Oft does them by the weakest minister:

So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
From simple sources; and great seas have dried,

When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises; and oft it hits,
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.

King. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;

Thy pains, not used, must by thyself be paid:
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
Hel. Inspiréd merit so by breath is barr'd:
It is not so with Him, that all things knows,
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows:
But most it is presumption in us, when
The help of Heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
Of Heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;

But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power, nor you past cure.

King. Art thou so confident? Within what space Hopest thou my cure?

Hel.

The greatest grace lending grace, Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;

Ere twice in murk and occidental damp,

Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp;
Or four-and-twenty times the pilot's glass
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass;
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
King. Upon thy certainty and confidence,
What darest thou venture?

Hel.

Tax of impudence,— A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,Traduced by odious ballads; my maiden's name Sear'd otherwise; no worse of worst extended, With vilest torture let my life be ended.

King. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak;

His powerful sound, within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay
In common sense, sense waves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all, that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate:

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infi.ite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try;
That ministers thine own death, if I die.
Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;

And well deserved: Not helping, death's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me?

King. Make thy demand."

Hel.

But will you make it even ? King. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven. Hel. Then thou shalt give me, with thy kingly hand, What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance

To choose from forth the royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state:
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

King. Here is my hand; the premises observed,
Thy will by my performance shall be served;
So make the choice of thy own time; for I,
Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.

More should I question thee, and more I must;
Though, more to know, could not be more to trust;
From whence thou camest, how tended on,-But rest
Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted blest.-
Give me some help here, ho!-If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Clown.

Count. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.

Clo. I will shew myself highly fed, and lowly taught I know my business is but to the court.

Count. To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt ? But to the court!

Clo. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he, that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his haud, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and,

Indeed, such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an answer will serve all

men.

Count. Marry, that's a bountiful answer, that fits ali questions.

Clo. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney. as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger, as a pan-cake for ShroveTuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

Count. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

Clo. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.

Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands.

Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: Here it is, and all that belongs to 't: Ask me, if I am a courtier; it shall do you no harm to learn.

Count. To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier ?

Clo. O Lord, sir. There's a simple putting off;— more, more, a hundred of them.

Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

Clo. O Lord, sir,-Thick, thick, spare not me. Count. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely

meat.

Clo. O Lord, sir,-Nay, put me to 't, I warrant you.
Count. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.
Clo. O Lord, sir,-Spare not nie.

Count. Do you cry, O Lord, sir, at your whipping. and spare not me! Indeed, your O Lord, sir, is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to 't.

Clo. I ne'er had worse luck in my life, in my--0 Lord, sir: I see, things may serve long, but not serve

ever.

Count. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.

Clo. O Lord, sir,-Why, there't serves well again. Count. An end, sir, to your business: Give Helen And urge her to a present answer back:

Commend me to my kinsmen, and my son;

This is not much.

Clo. Not much commendation to them.

[this,

Count. Not much employment for you: You understand me?

Clo. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs. Count. Haste you again. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE III.-Paris. A Room in the King's Palace.

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

Laf. They say, miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into Beeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

Par. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder, that hath shot out in our latter times.

Ber. And so 'tis.

Laf. To be relinquished of the artists,

Par. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.
Laf. Of all the learned and authentic fellows,-

Par. Right, so I say.

Laf. That gave him out incurable,

Par. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.

Laf. Not to be helped,

Par. Right: as 'twere a man assured of an

Laf. Uncertain life, and sure death.

Par. Just, you say well; so would I have said. Laf. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. Par. It is, indeed: If you will have it in shewing, you shall read it in,--What do you call there ?Laf. A shewing of a heavenly effect in an earthly

actor.

Par. That's it I would have said; the very same. Laf. Why, your dolphin is not lustier; 'fore me, I speak in respect-

Par. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he is of a most facinorous spirit, that will not acknowledge it to be

the

Laf. Very hand of Heaven.

Par. Ay, so I say.

Laf. In a most weak

Par. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a farther use to be made, than alone the recovery of the king, as

to be-

Laf. Generally thankful.

Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants.

Par. I would have said it; you say well: Here comes the king.

Laf. Lustick, as the Dutchman says: I'll like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: Why, he's able to lead her a coranto.

Par. Mort du Vinaigre! Is not this Helen?
Laf. 'Fore God, I think so.

King. Go, call before me all the lords in court.

[Exit an Attendant.

Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;

And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense
Thou hast repeal'd, a second time receive
The confirmation of my promised gift,

Which but attends thy naming.

Enter several Lords.

Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel
Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing.

O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
I have to use: thy frank election make;

Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake,
Hel. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when love please!-marry, to each but one!
Laf. I'd give bay Curtal, an his furniture,
My mouth no more were broken than these boys,
And writ as little beard.

King.

Peruse them well: Not one of those, but had a noble father.

Hel. Gentlemen,

Heaven hath, through me, restored the king to health.
All. We understand it, and thank Heaven for you.
Hel. I am a simple maid; and therein wealthiest,
That, I protest, I simply am a maid.-

Please it your majesty, I have done already:
The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,

We blush, that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
We'll ne'er come there again.

Make choice; and, see,

King.
Who shuns thy love, shuns all his love in me.