BER. It is an honour 'longing to our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors; Which were the greatest obloquy i'the world In me to lofe.

DIA.

Mine honour's such a ring:
My chastity's the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greatest obloquy i'the world
In me to lofe: Thus your own proper wifdom.
Brings in the champion honour on my part,
Against your vain affault.

BER.

Here, take my ring: Mine house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine, And I'll be bid by thee.

DIA. When midnight comes, knock at my cham-
ber window;

I'll order take, my mother shall not hear.
Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:
My reasons are most strong; and you shall know
them,

When back again this ring fhall be deliver'd:
And on your finger, in the night, I'll put
Another ring; that, what in time proceeds,
May token to the future our past deeds.

Nor is Mr. Malone's fuppofition, of feene for fearre, a whit more in point; for, first, fearre, in every part of England where rocks abound, is well known to fignify the detached protrusion of a large rock; whereas fcare is terror or affright. Nor was fcare, in the first fketch of The Merry Wives of Windfor, a mistake for scene, but an intentional change of ideas; fcare implying only Falstaff's terror, but fcene including the fpectator's entertainment. On the fuppofal that make hopes is the true reading, in such a scarre, may be taken figuratively for in fuch an extremity, i, e. in fo defperate a fituation. HENLEY.

Adieu, till then; then, fail not: You have won A wife of me, though there my hope be done. BER. A heaven on earth I have won, by wooing [Exit. DIA. For which live long to thank both heaven and me!

thee.

You may fo in the end.

My mother told me just how he would woo,
As if the fat in his heart; fhe fays, all men
Have the like oaths: he had fworn to marry me,
When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him,
When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid: "
Only, in this disguise, I think't no fin
To cozen him, that would unjustly win.

5 Since Frenchmen are fo braid,

[Exit.

Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid:] Braid fignifies erafty or deceitful. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Dian rofe with all her maids,

Chaucer ufes the word in the fame fenfe; but as the paffage where it occurs in his Troilus and Creffida is contefted, it may be neceffary to obferve, that Bred is an Anglo-Saxon word, fignifying fraus, aftus. Again, in Tho. Drant's Tranflation of Horace's Epiftles, where its import is not very clear:

Profeffing thee a friend, to plaie the ribbalde at a brade." In The Romaunt of the Rofe, v. 1336, Braid seems to mean forthwith, or, at a jerk. There is nothing to answer it in the French, except vantoft. STEEVENS.

SCENE III.

The Florentine Camp.

Enter the two French Lords, and two or three
Soldiers.

I LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter?

2 LORD. I have deliver'd it an hour fince: there is fomething in't that ftings his nature; for, on the reading it, he changed almost into another man.

I LORD." He has much worthy blame laid upon him, for shaking off fo good a wife, and fo fweet a lady.

6 1 Lord.] The latter editors have with great liberality bestowed lordship upon these interlocutors, who, in the original edition, are called, with more propriety, capt. E. and capt. G. It is true that captain E. in a former fcene is called lord E. but the fubordination in which they seem to act, and the timorous manner in which they converfe, determines them to be only captains. Yet as the latter readers of Shakspeare have been used to find them lords, I have not thought it worth while to degrade them in the margin. JOHNSON.

Thefe two perfonages may be fuppofed to be two young French Lords ferving in the Florentine camp, where they now appear in their military capacity. In the firft fcene where the two French Lords are introduced, taking leave of the king, they are called in the original edition, Lord E. and Lord G.

G. and E. were, I believe, only put to denote the players who performed thefe characters. In the lift of actors prefixed to the firft folio, I find the names of Gilburne and Eccleftone, to whom thefe infignificant parts probably fell. Perhaps, however, these performers first reprefented the French lords, and afterwards two captains in the Florentine army; and hence the confufion of the old copy. In the first scene of this act, one of these captains is called throughout, 1. Lord E. The matter is of no great importance. MALONE.

2 LORD. Efpecially he hath incurred the everlafting displeasure of the king, who had even tunea his bounty to fing happinefs to him. I will tell you a thing, but you fhall let it dwell darkly with you.

I LORD. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it.

2 LORD. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chafte renown; and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour he hath given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself made in the unchafte compofition.

I LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion; as we are ourselves, what things are we!

2 LORD. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common courfe of all treafons, we ftill fee them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorr'd ends; fo he, that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in his proper ftream o'erflows himself.8

7

I LORD. Is it not meant damnable in us, to be

till they attain to their abhorr'd ends;] This may mean-they are perpetually talking about the mifchief they intend to do, till they have obtained an opportunity of doing it. STEEVENS. in his proper ftream o'erflows himself.] That is, betrays his own fecrets in his own talk. The reply fhows that this is the meaning. JOHNSON.

8

9 Is it not meant damnable in us,] I once thought that we ought to read--Is it not most damnable; but no change is neceffary. Adjectives are often used as adverbs by our author and his contemporaries. So, in The Winter's Tale:

"That did but show thee, of a fool, inconftant,
"And damnable ungrateful."

Again, in Twelfth Night: "—and as thou draweft, fwear borrible-."

trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We fhall not then have his company to-night?

2 LORD. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.

2

I LORD. That approaches apace: I would gladly have him fee his company anatomiz'd; that he might take a measure of his own judgements,' wherein fo curiously he had fet this counterfeit.*

2 LORD. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his prefence must be the whip of the

other.

I LORD. In the mean time, what hear you of these wars?

2 LORD. I hear, there is an overture of peace. I LORD. Nay, I affure you, a peace concluded. 2 LORD. What will count Roufillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France? I LORD. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether of his council.

Again, in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

"Let the fuppofed fairies pinch him sound."

Again, in Maffinger's Very Woman:

"I'll beat thee damnable." MALONE.

Mr. M. Mason wishes to read-mean and damnable.

2

STEEVENS.

his company] i. e. his companion. It is fo used in King

Henry V. MALONE.

3 - he might take a measure of his own judgements,] This is a very juft and moral reafon. Bertram, by finding how erroneously he has judged, will be lefs confident, and more eafily moved by admonition. JOHNSON.

wherein fo curiously he had fet this counterfeit.] Parolles is the perfon whom they are going to anatomize. Counterfeit, befides its ordinary fignification,-[a perfon pretending to be what he is not,] fignified alfo in our author's time a falfe coin, and a picture. The word fet fhows that it is here used in the first and the laft of these fenfes. MALONE.