Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts;
Which you on all eftates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain;
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won,)
You fhall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechlefs fick, and ftill converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

BIRON. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impoffible:

Mirth cannot move a foul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, Which fhallow laughing hearers give to fools: A jeft's profperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it: then, if fickly ears,

Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle fcorns, continue then,

And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I fhall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

BIRON. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal,

I'll jeft a twelvemonth in an hospital.

PRIN. Ay, fweet my lord; and fo I take my leave. [To the KING.

KING. No, madam: we will bring you on your way. BIRON. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;

Jack hath not Jill: thefe ladies' courtesy

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

KING. Come, fir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end.

BIRON. That's too long for a play.

Enter ARMADO.

ARM. Sweet majefty, vouchsafe me,-
PRIN. Was not that Hector?

DUM. The worthy knight of Troy.

ARM. I will kifs thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her fweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it fhould have followed in the end of our fhow.

KING. Call them forth quickly, we will do so.
ARM. Holla! approach.

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.

This fide is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the fpring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.

Spring. When daifies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-fmocks all filver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow bue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus fings he,

Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,

Unpleafing to a married ear!

II.

When Shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their fummer fmocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus fings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!

III.

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the Shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly fings the ftaring owl,

To-who;

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parfon's faw,
And birds fit brooding in the fnow,

And Marian's nofe looks red and raw,
When roafted crabs hifs in the bowl,
Then nightly fings the flaring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greafy Joan doth keel the pot.

ARM. The words of Mercury are harsh after the fongs

of Apollo. You, that

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Lorenzo, in love with Jeffica.

Shylock, a Jew:

Tubal, a Jew, his friend.

Launcelot Gobbo, a clown, fervant to Shylock.

Old Gobbo, father to Launcelot.

Salerio, a messenger from Venice.

Leonardo, fervant to Baffanio.

Jeffica, daughter to. Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,
Failer, Servants, and other Attendants.

SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent.