Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance.

PHE. I would not be thy executioner; I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

In King John is a play on words not unlike this: all with purple hands

"Dy'd in the dying flaughter of their foes."

Camden has preferved an epitaph on a dyer, which has the fame

turn:

"He that dyed fo oft in fport,

Dyed at laft, no colour for't."

So, Heywood, in his Epigrams, 1562:

"Is thy husband a dyer, woman? alack, "Had he no colour to dye thee on but black? "Dieth he oft? yea too oft when cuftomers call; "But I would have him one day die once for all. "Were he gone, dyer never more would I wed, Dyers be ever dying, but never dead." Again, Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589:

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"We once fported upon a country fellow, who came to run for the best game, and was by his occupation a dyer, and had very big fwelling legs.

He is but coarse to run a course,

"Whose shanks are bigger than his thigh; "Yet is his luck a little worfe

"That often dyes before he die."

"Where ye fee the words courfe and die used in divers fenfes, one giving the rebound to the other." STEEVENS.

J. Davies of Hereford, in his Scourge of Folly, printed about 1611, has the fame conceit, and uses almost our authour's words: OF A PROUD LYING DYER.

"Turbine, the dyer, ftalks before his dore,
"Like Cæfar, that by dying oft did thrive;
"And though the beggar be as proud as poore,
"Yet (like the mortifide) he dyes to live."

Again, On the fame:

"Who lives well, dies well :-not by and by;

"For this man lives proudly, yet well doth die." MALONE. He that lives and dies, i. e. he who to the very end of his life continues a common executioner. So, in the fecond fcene of the fifth Act of this play, "live and die a fhepherd." TOLLET.

To die and live by a thing is to be conftant to it, to perfevere in

Thou tell'ft me, there is murder in mine eye: 'Tis pretty, fure, and very probable,"

That eyes, that are the frail'ft and softest things,
Who fhut their coward gates on atomies,-
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And, if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill
thee;

Now counterfeit to fwoon; why now fall down;
Or, if thou canst not, O, for fhame, for fhame,
Lie not, to fay mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some fear of it; lean but upon a rush,"
The cicatrice and capable impreffure"

Thy palm fome moment keeps: but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;
Nor, I am fure, there is no force in eyes

If ever, (as that ever may be near,)

it to the end. Lives therefore does not fignify is maintained, but the two verbs taken together mean, who is all his life converfant with bloody drops. MUSGRAVE,

7 'Tis pretty, fure, and very probable,] Sure for furely. DOUCE, 8 lean but upon a rush,] But, which is not in the old copy, was added for the fake of the metre, by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

9 The cicatrice and capable impreffure-] very properly used; it is the fear of a wound, hollow mark. JOHNSON.

Cicatrice is here not
Capable impreffure,

Capable, I believe, means here-perceptible. Our author often afes the word for intelligent; (See a note on Hamlet,

"His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
"Would make them capable."),

hence, with his ufual licence, for intelligible, and then for percep tible. MALONE.

You meet in fome fresh cheek the power of fancy," Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love's keen arrows make.

PHE.

But, till that time,

Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;

As, till that time, I fhall not pity thee.

Ros. And why, I pray you? [Advancing] Who might be your mother,'

That you infult, exult, and all at once,4

Over the wretched? What though you have more beauty,'

3-power of fancy,] Fancy is here ufed for love, as before in The Midsummer Night's Dream. JOHNSON.

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Who might be your mother,] It is common for the poets to exprefs cruelty by faying, of those who commit it, that they were born of rocks, or fuckled by tigreffes. JOHNSON.

4 That you infult, exult, and all at once,] If the speaker intended to accufe the perfon fpoken to only for infulting and exulting; then, inftead of-all at once, it ought to have been, both at once. But by examining the crime of the perfon accused, we fhall difcover that the line is to be read thus:

That you infult, exult, and rail at once.

For thefe three things Phebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for rail at once, reads domineer. WARBURTON.

