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A lover's ear will hear the lowest found,

When the fufpicious head of theft is ftopp'd.[4]
Love's feeling is more foft and fenfible,

Than are the tender horns of cockled fnails :
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus grofs in tafte:
For valour, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hefperides ?
Subtle as fphinx; as fweet and mufical

As bright Apollo's lute ftrung with his hair ;[5]
And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.[6]
Never durft poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's fighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.-
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;
They sparkle ftill the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That fhew, contain, and nourish all the world;
Elfe, none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then fools you were, these women to forfwear;
Or, keeping what is fworn, you will prove fools.
For wifdom's fake, a word, that all men love;
Or for love's fake, a word, that loves all men ;
Or for men's fake, the authors of these women;
Or women's fake, by whom we men are men ;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.

[4] i. e. A lover in pursuit of his mistress has his fenfe of hearing quicker than a thief (who fufpects every found he hears) in purfuit of his prey.

WARB.

[5] This expreffion, like that other in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, of "Orpheus' harp was ftrung with poet's finews,"

is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the fun, is reprefented with golden hair; fo that a lute ftrung with his hair, means no more than ftrung with gilded wire.

WARB.

How much more fublime is the imagination of our poet, which reprefents that inftrument as ftrung with the fun-beams, which in poetry are called Apollo's hair. REVISAL.

[6] Few paffages have been more canvaffed than this. I believe, it wants no alteration of the words, but only of the pointing.

And when love fpeaks (the voice of all) the gods 'Make heaven drowfy with the harmony.'

Love, I apprehend, is called the voice of all,' as gold, in Timon, is faid to peak with every tongue'; and the gods (being drowfy themfelves with the harmony) are fuppofed to make heaven drowfy. If one could poffibly fufpect Shakespeare of having read Pindar, one fhould fay, that the idea of mutic making the hearers drowfy, was borrowed from the first Py

thian.

T. T.

It is religion, to be thus forfworn:
For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can fever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, foldiers, to the field! Biron. Advance your ftandards, and upon them, lords! Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the fun of them.

Long. Now to plain dealing ;-lay thefe glozes byShall we refolve to woo these girls of France?

King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair miftrefs: in the afternoon

We will with fome ftrange paftime folace them,
Such as the fhortnefs of the time can fhape:
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair love, ftrewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time fhall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
Biron. Allons! allons !-Sow'd cockle reap'd no
corn ;[8]

And juftice always whirls in equal measure:

Light wenches may prove plagues to men forfworn; If fo, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt.

[8] This proverbial expreffion intimates, that beginning with perjury, they can expect to reap nothing but falfehood. WARB,

ACT V. SCENE I.

The Street. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, and DULL.

SATIS quod fufficit.

Holofernes.

Nath. I praise God for you, fir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and fententious ;[8] pleasant without fcurrility, witty without affection,[9] audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without herefy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi bominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrafonical. He is too piqued,[1] too fpruce, too affected, too odd, as it were; too peregri nate, as I may call it.

Nath. A moft fingular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbofity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor fuch fanatical phantafms, fuch unfociable and point-devife companions; fuch rackers of orthography, as to speak dout fine,

(8) I know not well what degree of refpect Shakespeare intends to obtain for this vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished reprefentation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to this character of the fchool-mafter's table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Caftiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation fo juftly delineated, fo widely dilated, and fo nicely limited.It may be proper just to note, that reafon' here, and in many other places, fignifies difcourfe'; and that 'audacious' is ufed in a good fenfe for fpirited, animated, confident.' 'Opinion' is the fame with 'obftinacy' or 'opiniatre.' JOHN. (9) i. e. without affectation. STEEV.

(1) To have the beard 'piqued' or fhorn fo as to end in a point, was, in our author's time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions. JOHNS. "Piqued' may allude to the length of the fhoes then worn. Bulwer fays," We weare our forked fhoes almoft as long again as our feete, not a "little to the hindrance of the action of the foote, and not only fo, but "they prove an impediment to reverentiall devotions, for our bootes and "fhooes are fo long fnouted, that we can hardly kneele in God's house."

STEEV.

when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh, abbreviated ne: This is abominable, which we would call abhominable: it infinuateth me of infanie: (Ne intelligis, domine!) to make frantic, lunatic?

Nath. Laus Deo, bone; intelligo.

Hol. Bone?-bone, for bené: Prifcian, a little fcratch'd; 'twill ferve.

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.

Nath. Videfne quis venit?

Hol. Video, & gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not firrah ?

Arm. Men of peace, well encountered.

Hol. Moft military, fir, falutation.

Moth. They have been at a great feaft of languages, and ftol'n the scraps.

[To COSTARD afide. Coft. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy mafter hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not fo long by the head as bonorificabilitudinitatibus :[1] thou art eafier fswallowed than a flap-dragon.

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monfieur, are you not letter'd.

Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book :What is A B, fpelt backward with a horn on his head? Hol. BA, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, moft filly fheep, with a horn :-You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant ?

Moth. The third of the five vowels if you repeat them; or the fifth if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, I.

Moth. The theep: the other two concludes it; o, u.[2] Arm. Now, by the falt wave of the Mediterraneum, a fweet touch, a quick venew of wit: fnip, fnap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man: which is wit-old.

(1) This word, whencefoever it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known. JOHNS.

(2) By O, U, Moth would mean-Oh, you-i. e. You are the sheep ftill, either way; no matter which of us repeats them. THEO.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure ?
Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou difputeft like an infant; go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

Coft. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldft have it to buy gingerbread hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy mafter, thou half-penny purfe of wit, thou pigeon-egg of difcretion. O, that the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my baftard! what a joyful father wouldft thou make me? Go to ; thou haft it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. Oh, I fmell falfe Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be fingled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain?

Hol. Or, mons the hill.

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Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain ?
Hol. I do, fans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the king's moft sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the pofteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon.

Hol. The pofterior of the day, moft generous fir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon : the word is well cull'd, chofe; fweet and apt, I do affure you, fir, I do affure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, (I do affure you) very good friend :-For what is inward between us, let it pafs :-I do befeech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head :—and among other importunate and most serious defigns, and of great import indeed, too :—but let that pafs: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) fometime to lean upon my poor fhoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my muftachio [3] But, fweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; fome certain fpecial honours it pleaseth his greatnefs to impart to Armado, a foldier, a man of travel, that hath feen the world: but let that pafs.-The very all of all is,-but, sweet heart,

[3] The author has before called the beard 'valour's excrement' in the Merchant of Venice. JOHNS.

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