full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loath him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nobk merely monastic And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.

Orla. I would not be cured, youth.

Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me. Orla. Now, by the faith of my love, I will; tell me where it is.

Ros. Go with me to it, and I will show it you: and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live: Will you go?

Orla. With all my heart, good youth.

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind :-Come, sister, will you go?

SCENE III.

[Exeunt.

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES at a distance, observing them.

Touch. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats, Audrey: And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you?

Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. Jaq. [Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited! worse than Jove in a thatch'd house !

Touch. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room :6-Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

[6] Nothing was ever wrote in higher humour than this simile. A great reckoning, in a little room, implies that the entertainment was mean, and the bill extravagant. The poet here alluded to the French proverbial phrase of the quarter of an hour of Rabelais: who said, there was only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill, and that was between the calling for the

Aud. I do not know what poetical is: Is it honest in deed, and word? Is it a true thing?

Touch. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry, may be said, as lovers, they do feign. Aud. Do you wish then, that the gods had made me poetical?

Touch. I do, truly

for thou swear'st to me, thou art honest; now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.

Aud. Would you not have me honest ?

Touch. No truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd: for honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

Jaq. [Aside]. A material fool !7

Aud. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest!

Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut, were to put good meat into an unclean dish.

Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul. Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee: and to that end, I have been with sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village; who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us.

Jaq. [Aside.] I would fain see this meeting.

Aud. Well, the gods give us joy!

Touch. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said,-Many a man knows no end of his goods right: many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so :Poor men alone?-No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal.8 Is the single man therefore bless

reckoning and paying it. When men are joking together in a merry humour, all are disposed to laugh. One of the company says a good thing: the jest is not taken; all are silent, and he who said it, quite confounded. This is compared to a tavern jollity interrupted by the coming in of a great reckoning. WARBURTON.

[7] A fool with matter in him; a fool stocked with notions. JOHNSON. [8] Lean, poor deer, are called rascal deer. HARRIS.

ed? No: as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor: and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.

Enter Sir OLIVER MAR-TEXT.

Here comes sir Oliver: 9-sir Oliver Mar-text, you are well met: Will you despatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?

Sir Oli. Is there none here to give the woman?
Touch. I will not take her on gift of any man.

Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.

Jaq. [discovering himself.] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her.

Touch. Good even, good master What ye call't: How do you, sir? You are very well met God'ild you for your last company:1 I am very glad to see you :-Even a toy in hand here, sir :-Nay; pray, be cover'd.

Jaq. Will you be married, motley?

Touch. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the faulcon her bells, so man hath his desire; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.

Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp.

Touch. I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. [Asi. Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. Touch. Come, sweet Audrey ;

We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
Farewell, good master Oliver!

[9] Degrees were at this time considered as the highest dignities; and it may not be improper to observe, that a clergyman, who hath not been educated at the Universities, is still distinguished in some parts of North Wales by the appellation of Sir John, Sir William, &c. Hence the Sir Hugh Evans of Shakspeare is not a Welsh knight who hath taken orders, but only a Welsh clergyman without any regular degree from either of the Universities. See Barrington's History of the Guedir Family. NICHOLS.

[1] God'ild you, i. e. God yield you, God reward you.

STEEVENS.

Not-O sweet Oliver,

O brave Oliver,

Leave me not behi' thee ;2
But-Wind away,

Begone, I say,

I will not to wedding wi' thee.

[Exe. JAQUES, TOUCH. and AUD. Sir Oli. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling.

SCENE IV.

[Exit.

The same. Before a Cottage. Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. Never talk to me, I will weep.

Cel. Do, I pr'ythee; but yet have the grace to consider, that tears do not become a man.

Ros. But have I not cause to weep

?

Cel. Asgood cause as one would desire; therefore weep. Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. Cel. Something browner than Judas's: marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.

Ros. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour. 3

Cel. An excellent colour: your chesnut was ever the only colour.

Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.4

Cel. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously 5 ; the very ice of chastity is in them.

WARBURTON.

[2] Some words of an old ballad. [3] There is much of nature in this petty perverseness of Rosalind; she finds faults in her lover, in hope to be contradicted, and when Celia in sportive malice too readily seconds her accusations, she contradicts herself rather than suffer her favourite to want a vindication. JOHNSON.

[4] We should read beard, i.e. as the kiss of an holy hermit, called the kiss of charity. This makes the comparison just and decent; the other impious and absurd. WARBURTON.

[5] This is finely expressed. Shakspeare means an unfruitful sisterhood, which had devoted itself to chastity. For as those who were of the sisterhood of the spring were the votaries of Venus; those of summer the votaries of Ceres; those of autumn, of Pomona; so these of the sisterhood of winter were the votaries of Diana; called, of winter, because that quarter is not, Jike the other three, productive of fruit or increase. On this account it is, that when the poet speaks of what is most poor, he instances it in winter, in these fine lines in Othello:

"But riches fineless is as poor as winter

"To him that ever fears he shall be poor."

The other property of winter, that made him term them of its sisterhood, is its coldness. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream:

13

"To be a barren sister all your life,

"Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon."

VOL. II.

WARBUR.

Ros. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not ?

Cel. Nay certainly, there is no truth in him.

Ros. Do you think so?

Cel. Yes I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horsestealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a cover'd goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

Ros. Not true in love?

Cel. Yes, when he is in; but, I think, he is not in. Ros. You have heard him swear downright, he was. Cel. Was is not is: besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmers. of false reckonings: He attends here in the forest on the duke your father.

Ros. I met the duke yesterday, and had much question with him: He asked me, of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando ?

Cel. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover6; as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose; but all's brave, that youth mounts, and folly guides:-Who come here? Enter CORIN.

Cor. Mistress, and master, you have oft enquired
After the shepherd that complain'd of love;
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.

Cel. Well, and what of him?

Cor. If you will see a pageant truly play'd, Between the pale complexion of true love

[6] An unexperienced lover is here compared to a puny tilter, to whom it was a disgrace to have his lance broken across, as it was a mark either of want of courage or address. This happened when the horse flew on one side, in the career and hence, I suppose. arose the jocular proverbial phrase of spurring the horse only on one side. Now as breaking the lance against his adversary's breast, in a direct line, was honourable, so the breaking across against his breast was, for the reason above, dishonourable. This is the allu sion. So that Orlando, a young gallant, affecting the fashion (for brave is here used, as in other places, for fashionable) is represented either unskilful in courtship, or timorous. The lovers meeting or appointment corresponds to the tilter's career; and as the one breaks staves, the other breaks oaths, WARB.