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Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES.

CEL. You bring me out :-Soft! comes he not here? Ros. 'Tis he; Slink by, and note him.

[CELIA and ROSALIND retire. F42. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

ORL. And fo had I; but yet, for fashion fake, I thank you too for your fociety.

F42. God be with you; let's meet as little as we

can.

ORL. I do defire we may be better strangers. 742. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-fongs in their barks.

ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

J42. Rofalind is your love's name?

ORL. Yes, juft.

F42. I do not like her name.

ORL. There was no thought of pleasing you, when she was chriften'd.

F42. What ftature is the of?

ORL. Juft as high as my heart.

J42. You are full of pretty anfwers: Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings?

ORL. Not fo; but I anfwer you right painted cloth, from whence you have ftudied your queftions.

4- but I answer you right painted cloth,] This alludes to the fashion in old tapeftry hangings, of mottoes and moral fentences from the mouths of the figures worked or painted in them. The poet again hints at this cuftom in his poem, called, Tarquin and Lucrece: "Who fears a fentence, or an old man's faw,

"Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe." THEOBALD.

F42. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you fit down with

So, in Barnaby Riche's Soldier's Wibe to Britons welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, &c. 1604, p. 1: "It is enough for him that can but robbe a painted cloth of a historie, a booke of a difcourfe, a foole of a fashion," &c.

The fame allufion is common to many of our old plays. So, in The Two Angry Women of Abington, 1599: "Now will I fee if my memory will ferve for fome proverbs. O, a painted cloth were as well worth a fhilling, as a thief is worth a halter." Again, in A Match at Midnight, 1633:

"There's a witty pofy for

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you.

No, no; I'll have one shall favour of a faw. Why then 'twill smell of the painted cloth." Again, in The Mufes' Looking Glafs, by Randolph, 1638: I have feen in Mother Redcap's hall

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"In painted cloth, the ftory of the prodigal."

From this laft quotation we may fuppofe that the rooms in publick houfes were usually hung with what Falstaff calls water-work. On thefe hangings perhaps moral fentences were depicted as iffuing from the mouths of the different characters reprefented.

15578

Again, in Sir Thomas More's English Works, printed by Raftell, "Mayfter Thomas More in hys youth devyfed in hys father's houfe in London, a goodly hangyng of fyne paynted clothe,. with nine pageauntes, and verfes over every of thofe pageauntes; which verfes expreffed and declared what the ymages in those pageauntes reprefented: and alfo in thofe pageauntes were paynted the thynges that the verses over them dyd (in effecte) declare." Of the prefent phrafeology there is an inftance in King John:

He fpeaks plain cannon-fire, and bounce, and fmoke."

STEEVENS

I anfewer you right painted cloth, may mean, I give you a true painted cloth anfwer; as we fay, fhe talks right Billing/gate: that is, exactly fuch language as is used at Billingfgate. JOHNSON.

This fingular phrase may be justified by another of the fame kind in K. Henry V:

"I fpeak to thee plain foldier.” Again, in Twelfth Night:

"He speaks nothing but madman."

There is no need of Sir T. Hanmer's alteration: "I anfwer you right in the file of painted cloth." We had before in this play, "It is the right butter-woman's rate to market." So, in Golding's tranflation of Ovid, 1567:

the look of it was right a maiden's look."

me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery.

ORL. I will chide no breather in the world,' but myfelf; against whom I know most faults.

F42. The worst fault you have, is to be in love. ORL. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

F42. By my troth, I was feeking for a fool, when I found you.

ORL. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you fhall fee him.

J42. There I fhall fee mine own figure.

ORL. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cypher. F42. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good fignior love.

I fuppofe Orlando means to fay, that Jaques's questions have no more of novelty or fhrewdness in them than the trite maxims of the painted cloth. The following lines which are found in a book with this fantastick title,—No whipping nor tripping, but a kind friendly fnipping, octavo, 1601, may ferve as a fpecimen of painted cloth language:

Read what is written on the painted cloth:

"Do no man wrong; be good unto the poor;
"Beware the moufe, the maggot and the moth,
"And ever have an eye unto the door;
"Truft not a fool, a villain, nor a whore;

"Go neat, not gay, and spend but as you spare;

"And turn the colt to pafture with the mare;" &c.

That moral fentences were wrought in these painted cloths, is afcertained by the following paffage in A Dialogue both pleafaunt and pitifull, &c. by Dr. Willyam Bulleyne, 1564, (fignat. H 5.) which has been already quoted: "This is a comelie parlour,and faire clothes, with pleafaunte borders aboute the fame, with many wife fayings painted upon them." MALONE.

5 -no breather in the world,] So, in our author's 81ft Sonnet: "When all the breathers of this world are dead."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"She fhows a body, rather than a life;

"A ftatue, than a breather." MALONE.

ORL. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monfieur melancholy.

[Exit JAQUES.-CELIA and ROSALIND come forward. Ros. I will speak to him like a faucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.— Do you hear, forefter?

ORL. Very well; What would you?

Ros. I pray you, what is't a clock?

ORL. You should afk me, what time o'day; there's no clock in the foreft.

Ros. Then there is no true lover in the foreft; elfe fighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time, as well as a clock.

ORL. And why not the fwift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

Ros. By no means, fir: Time travels in divers paces with divers perfons: I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he ftands ftill withal.

ORL. I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal?

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage, and the day it is folemnized: if the interim be but a fe'nnight, time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of feven years.

ORL. Who ambles time withal?

Ros. With a prieft that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one fleeps

6 Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract, &c.] And yet in Much ado about Nothing, our author tells us, "Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites." In both paffages, however, the interim is equally reprefented as tedious.

MALONE.

cafily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain: the one lacking the burden of lean and wafteful learning; the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury: These time ambles withal.

ORL. Who doth he gallop withal?

Ros. With a thief to the gallows: for though he go as foftly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too foon there.

ORL. Who ftays it ftill withal?

Ros. With lawyers in the vacation: for they fleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.

ORL. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Ros. With this shepherdefs, my fifter; here in the skirts of the foreft, like fringe upon a petticoat. ORL. Are you native of this place?

Ros. As the coney, that you fee dwell where she is kindled.

ORL. Your accent is fomething finer than you could purchase in fo removed a dwelling.

Ros. I have been told fo of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an in-land man; one that

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removed] i. e. remote, fequeftered. REED. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, folio, 1623: "From Athens is her houfe remov'd feven leagues."

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STEEVENS.

in-land man;] Is ufed in this play for one civilifed, in oppofition to the ruftick of the priest. So, Orlando before"Yet am I inland bred, and know fome nurture.” JOHNSON.

See Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1598:

"His prefence made the rudeft peasant melt,
"That in the vast uplandish countrie dwelt."

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