Or angel-veiling clouds : are roses blown,
Difmast, their damak sweet commixture shewn,

Prin. Avaunt, perplexity ! what shall we do,
If they return in their own shapes to woo ?

RoM. Good Madam, if by mne you'll be advis'd,
Let's mock them still, as well known, as disguis'd ;
Let us complain to them what fools were here,
Disguis’d, like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
And wonder what they were, and to what end
Their shallow shows, and prologue vildly pen’d,
And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
Should be presented at our tent to us.

Boyet. Ladies, withdraw, the Gallants are at hand.
Prin. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er the land,

[Exeunt.

A C

CT: V.

SC EN E, before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the King, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, in

their own habits ; Boyet, meeting them..

F

KING.
Air Sir, God save you. Where's the Princess ?

Boyet. Gone to her tent.
Please.it your Majesty, command me any service to her?

King. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word. Boyet. I will ; and so will she, I know, my Lord [Exit.

Biron. This fellow picks up wit, as pigeons peas ; And utters it again, when Jove doth please :

As these lines stand in all the editions, there is not only an. Anticlimax with a vengeance ; but such a jumble, that makes the whole, I think, stark nonsense. I have ventur'd at a transposition of the 2d and 3d lines, by the advice of my friend Mr. Warburton ; and by a minute change, or two, clear'd up the sense, I hope, to the poet's intention.

He

He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares
At wakes and wassals, meetings, markets, fairs :
And we that sell by grofs, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This Gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve,
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
He can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he,
That kift away his hand in courtesy ;
This is the ape of form, Monsieur the nice,
That when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms: nay, he can fing
A mean most mainly; and, in ushering,
Mend him who can; the ladies call him sweet ;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
This is the flower, that smiles on every one, (47)
To fhew his teeth, as white as whale his bone.-

And (47) This is the flow'r, that smiles on every one, - ] A flower smiling, is a very odd image. I once suspected, that the poet might have wrote;

This is the fileerer, smiles.on ev'ry one. But nothing is to be altered in the text. The metaphor is to be jutified by our author's usage in other passages.

Romeo and Juliet.
Mer. Nay, I am the very fink of courtesy.

Rom. Pink for flower.
And again;

He is not the flower of courtesy; but, I wabrant him as gentle as a lamb, But the complex metaphor, as it stands in the passage before us, will be much better justified by a fine piece of criticism, which my ingenious friend Mr. Warburton sent me upon this subject I'll subjoin it in his own words. “ What the criticks call the broken, disjoinied, and mixe “ metaphor are very great faults in writing. But then observe this “ rule, which, I think, is of general and constant use in writing, and

very neceffary to direct one's judgment in this part of ftile. That when “ a metaphor is grown so common as to desert, as 'twere, the figurá“ tive, and to be receiv'd into the simple or common style, then what " may be affirm'd of the substance, may be affirm'd of the image, i. e. " the metapbor : for a metaphor is an image. To illustrate this rule by " the example before us. A very complaisant, finical, over-gracious “person was in our author's time fo commonly call'd a flower, (or « as he elsewhere styles it, the pink of courtesy,) that in common talk,

or in the loweft style, it might be well used, without continuing r the discourse in the terms of that metaphor, but turning them on

And consciences, that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongu'd Boyet.

King. A blifter on his sweet tongue with my heart,
That put Armado's Page out of his part !
Enter the Princess, Rosaline, Maria, Catharine, Boyet,

and Attendants.

Biron. See, where it comes; behaviour, what wert thou, 'Till this man shew'd thee? and what art thou now? King. All hail, sweet Madam, and fair time of day!

Prin. Fair in all hail is foul, as I conceive. King. Conftrue my speeches better, if you may.

Prin. Then wish me better, I will give you leave.
King. We come to visit you, and purpose now

To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.
Prin. This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:

Nor God, nor I, delight in perjur'd men.
King. Rebuke me not for that, which you provoke :
The virtue of your eye must break

my

oath.
Prin. You nick-name virtue; vice you should have

spoke:
For virtue's office never breaks mens troth.

