wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. Hark you now!- Would any but these boiled-brains of nineteen, and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep; which, I fear, the wolf will sooner find, than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by the sea-side, browzing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the Child.] Mercy on's, a barn; a very pretty barn! A boy, or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one. Sure some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stairwork, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity; yet I'll tarry till my son come: he hallood but even now.-Whoa, ho hoa!

Clo. Hilloa, loa!

Enter Clown.

Shep. What! art so near?

If thou'lt see a thing to

talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail'st thou, man?

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and by land!—but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

Shep. Why, boy, how is it?

Clo. I would, you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service: -to see how the bear tore out his shoulder bone; how he cried to me for help, and said, his name was

Antigonus, a nobleman.-But to make an end of the ship-to see how the sea flap-dragoned it'; — but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea, or weather.

Shep. Name of mercy! when was this, boy?

Clo. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it

now.

Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped the old

man!

Clo. I would you had been by the ship's side, to have helped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.

Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou met'st with things dying, I with things new born. Here's a sight for thee: look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! Look thee here: take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see. It was told me, I should be rich by the fairies: this is some changeling". - Open't: what's within, boy?

Clo. You're a made old man: if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next way. We

To see how the sea FLAP-DRAGONED IT;] The meaning is, that the sea swallowed the ship as drinkers swallowed flap-dragons, which were almonds, or other inflammable substances set on fire, set afloat, and gulped down while blazing. See Vol. ii. p. 346, note 6.

5- this is some changeling.] Some child changed by the fairies. "Changeling was often used synonymously with idiot, because the fairies were supposed to leave idiots instead of the children they took away.

You're a MADE old man :] The old folios read "mad" for made, but Lord Francis Egerton's copy is corrected in the margin. In "Pandosto," as Farmer observed, the phrase occurs, where the old shepherd desires his wife to hold her peace, and "they were made for ever."

are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go.-Come, good boy, the next way home.

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings: I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst, but when they are hungry. If there be any of him left, I'll

bury it.

Shep. That's a good deed. If thou may'st discern by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.

Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds

on't.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Enter TIME, the Chorus.

Time. I, that please some, try all; both joy, and

terror,

Of good and bad; that make, and unfold error,-
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me, or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years', and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap; since it is in my power
To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient'st order was,

7

that I slide

O'er sixteen years,] In Greene's "Pandosto," the supposed interval is the same: "In so much that when she came to the age of sixteene yeeres," &c. Shakespeare's Library, Part i. p. 28.

Or what is now receiv'd: I witness to

The times that brought them in; so shall I do

To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale

Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing,
As
you had slept between. Leontes leaving
Th' effects of his fond jealousies, so grieving
That he shuts up himself, imagine me,
Gentle spectators, that I now may be

In fair Bohemia; and remember well,

I mention❜d a son o' the king's, which Florizel
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wondering: What of her ensues,
I list not prophesy; but let Time's news

Be known, when 'tis brought forth :-a shepherd's daughter,

And what to her adheres, which follows after,

Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,

If ever you have spent time worse ere now:
If never, yet that Time himself doth say,
He wishes earnestly you never may.

[Exit.

SCENE I.

The Same. A Room in the Palace of POLIXENES.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis a sickness denying thee any thing, a death to grant this.

Cam. It is fifteen years, since I saw my country: though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling

sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so, which is another spur to my departure.

Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services, by leaving me now. The need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made: better not to have had thee, than thus to want thee. Thou, having made me businesses, which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, (as too much I cannot) to be more thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country, Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no more, whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen, and children, are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

Cam. Sir, it is three days, since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown; but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service, which look upon his removedness: from whom I have this intelligence; that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more, than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.