of his salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut the entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually. 1 Sol. What's his brother, the other captain Dumain? 2 Lord. Why does he ask him of me? 1 Sol. What's he? Par. E'en a crow of the same nest; not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is : In a retreat he outruns any lackey; marry, in coming on he has the cramp. 1 Sol. If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray the Florentine ? Par. Ay, and the captain of his horse, count Rousillon. 1 Sol. I'll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure. Par. I'll no more drumming; a plague of all drums ! Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy the count, have I run into this danger: Yet, who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken? [Aside. 1 Sol. There is no remedy, sir, but you must die: the general says, you, that have so traitorously discovered the secrets of your army, and made such pestiferous reports of men very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore you must die. --Come, headsman, off with his head. Par. O Lord, sir; let me live, or let me see my death ! 1 Sol. That shall you, and take your leave of all your [Unmuffling him. friends. 2 Lord. God bless you, captain Parolles. 1 Lord. God save you, noble captain. 2 Lord. Captain, what greeting will you to my lord Lafeu? I am for France. 1 Lord. Good captain, will you give me a copy of the sonmet you writ to Diana in behalf of the count Rousillon? an I were not a very coward, I'd compel it of you; but fare you well. [Exeunt BERT. Lords, &c. [9] The fourth part of the smaller French crown: about eight-pence of our money. MAL. [1] This is nature. Every man is, on such occasions, more willing to hear his neighbour's character than his own. JOHNS. - entail for it main? her so Heal in other e outcamp. to be that has a knot on't yet. Par. Who cannot be crushed with a plot ? 1 Sol. If you could find out a country where but wome were that had received so much shame, you might beg an impudent nation. Fare you well, sir; I am f France too; we shall speak of you there. [Exe Par. Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great, sillon. v his ums! I'll after them. SCENE IV. } [Ex Florence. A Room in the Widow's House. Enter HELEN Hel. That you may well perceive I have not wrong you, One of the greatest in the Christian world Wid. Gentle madam, You never had a servant, to whose trust Hel. Nor you, mistress, Ever a friend, whose thoughts more truly labour And helper to a husband. But, O strange men! Dia. Let death and honesty Hel. Yet, I pray you, But with the word, the time will bring on summer, SCENE V. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Countess, LAFEU, and Clown. Laf. No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipttaffata fellow there; whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour :5 your daughter-in-law had been alive at [3] The meaning of this observation is, that as briers have sweetness with their prickles, so shall these troubles be recompensed with joy. [4] 1. e. the end. MAL. JOHNS. [5] Parolles is represented as an affected follower of the fashion, and an encourager of his master to run into all the follies of it; where he says, 'Use a more spacious cereniony to the noble jords-they wear themselves in the cap of time and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed." Here some particularities of fashionable dress are ridiculed. Snipt-taffata needs no explanation; but villaincus saffron is more obscure. This alludes to a fantastic fashion, then much followed, of using yellow starch for their bands and ruffs. This was invented by one Turner, a tire-woman, a court-bawd.and. in all respects of so infamous a character, that her invention deserved the name of villainous saffron. This woman was, afterw rds, amongst the miscreants concerned in the murder of sir Thomas Overbury, for which she was hanged at Tyburn, and would die in a yellow ruff of her own invention: which made yellow starch so odious, that it immediately went out of fashion. WAR. Srubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595. speaks of starch of various colours. -"The one arch or piller wherewith the devil's kingdome of great ruffes is underpropped, is a certain kind of liquid matter, which they call startch, wherein the devill hath learned them to wash and die their ruffes, which being drie, will stand stiff and inflexible about their neckes And this startch, they make of divers substances, of wheate flower, of branne, and other graines: sometimes of rootes, and sometimes of other thinges: of all collours and hues, as white, redde, blewe, purple, and the like." STEEV. by the king, than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak of. Count. I would, I had not known him! it was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman, that ever nature had praise for creating: if she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted love. Laf. "Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads, ere we light on such another herb. Clo. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace. Laf. They are not salad-herbs, you knave, they are nose-herbs. Clo. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grass. Laf. Whether dost thou profess thyself; a knave, or a fool? Clo. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's. Laf. Your distinction ? Clo. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service. Laf. So you were a knave, at his service, indeed. Clo. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.6 Laf. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool. Clo. At your service. Laf. No, no, no. Clo. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a prince as you are. Laf. Who's that? a Frenchman? Clo. Faith, sir, he has an English name; but his phisnomy is more hotter in France, than there. Laf. What prince is that? Clo. The black prince, sir, alias, the prince of darkness; alias, the devil. [6] Part of the furniture of a fool was a bauble, which, though it be generally taken to signify any thing of small value, has a precise and determinable meaning. It is, in short, a kind of truncheon with a head carved on it, which the fool anciently carried in his hand. SIR J. HAWKINS. When Cromwell, 1653, forcibly turned out the rump-parliament, he bid the soldiers, "take away that fool's bauble," pointing to the speaker's mace. BLACKSTONE. The word bauble is here also used in another sense, besides that which the editor alludes to. 14* M. MASON. Lay. purs giv this to suggest thee from thy master thou talkest of; serve him still. Clo. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of, ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world, iet his nobility remain in his court. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some, that humble themselves, may; but the many will be too chill and tender; and they'll be for the flowery way, that leads to the broad gate, and the great fire. Laf. Go thy ways, I begin to be a-weary of thee; and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways; let my horses be well looked to, without any tricks. Clo. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades' tricks; which are their own right by the law of [Exit. nature. Laf. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy.8 Count. So he is. My lord, that's gone, made himself much sport out of him: by his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness; and, indeed, he has no pace, 9 but runs where he will. Laf. I like him well; 'tis not amiss: and I was about to tell you. Since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the king my master, to speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of them both, his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance, did first propose: his highness hath promised me to do it: and, to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it ? Count. With very much content, my lord, and I wish it happily effected. Laf. His highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered thirty; he will be here to-morrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed. Count. It rejoices me, that I hope I shall see him ere [7] Shakspeare is but rarely guilty of such impious trash, And it is observable, that then he always pots that into the mouth of his fools, which is now grown the characteristic of the fine gentleman. WARBURTON. [8] i. e. mischievously waggish, unlucky JOHNS. [9] A pace is a certain or prescribed walk; so we say of a man meanly obsequious, that he has learned his paces, and of a horse who moves irregularly, that he has no paces. JOHNS. |