Prin. Welcome, Macard, but that thou interrupteft our merriment.

Mac. I'm forry, Madam; for the news I bring Is heavy in my tongue. The King your fatherPrin. Dead, for my life.

Mac. Even fo my tale is told.

Biron. Worthies, away; the fcene begins to cloud. Arm. For my own part, I breathe free breath; I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a foldier.

King. How fares your Majefty?

[Exeunt Worthies.

Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.
King. Madam, not fo; I do befeech you, stay.
Prin. Prepare, I fay. I thank you, gracious Lords,
For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,

Out of a new-fad foul, that you vouchfafe
In your rich wifdom to excufe, or hide,
The liberal oppofition of our fpirits;
If over-boldly we have born ourselves
In the converfe of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it. Farewel, worthy Lord;
An heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue: (53)
Excufe me fo, coming fo fhort of thanks,
For my great fuit fo eafily obtain’d.

King. The extreme part of time extremely forms
All caufes to the purpofe of his speed;

And often, at his very loofe, decides

That, which long procefs could not arbitrate.
And though the mourning brow of progeny
Forbid the fmiling courtesy of love,

The holy fuit which fain it would convince;
Yet fince love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of forrow justle it

(53) An heavy heart bears not an humble torgue.] Thus all the editions; but, furely, without either fenfe or truth. None are more bumble in fpeech, than they who labour under any oppreffion. The Princess is defiring, her grief may apologize for her not expreffing her obligations at large; and my correction is conformable to that fentiment.

From

From what it purpos'd: fince, to wail friends loft,
Is not by much fo wholfome, profitable,

As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Prin. I understand you not, my griefs are double.
Biron. Honeft plain words beft pierce the ear of grief;
And by thefe badges understand the King.
For your fair fakes have we neglected time,
Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, Ladies,
Hath much deform'd us, fafhioning our humours
Even to th' opposed end of our intents;
And what in us hath feem'd ridiculous,
As love is full of unbefitting ftrains,

All wanton as a child, skipping and vain,
Form'd by the eye, and therefore like the eye,
Full of ftraying fhapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in fubjects as the eye doth rowl,
To every varied object in his glance;
Which party-coated prefence of loofe love
Put on by us, if, in your heav'nly eyes,
Have mifbecom'd our oaths and gravities;
Those heav'nly eyes, that look into thefe faults,
Suggested us to make them: therefore, Ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes

Is likewife yours. We to ourselves 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, pleafant jeft, and courtefy;
As bumbaft, and as lining to the time:

But more devout, than 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.

Rofa. We did not coat them fo.

King. Now at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves.

Prin

Prin. A time methinks, too short,

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 cause)
You will do ought, 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 pleasures of the world d;
There ftay until the twelve celeftial figns
Have brought about their annual reckoning.
If this auftere 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 laft love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge me; challenge me, by these deferts
And by this virgin palm, now kiffing thine,

I will be thine; and 'till that inftant shut
My woeful felf up in a mourning house,
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 thefe powers of mine with reft;
The fudden hand of death close up mine eye!

Hence, ever then, my heart is in thy breaft. Biron. (54) [And what to me, my love? and what to me?

(54) Biron. [And what to me, my love? and what to me ?
Rofa. 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 twelvemonth shall you spend, and never reft,
But feck the weary beds of people fick.]

Rofa.

Thefe fix verfes both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concur to think fhould be expung'd; and therefore I have put them between crotchets: not that they were an interpolation, fays the Doctor, but as the author's firft draught, which he afterwards rejected; and executed the fame thought a little lower with much more spirit and elegance. Mr. War

burton

Rofa. 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? Cath. (55) A wife!-a beard, fair health and honefty; With three-fold love I wish 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 fmooth-fac'd wooers fay. 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 forfworn 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 fuit attends thy anfwer there;
Impofe fome fervice on me for thy love.

Rofa. 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 comparisons and wounding flouts;

burton conjectures, that Shakespeare is not to answer for the prefent abfurd repetition but his actor editors; who, thinking Rosalind's speech too long in the second 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.

(55) A wife, a beard, fair health, and honefty;

With threefold love I give you all these three.

Thus our fagacious modern editors. But if they had but the reckoning of a tapfter, as our author fays, they might have been able to distinguish four from three. I have, by the direction of the old impreffions, reform'd the pointing; and made Catharine fay what fhe intended. Seeing Dumaine, so very young, approach her with his addreffes, "You "shall have a wife, indeed! fays fhe; no, no, I'll with you three things you have more need of, a beard, a found conftitution, and bonefly enough to preferve it fuch.

Which

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
Visit the fpeechlefs fick, 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.

Roja. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing fpirit, Whofe 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,
Deaft 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 twelve-month? well; befal, what will befal, I'll jeft a twelve-month 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 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. (56) That's too long for a play.

Enter

(56) That's too long for a play.] Befides the exact regularity to the rules of art, which the author has happen'd to preserve in fome few of his pieces; this is demonftration, think, that tho' he has more frequently tranfgrefs'd the unity of time, by cramming years into the

compaïs