Have misbecom❜d our oaths and gravities;
Those heav'nly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggefted us to make them: therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewife yours. We to ourfelves prove false,
By being once falfe, for ever to be true
To thofe that make us both; fair ladies, you:
And even that falfhood, in itself a fin,
Thus purifies itself, and turns to Grace.

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;
Your Favours, the embaffadors of love:
And in our maiden council rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy;
As bumbaft, than as lining to the time:
But more devout, and these are our refpects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, Madam, fhew'd much more than jeft.
Long. So did our looks.

Ref. We did not coat them fo.

King. Now at the latest minute of the hour,

Grant us your loves.

Prin. A time, methinks, too fhort,

To make a world-without-end bargain in ;
No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,
Full of dear guiltinefs; and therefore, this
If for my love (as there is no fuch caufe)
You will do aught, this fhall you do for me;"
Your oath I will not truft; but go with speed
To fome forlorn and naked Hermitage,
Remote from all the Pleafures of the world ;
There stay, until the twelve celeftial Signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning.
If this auflere infociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frofts and fafts, hard lodging, and thin weeds
Nip not the gaudy bloffoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,

1

Come

Come challenge me; challenge me, by these deferts;
And by this virgin palm, now kiffing thine,
I will be thine; and till that instant shut
My woful felf up in a mourning houfe,
Raining the tears of lamentation,

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest ;
The fudden hand of death clofe up mine eye!

Hence, ever then, my heart is in thy breast. Biron. (39) [And what to me, my love? and what to me? Rof. You must be purged too, your fins are rank, You are attaint with fault and perjury;

Therefore if you my favour mean to get,

A twelve-month fhall you spend, and never reft,
But feek the weary beds of people fick.]

Dum. But what to me, my love ? but what to me? Carb. A wife! --a beard, fair health and honcity; With three-fold love I with you all these three,

Dum. O, fhall I fay, I thank you, gentle wife? Cath. Not fo, my lord, a twelve-month and a day, I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers fay.

Rof.

(39) Biron. [And that to me, my Love? and what to me?
You must be purged too: your Sins are rank:
You are attaint with Fault and Perjury.
Therefore if you my Favour mean to get,
A Twelvemonth fhall you spend, and never reft,
But feek the weary Beds of People fick.]

These fix Verses both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concur to think should be expung'd; and therefore I have put them between Crotchets: Not that they were an Interpolation, but as the Author's firft Draught, which he afterwards rejected; and execut ed the fame Thought a little lower with much more Spirit and Elegance. Shakespeare is not to anfwer for the prefent abfurd repetition, but his Actor-Editors; who, thinking Rofalind's Speech too long in the fecond Plan, had abridg'd it to the Lines above quoted: but, in publishing the Play, ftupidly printed both the Original Speech of Shakespeare, and their own Abridgment of it.

Come,

1

Come, when the King doth to my lady come;
Then if I have much love, I'll give you fome.
Dum. I'll ferve thee true and faithfully till then.
Cath. Yet fwear not, left ye be for worn again.
Long. What fays Maria?

Mar. At the twelve month's end,

I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll ftay with patience; but the time is long..
Mar. The liker you; few taller are fo young.
Biron. Studies my lady? miftrefs, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble Suit attends thy answer there;
Impole some service on me for thy love.

Rof. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I faw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks ;
Full of comparifons 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 twelve month-term from day to day
Vifit the fpeechlefs Sick, and ftill converfe
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
T'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.

Rof. Why, that's the way to choak 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

groans,

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if fickly ears,
Deaft with the clamours of their own dear
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

And I fhall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your Reformation.

Biron. A twelve-month? well; befall, what will befall, I'll jeft a twelve-month in an hofpital.

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 Fill; thefe ladies' courtesy

Might well have made our sport a Comedy.

King Come, Sir, it wants a twelve-month and a day, And then 'twill end.

Biron. That's too long for a Play.

Enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet Majefty, vouchfafe me
Prin. Was not that Hector ?

Dum. That worthy Knight of Trey.

Arm. 1 will kifs thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a Votary; I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her fweet love three years. But, moft elleem'd Greatnefs, will you hear the dialogue that the two, learned men have compiled, in praife of the owl and the cuckow it should have follow'd in the end of our Show.

King. Call them forth quickly, we will do fo.
Arm. Holla! approach.-

Enter all, for the Song.

This fide is Hiems, winter.

This Ver, the fpring: the one maintained by the owl,

The other by the cuckow.

Ver, begin.

The

The SON G.

SPRING.

When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-Smocks all filver white,
And cuckoo-buds of jellor hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight
The cuckow then on every Tree
Mocks married men ; for thus fings he,
Cuckor!

Cuckow ! cuckor! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married car!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmens' clocks :
When turtles tread, and reoks and daws ;
And maidens bleach their fummer jmocks i
The cuckow then on every tree
Mocks married men ; for thus fings be,

Cuckow !

Cuckow! cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!

WINTER.

When ificles bang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail;
And Tom bears logs into the ball,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly fings the flaring owl
Tu-whit! to-whoo!

A merry note,

While greafy Jone doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the Parfon's faw;

And birds fit brooding in the fnow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw;

When