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Clown's Love of Ballads.

Clo. He could never come better: he shall come in: I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily fet down; or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably.

Pol.

Presents little regarded by real Lovers.

How now, fair shepherd ?
Your heart is full of fomething that doth take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth! when I was young,
And handed love as you do, I was wont

To load my the with knacks: I would have ransack'd
The pedlar's filken treasury, and have pour'd it
To her acceptance: you have let him go,
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse, and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make care
Of happy holding her.

Flo. Old Sir, I know

She prizes not such trifles as these are;
'The gifts she looks from me are packt and lockt
Up in my heart, which I have given already,
But not deliver'd. O hear me breathe my love
Before this ancient Sir, who, it should feem,
Hath sometimes lov'd: I take thy hand: (25) this hand
As foft as dove's-down, and as white as it,
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow

That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er.

Tender

(25) Thy hand, &c.] So, Troilus speaking of the hand of Creffida, fays;

O that, her hand,

In whose comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure

The cygnet's down is harsh.

Tender Affection.

Were I crown'd the most imperial monarch Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve; had force, and know

ledge

More than was ever man's; I would not prize them Without her love: for her employ them all; Command them and condemn them to her service, Or to their own perdition.

A Father the best Gueft at his Son's Nuptials.

(26) Methinks, a father

Is, at the nuptials of his fon, a guest,
That beft becomes the table: pray you, once more,
Is not your father grown incapable

Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid

With age and alt'ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,
Know man from man, dispute his own estate;
Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing,

But what he did, being childish ?

Flo. No: he has health, and ampler strength in

deed,

Than most have of his age.

Pol. By my white beard,

You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial: reason, my fon,
Shou'd choose himself a wife: but as good reason,
The father (all whose joy is nothing else,
But fair pofterity) shou'd hold some counsel

In fuch a business.

Rural Simplicity.

I was not much afraid: (27) for once or twice

I was

(26) See Midsummer Night's Dream, Vol. I. p. 205. (27) I was not much afraid.] The character is here VOL. II.

G

finely

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I was about to speak, and tell him plainly
The (28) felf-fame fun that shines upon his court,
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on alike. (29)

Selfish old Man.

O, Sir,

You have undone a man of fourscore three, (30)

That thought to fill his grave in quiet; yea,

To die upon the bed my father dy'd,

To lie close by his honeft bones: but now

Some hangman must put on my shrowd, and lay

me

Where no priest shovels in the dust.

Prosperity

finely fustained. To have made her quite aftonished at the king's discovery of himself, had not become her birth; and to have given her prefence of mind to have made this reply to the king, would not have become her education. W.

(28) The, &c.] This is plainly taken from St. Matthew, v. ver. 45. "He maketh his fun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust." And Horace, speaking of death, has the fame thought;

Intruding death with equal freedom greets
The low-built hut, and stately gates

Of lofty palaces and royal feats.

Ode 4. b. 1.

(29) Looks on alike.] i. e. Looks alike on the court and cottage.

(30) You have undone a man of fourfcore three.] These fentiments, which the poet has heightened by a strain of ridicule that runs through them, admirably characterize the speaker; whose selfishness is seen in concealing the adventure of Perdita, and here supported by showing no regard for his fon or her, but being taken up entirely with himself, though fourscore three. W.

Prosperity the Bond, Affliction the Loofer of Love.

Profperity 's (31) the very bond of love.
Whose fresh complection and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

Lying fit only for Tradesmen.

Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradefmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for't with stampt coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not (32) give us the lie.

A Courtier.

She. Are you a courtier, an't like you, Sir;

Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. See'ft thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings; hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? receives not thy nose court odour from me? reffect I not on thy baseness court contempt ?

Self

(31) Profperity's, &c.] Perdita, in the following speech, denies this;

One of these is true :

I think affliction may fubdue the cheek,

But not take in the mind.

And Ovid fays,

Nam cum præftiteris verum mibi semper amorem,
Hic tamen adverso tempore crevit amor.

True love to me indeed you ever bore,

But in adversity still lov'd me more.

(32) Therefore they do not, &c.] i. e. They are paid for lying, therefore they do not give us the lie, they fell it us. J.

Self-conceit.

Aut. How blessed are we, that are not fimple men!

Yet nature might have made me as these are ;
Therefore I will not disdain.

Clown's Idea of a Great Man.

Clo. This cannot but be a great courtier.

She. His garments are rich, but he wears them

not handsomely.

Clo. He seems to be the more noble, in being fantastical: a great man, I'll warrant: I know by the picking (33) on's teeth.

He seems to be of great authority; close with him, give him gold, and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold; shew him the infide of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado.

If he think fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me, rogue, for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to 't.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

Self-reproach, and too fevere Reproof.

Cle. At the last

Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evils;
With them, forgive yourself.

Lee.

(33) By the picking, &c.] It seems, that to pick the teeth, was, at this time, a mark of some pretenfion to greatness or elegance. So the Bastard in King John, speaking of the traveller, fays,

He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mess. J.