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 fung lamentably.

Pol.

Prefents little regarded by real Lovers.

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

To load my fhe with knacks: I would have ranfack'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 lafs
Interpretation fhould abufe, and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were ftraited
For a reply, at least if you
make care

Of happy holding her.

Flo. Old Sir, I know

She prizes not fuch trifles as these are;

'The gifts fhe 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 seem,
Hath fometimes 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 fnow
That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er.

Tender

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

-O that, her hand,

In whofe comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach; to whofe foft feizure
The cygnet's down is harsh.

Tender Affection.

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

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 best 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 eftate;

Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing,

But what he did, being childish?

Flo. No: he has health, and ampler ftrength indeed,

Than most have of his age.

Pol. By my white beard,

You offer him, if this be fo, a wrong

Something unfilial: reafon, my fon,

Shou'd choose himself a wife: but as good reason,
The father all whose joy is nothing else,

But fair pofterity) fhou'd hold fome counfel
In fuch a bufinefs.

Rural Simplicity.

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

I was

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

finely

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

Selfifh 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 muft put on my fhrowd, and lay

me

Where no priest shovels in the dust.

Profperity

finely fuftained. To have made her quite astonished at the
king's difcovery 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 rife on the evil and the
good, and fendeth rain on the just and unjuft." And Ho-
race, fpeaking 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 fpeaker; whofe selfishness is feen in concealing the adventure of Perdita, and here fupported by fhowing no regard for his fon or her, but being taken up entirely with himfelf, though fourfcore three. W.

Profperity the Bond, Affliction the Loofer of Love.

Profperity 's (31) the very bond of love.

Whofe fresh complection and whofe heart together
Affliction alters.

Lying fit only for Tradesmen.

Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradefmen, and they often give us foldiers the lie: but we pay them for 't with ftampt coin, not ftabbing fteel; 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'st thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings; hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? receives not thy nofe court odour from me? reflect I not on thy bafenefs court contempt ?

Self

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

One of thefe is true :

I think affliction may fubdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

And Ovid fays,

Nam cum præftiteris verum mibi femper amorem,

Hic tamen adverfo 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 bleffed 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 handfomely.

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

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

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

Cle.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

Self-reproach, and too fevere Reproof.

At the last

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

Leo.

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

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