" the person so denominated. And now I will give the reason of my “ rule. In the less-used metaphors, our mind is fo turn’d upon the “ image which the metaphor conveys, that it expects that that image ** ihould be for a little time continued, by terms proper to keep it up. “ But if, for want of these terms, the image be no sooner presented, “ but dropt; the mind suffers a kind of violence by being callid off

unexpectedly and suddenly from its contemplation, and from bence " the broken, disjointed, and mixt metaphor shocks us. But when the

metaphor is worn and hackney'd by common use, even the first “ mention of it does not raise in the mind the image of itself, but “ immediately presents the idea of the substance: and then to endea“ vour to continue the image, and keep it up in the mind by proper “ adapted terms, would, on the other hand, have as ill an effect; b:o cause the mind is already gone off from the metaphorical image to " the substance. Grammatical criticks would do well to consider " what has beeu here said, when they set upon amending Greek and “ Roman writings. For the much-used, hackney'd metaphors in “ those languages must now be very imperfectly known : and con.

sequently, without great caution, they will be subject to act teme“ rariously."

Now,

.

7

Now, by my maiden honour, yet as pure

As the unfully'd lilly, I proteft,
A world of torments though I should endure,

I would not yield to be your house's guest :
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
Of heav'nly oaths, vow'd with integrity.
King. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,

Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
Prin. Not so, my Lord; it is not so, I swear ;

We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game.
A mess of Russians left us but of late.

King. How, Madam? Rufians ?

Prin. Ay, in truth, my Lord;
Trim gallants, full of courtship, and of state.

Roja. Madam, fpeak true. It is not fo, my Lord:
My Lady (to the manner of the days)
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four, indeed, confronted were with four,
In Ruffian habit: here they stay'd an hour,
And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my Lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word,
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

Biron. This jest is dry to me. Fair, gentle sweet,
Your wit makes wise things foolish ; when we greet
With eyes beft seeing heaven's fiery eye,
By light we lose light ; your capacity
Is of that nature, as to your huge store
Wise things seem foolis, and rich things but poor.
Rofa. This proves you wise and rich; for in

my eye.com Biron. I am a fool, and full of poverty.

Rofa. But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

Biron. O, I am yours, and all that I postess.
Rofa. All the fool mine?
Biron. I cannot give you lefs.
Rofa. Which of the vizors was it, that you wore ?
Biron. Where when? what vizor? why demand you this?
Rofa. There, then, that vizor, that superfluous cafe,

That

10

21

1

L 4

That hid the worse, and shew'd the better face.

King. Weare defcried; they'll mock us now downright.
Dum. Let us confess, and turn it to a jeft.
Prin. Amaz’d, my Lord? why looks your Highness sad?
Roja. Help, hold his brows, he'll fwoon: why look you

pale ? Sea-fick, I think, coming from Mufcowy. Biron. Thus pour the itars down plagues for perjury.

Can any face of brass hold longer out? Here stand I, Lady, dart thy kill at me;

Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a fout, Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance ;

Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit ; And I will with thee never more to dance,

Nor never more in Ruffian habit wait. O! never will I trust to speeches pen'd,

Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue ; Nor never come in vizor to my friend,

Nor woo in rhime like a blind harper's fong; Taffata-phrases, filken terms precise,

Three-pild hyperboles, spruce affectation. Figures pedantical, these summer-flies,

Have blown me full of maggot ostentation, I do forswear thom

and i here protett, By this white glove, (how white the hand, God

knows !) Henceforth my wooing mind shall be exprest In ruffet t yeas,

and honest kersy noes: And begin, wench, so God help me, law, My love to thee is found, fans crack or law.

Rofa. Sans, fans, I pray you.

Biron. Yet I have a trick
Of the old rage : bear with me, I am fick.
I'll leave it by degrees: soft, let us fee ;
Write, Lord have mercy on us, on those three ;
They are infected, in their hearts it lies;
They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes:
These Lords are visited, you are not free ;
For the Lord's tokens on you both I see.