I fee no need of emendation. The fpeaker may mean thus: Who might be your mother, that you infult, exult, and that too all in a breath? Such is perhaps the meaning of all at once. STEEVENS. What though you have more beauty,] The old copy reads: What though you have no beauty. STEEVENS.

Though all the printed copies agree in this reading, it is very accurately obferved to me by an ingenious unknown correfpondent, who figns himself L. H. (and to whom I can only here make my acknowledgement) that the negative ought to be left out. THEOBALD.

That no is a mifprint, appears clearly from the paffage in Lodge's Rofalynde, which Shakspeare has here imitated: "Sometimes have I feen high difdaine turned to hot defires.Because thou art beautiful, be not to coy; as there is nothing more faire, fo there is nothing more fading."-Mr. Theobald corrected the error, by expunging the word no; in which he was copied by the fubfequent editors;

(As, by my faith, I fee no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed,)
Muft you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I fee no more in you, than in the ordinary
Of nature's fale-work:-Od's my little life!

but omiffion (as I have often obferved) is of all the modes of emendation the moft exceptionable. No was, I believe, a mifprint for me, a word often used by our author and his contemporaries for more. So, in a former fcene in this play: "I pray you, mar no mo of my verfes with reading them ill-favour'dly." Again, in Much ado about Nothing: Sing no more ditties, fing no m.' Again, in The Tempest: Mo widows of this bufinefs making-" Many other inftances might be added. The word is found in almost every book of that age. As no is here printed instead of mo, fo in Romeo and Juliet, Act V. we find in the folio, 1623, Mo matter, for No matter. This correction being lefs violent than Mr. Theobald's, I have inferted it in the text. "What though I fhould allow you had more beauty than he, (fays Rofalind,) though by my faith," &c. (for fuch is the force of As in the next line) muft you therefore treat him with difdain ?" In Antony and Cleopatra we meet with a paffage constructed nearly in the fame

manner:

Say, this becomes him,

"(As his compofure must be rare indeed

"Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet," &c.

Again, in Love's Labour's Loft:

"But fay that he or we, (as neither have,)

"Receiv'd that fum," &c.

Again, more appofitely, in Camden's Remaines, p. 190, edit. 1605: "I force not of fuch fooleries; but if I have any skill in foothfaying (as in footh I have none) it doth prognofticate that I shall change copie from a duke to a king." MALONE.

As mo (unless rhyme demands it) is but an indolent abbreviation of more, I have adopted Mr. Malone's conjecture, without his manner of fpelling the word in queftion. If mo were right, how happens it that more fhould occur twice afterwards in the fame fpeech? STEEVENS.

6 Of nature's fale-work:] Thofe works that nature makes up carelessly and without exactnefs. The allufion is to the practice of mechanicks, whofe work bespoke is more elaborate than that which is made up for chance-cuftomers, or to fell in quantities. to retailers, which is called fale-work. WARBURTON,

I think, fhe means to tangle my eyes too:-
No, 'faith, proud miftrefs, hope not after it;
'Tis not your inky brows, your black-filk hair,
Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my fpirits to your worship.-
You foolish fhepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy fouth, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man,
Than fhe a woman: 'Tis fuch fools as you,
That make the world full of ill-favour'd children:
'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
And out of you the fees herfelf more proper,
Than any of her lineaments can fhow her.-
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fafting, for a good man's love:
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,—
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So, take her to thee, fhepherd;—fare you well.
PHE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;
I had rather hear you chide, than this man woo.

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Ros. He's fallen in love with her foulness,' and fhe'll fall in love with my anger: If it be fo, as fast as the answers thee with frowning looks, I'll fauce her with bitter words.-Why look you fo upon me? PHE. For no ill will I bear you.

Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falfer than vows made in wine: Befides, I like you not: If you will know my house,

That can entame my Spirits to your worship.] So, in Much ado about Nothing:

Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand." STEEVENS. Foul is most foul, being foul to be a fcoffer.] The fenfe is, The ugly Seem moft ugly, when, though ugly, they are fcoffers. JOHNSON. with her foulness,] So, Sir Tho. Hanmer; the other editions your foulnefs. JOHNSON.

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