lower with much more spirit and elegance, Mr. War

burton

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 mall you spend, and never rest, But seek 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, hall I say, I thank you, gentle wife ?
Cath. Not so, my Lord; a twelve-month and a day,
I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.
Come, when the King doth to my Lady come ;
Then if I have much love, I'll give you some.

Dum, I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
Cath. Yet swear not, left ye be forsworn again.
Long. What says Maria?

Mar. At the twelve-month's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

Long. I'll stay with patience ; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you ; few taller are so young.

Biron. Studies my Lady ? mistress, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there ;
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Rofa. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron, Before I saw 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 aba furd repetition, but his actor editors; who, thinking Rosalind's speech too long in the second plan, had abridg'd it to the lines above quoted : but, in publishing the play, stupidly printed both the original speech of Shakespeare, and their own abridgment of it. (55) A wife, a beard, fair health, and honesty ;

With threefold love I give you all these three. Thus our sagacious modern editors. But if they had but the reckoning of a tapster, as our author says, they might have been able to distinguish four from three. I have, by the direction of the old impressions, reform’d the pointing; and made Catharine say what the intended. Seeing Dumaine, so very young, approach her with his addresses, “ You “ Thall have a wife, indeed ! says she ; no, no, l'll with three " things you have more need of, a beard, a sound conftitution, and « bonesly enough to preserve it such.

Which

you

Which you on all estates 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,
With ut the which I am not to be won;
You shall this twelve-month-term from day to day
Visit the speechless 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 impossible :
Mirch cannot move a soul in agony.

Roja. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing fpirit, Whoie influence is begot of that loose grace, Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools: A jeft's prosperity 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 scorns; continue then, And I will have you, and that fault withal : But if they will not, throw away that spirit; And I fall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelve-month? well; befal, what will befal, I'll jest a twelve-month in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet my Lord, and so 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; these 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.] Besides the exact regularity to the rules of art, which the author has happen'd to preserve in some few of his pieces; this is demonstration, I think, that tho' he has more frequently transgress'd the umty of time, by cramming years into the

compass