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ORL. My fair Rofalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

Ros. Break an hour's promife in love? He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be faid of him, that Cupid hath clap'd him o' the fhoulder, but I warrant him heart-whole.

ORL. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

Ros. Nay, an you be fo tardy, come no more in my fight; I had as lief be woo'd of a fnail.

ORL. Of a fnail?

Ros. Ay, of a fnail; for though he comes flowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you can make a woman: Befides, he brings his destiny with him.

ORL. What's that?

Ros. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholden to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the flander of his wife. ORL. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rofalind is virtuous.

Ros. And I am your Rofalind.

CEL. It pleafes him to call you fo; but he hath a Rofalind of a better leer than you.+

3 than you can make a woman:
:] Old copy-you
Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE.

woman.

make a

-a Rofalind of a better leer than you.] i. e. of a better feature, complexion, or colour, than you. So, in P. Holland's Pliny, B. XXXI. c. ii. p. 403 : « In fome places there is no other thing bred or growing, but brown and duskish, infomuch as not only the cattel is all of that lere, but also the corn on the ground," &c. The word feems to be derived from the Saxon Hleare, facies, frons, vultus. So it is ufed in Titus Andronicus, A& IV. fc. ii: "Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer." TOLLET.

Ros. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to confent :What would you fay to me now, an I were your very very Rofalind?

ORL. I would kiss, before I spoke.

Ros. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occafion to kifs. Very good orators, when they are out, they will fpit; and for lovers, lacking (God warn us!) matter, the cleanlieft fhift is to kifs. ORL. How if the kifs be denied?

Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there. begins new matter.

ORL. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

Ros. Marry, that fhould you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honefty ranker than my wit.

ORL. What, of my fuit?

Ros. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your fuit. fuit. Am not I your Rofalind?

ORL. I take fome joy to fay you are, because I would be talking of her.

Ros. Well, in her perfon, I fay-I will not have you.

In the notes on the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Vol. IV. P. 320, lere is fupposed to mean skin. So, in Ijumbras MSS. Cott. Cal. II. fol. 129:

"His lady is white as whales bone,
"Here lere bryghte to fe upon,

"So fair as blofme on tre." STEEVENS.

(God warn us!)] If this exclamation (which occurs again in the quarto copies of A Midfummer Night's Dream) is not a corruption of God ward us," i. e. defend us, it must mean, "fummon us to himself." So, in King Richard III:

"And fent to quarn them to his royal prefence."

STEEVENS,

ORL. Then, in mine own person, I die.

Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost fix thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-caufe. Troilus had his brains dafh'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before; and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midfummer night: for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellefpont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish chroniclers of that age' found it was-Hero of Seftos. But these are all lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have caten them, but not for love.

ORL. I would not have my right Rofalind of this mind; for, I proteft, her frown might kill me.

Ros. By this hand, it will not kill a fly: But come, now I will be your Rofalind in a more coming-on difpofition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it.

ORL. Then love me, Rofalind.

5- chroniclers of that age-] Sir T. Hanmer readscoroners, by the advice, as Dr. Warburton hints, of some anonymous critick. JOHNSON.

Mr. Edwards propofes the fame emendation, and fupports it by a paffage in Hamlet: "The coroner hath fat on her, and finds itChriftian burial." I believe, however, the old copy is right; though found is undoubtedly used in its forenfick fenfe. MALONE.

I am furprized that Sir Thomas Hanmer's juft and ingenious amendment fhould not be adopted as foon as fuggefted. The allufion is evidently to a coroner's inqueft, which Rofalind fuppofes to have fat upon the body of Leander, who was drowned in croffing the Hellefpont, and that their verdict was, that Hero of Seftos was the caufe of his death. The word found is the legal term on fuch occafions. We fay, that a jury found it lunacy, or found it manslaughter; and the verdict is called the finding of the jury.

M. MASON.

all.

Ros. Yes, faith will I, fridays, and faturdays, and

ORL. And wilt thou have me?

Ros. Ay, and twenty fuch.
ORL. What fay'st thou?
Ros. Are you not good?
ORL. I hope fo.

Ros. Why then, can one defire too much of a good thing?-Come, fifter, you shall be the priest, and marry us.-Give me your hand, Orlando:What do you fay, sister?

ORL. Pray thee, marry us.

CEL. I cannot say the words.

Ros. You must begin,-Will you, Orlando,

CEL. Go to:

this Rofalind?

ORL. I will.

-Will you, Orlando, have to wife

Ros. Ay, but when?

ORL. Why now; as faft as fhe can marry us. Ros. Then you must say,-I take thee, Rofalind, for wife.

ORL. I take thee, Rofalind, for wife.

Ros. I might afk you for your commiffion; but, I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: There a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions.

ORL. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.

6 There a girl goes before the prieft;] The old copy reads"There's a girl," &c. The emendation in the text was propofed to me long ago by Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS.

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Ros. Now tell me, how long you would have her, after you have poffefs'd her.

ORL. For ever, and a day.

Ros. Say a day, without the ever: No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled than an ape; more giddy in my defires than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain," and I will do that when you are difpos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to fleep.

8

71 will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain,] The allufion is to the cross in Cheapfide; the religious images with which it was ornamented, being defaced, (as we learn from Stowe,) in 1596, "There was then fet up, a curious wrought tabernacle of gray marble, and in the fame an alabaster image of Diana, and water conveyed from the Thames, prilling from her naked breast." Store, in Cheap Ward.

Statues, and particularly that of Diana, with water conveyed through them to give them the appearance of weeping figures, were anciently a frequent ornament of fountains. So, in The City Match, A& III. fc. iii:

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Now could I

cry

"Like any image in a fountain, which

"Runs lamentations."

And again in Rofamond's Epiftle to Henry II. by Drayton : "Here in the garden, wrought by curious hands, "Naked Diana in the fountain ftands." WHALLEY. The bark of the hyena was

I will laugh like a hyen,]

anciently fuppofed to refemble a loud laugh.

So, in Webster's Duchefs of Malfy, 1623:
Methinks I fee her laughing,

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"Excellent Hyena!"

Again, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594:

"You laugh byena-like, weep like a crocodile."

STEEVENS.

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