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WILL. Ay, fir, I thank God.

TOUCH. Thank God;-a good answer: Art rich? WILL. 'Faith, fir, so, so.

TOUCH. So, fo, is good, very good, very excellent good:-and yet it is not; it is but fo fo. Art thou wife?

WILL. Ay, fir, I have a pretty wit.

TOUCH. Why, thou fay'ft well. I do now remember a faying; The fool doth think he is wife, but the wife man knows himself to be a fool. The heathen philofopher, when he had a defire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth;+ meaning thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid?'

WILL. I do, fir.

TOUCH. Give me your hand: Art thou learned? WILL. No, fir.

TOUCH. Then learn this of me; To have, is to have: For it is a figure in rhetorick, that drink, being pour'd out of a cup into a glafs, by filling

4 The heathen philofopher, when he had a defire to eat a grape, &c.] This was defigned as a fneer on the feveral trifling and infignificant fayings and actions, recorded of the ancient philofophers, by the writers of their lives, fuch as Diogenes Laertius, Philoftratus, Eunapius, &c. as appears from its being introduced by one of their wife fayings. WARBURTON.

A book called The Dites and Sayings of the Philofophers, was printed by Caxton in 1477. It was tranflated out of French into English by Lord Rivers. From this performance, or fome republication of it, Shakspeare's knowledge of these philofophical trifles might be derived. STEEVENS.

5 — meaning thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid?] Part of this dialogue feems to have grown out of the novel on which the play is formed: "Phebe is no latice for your lips, and her grapes hang fo hie, that gaze at them you may, but touch them you cannot.' MALONE.

the one doth empty the other: For all your writers do confent, that ipfe is he; now you are not ipfe, for I am he.

WILL. Which he, fir?

TOUCH. He, fir, that muft marry this woman: Therefore, you clown, abandon,-which is in the vulgar, leave, the fociety,-which in the boorish is, company,-of this female,-which in the common is, woman, which together is, abandon the fociety of this female; or, clown thou perifheft; or, to thy better understanding, dieft; to wit, I kill thee,' make thee away, tranflate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in baftinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways; therefore tremble, and depart.

AUD. Do, good William.
WILL. God rest you merry, fir.

[Exit.

Enter CORIN.

COR. Our mafter and miftrefs feek you; come, away, away.

TOUCH. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey;—I attend, I attend. [Exeunt.

3 —to wit, I kill thee,] The old copy reads" or, to wit, I kill thee." I have omitted the impertinent conjunction or, by the advice of Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS,

SCENE II.

The fame.

Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER.

ORL. Is't poffible," that on fo little acquaintance you should like her? that, but feeing, you should love her? and, loving, woo? and, wooing, the fhould grant? And will you perféver to enjoy her?

OLI. Neither call the giddinefs of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my fudden wooing, nor her fudden confenting; but fay with me, I love Aliena; fay with her, that she loves me; confent with both, that we may enjoy each other: it fhall be to your good; for my father's house, and all the revenue that was old fir Rowland's, will I eftate upon you, and here live and die a fhepherd.

Enter ROSALIND.

ORL. You have my confent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the duke, and

6 Is't poffible, &c.] Shakspeare, by putting this question into the mouth of Orlando, feems to have been aware of the impropriety which he had been guilty of by deferting his original. In Lodge's novel, the elder brother is inftrumental in faving Aliena from a band of ruffians, who " thought to fteal her away, and to give her to the king for a prefent, hoping, because the king was a great leacher, by fuch a gift to purchase all their pardons." Without the intervention of this circumftance, the paffion of Aliena appears to be very hafty indeed. STEEVENS.

7

nor her fudden confenting;] Old copy-nor fudden. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

all his contented followers: Go you, and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rofalind. Ros. God fave you, brother.

[blocks in formation]

Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to fee thee wear thy heart in a scarf.

ORL. It is my arm.

Ros. I thought, thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

ORL. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to fwoon, when he show'd me your handkerchief?

ORL. Ay, and greater wonders than that.

Ros. O, I know where you are:-Nay, 'tis true: there was never any thing so sudden, but the fight of two rams, and Cæfar's thrafonical brag of I came, faw, and overcame: For your brother and my fifter no fooner met, but they look'd; no fooner look'd, but they lov'd; no fooner lov'd, but they figh'd; no fooner figh'd, but they afk'd one another the reafon; no fooner knew the reason, but they fought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before

And you, fair fifter.] I know not why Oliver should call Rofalind fifter. He takes her yet to be a man. I fuppofe we fhould read-And you, and your fair fifter. JOHNSON.

Oliver fpeaks to her in the character fhe had affumed, of a woman courted by Orlando his brother. CHAMIER.

9 never any thing fo fudden, but the fight of two rams,] So, in Laneham's Account of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at Kennelworth Castle, 1575:

at their rut." STEEVENS.

- ootrageous in their racez az rams

marriage: they are in the very wrath of love, and they will together; clubs cannot part them.*

ORL. They fhall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By fo much the more fhall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heavinefs, by how much I fhall think my brother happy, in having what he wishes for.

Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot ferve your turn for Rofalind?

ORL. I can live no longer by thinking.

Ros. I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, (for now I fpeak to fome purpose,) that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this, that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, infomuch, I say, I know you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in fome little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do ftrange things: I have, fince I was three years old,

clubs cannot part them.] It appears from many of our old dramas, that, in our author's time, it was a common cuftom, on the breaking out of a fray, to call out "Clubs--Clubs,” to part the combatants.

So, in Titus Andronicus:

Clubs, clubs; thefe lovers will not keep the peace." The preceding words" they are in the very wrath of love," fhow that our author had this in contemplation. MALONE.

So, in the First Part of K. Henry VI. when the Mayor of London is endeavouring to put a stop to the combat between the partisans of Glocefter and Winchester, he fays,

"I'll call for clubs, if you will not away." And in Henry VIII, the Porter fays, "I miffed the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out Clubs! when I might fee from far fome forty truncheoneers draw to her fuccour." M. MASON.

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