Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-baskets of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus:7 thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. 8

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd ? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book :What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on his head? Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:-You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it ; o, u. Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure?
Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuck

old's horn!

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou haif-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, preambula; we will be singled from

[6] The refuse meat of families was put into a basket in our author's time, and given to the poor. MALONE.

[7] This word, whencesoever it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known. JOHNSON.

[8] A flap-dragon is a small inflammable substance, which topers swallow in a glass of wine. STEEV.

[9] By O, U, Moth would mean-Oh, you-i. e. either way; no matter which of us repeats them.

You are the sheep stifl
THEOBALD.

the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain ?i

Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :-For what is inward between us, let it pass :-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;—I beseech thee, apparel thy head; 2-and among other importunate and most serious designs,—and of great import indeed, too;—but let that pass for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio :3 but sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is,—but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, 4 with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate, and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Hol.Sir,you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel,as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be render'd by our assistance, the king's command, and this most

[1] The charge-house-I suppose, is the free-school.

STEEVENS.

[2] By "remember thy courtesy," I suppose Armado means—“ remem ber that all this time thou art standing with thy hat off." STEEV. [3] The author calls the beard valour's excrement in The Merchant of Venice. JOHNSON.

[4] i. e. chicken; an ancient term of endearment.

84* VOL. II.

STEEV.

gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say,none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them ?

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it.

Arm. For the rest of the worthies ?

Hol. I will play three myself.

Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman!

Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?

Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antick. f beseech you, follow.

Hol. Via, good man Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.

Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

Dull. I'll make one in a dance or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

Another part of the same. Before the Princess's pavilion. Enter Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in:

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!.

Look you, what I have from the loving king.

Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that? Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhyme,

As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,

Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax ;5 For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd your

sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy ; And so she died: had she been light, like you,

Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,

She might have been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.

Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Kath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff; Therefore, I'll darkly end the argument.

Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i' the dark. Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench. Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light. Kath. You weigh me not,- that's,you care not for me. Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wits well play'd. But Rosaline, you have a favour too :

Who sent it? and what is it?

Ros. I would, you knew:

An if my face were but as fair as yours,

My favour were as great; be witness this.

Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón :

The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:

I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter !

Prin. Any thing like ?

Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise.
Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.

Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

Ros. 'Ware pencils!? How? let me not die your debtor,

[5] To wax anciently signified to grow. It is yet said of the moon, that she waxes and wanes. STEEVENS,

[6] A term from tennis. STEEVENS.

[7] Rosaline, a black beauty, reproaches the fair Katharine for painting.

JOHNSON.

My red dominical, my golden letter.

O, that your face were not so full of O's!

Kath. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows! Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumain ? Kath. Madam, this glove.

Prin. Did he not send you twain?

Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover,

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover :

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile.

Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart,

The chain were longer, and the letter short?

Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so.
Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Birón I'll torture ere I go.

O, that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek ;
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes;
And shape his service wholly to my behests;
And make him proud to make me proud that jests !8
So portent-like would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.9

Prin.None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,
As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school;
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

[8] The meaning of this obscure line seems to be, "I would make him proud to flatter me who make a mock of his flattery." Edin. Mag STEEV. [9] In old farces, to show, the inevitable approaches of death and destiny, the Fool of the farce is made to employ all his stratagems to avoid Death or Fate; which very stratagems as they are ordered, bring the Fool, at every turn, into the very jaws of Fate. To this Shakspeare alludes again in Meas ure for Measure:

"merely thou art Death's Fool;

"For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
"And yet runu'st towards him still"-

WARBURTON.

Until some proof be brought of the existence of such characters as Death and the Fool, in old farces, (for the mere assertion of Dr. Warburton is not to be relied on,) this passage must be literally understood, independently of any particular allusion. The old reading_might probably mean-"so scoffingly would I o'ersway," &c. DOUCE.

[1] These are observations worthy of a man who has surveyed human nature with the closest attention. JOHNS.