being but a moonifh youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and. liking; proud, fantaftical, apifh, thallow, inconftant, full of tears, full of fmiles; for every paffion fomething, and for no paffion 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 forfwear him; now weep for him,. then spit at him; that I drave my fuitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness; which was, to forfwear the full ftream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monaftic; and thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clear as a found theep's heart, that there fhall not be one spot of love in't.

Orla. I would not be cured, youth.

Rof. I would cure you if you would but call me Rofalind, and come every day to my cote, and

wooe me.

Orla. Now, by the faith of my love, I will; tell me where it is.

Rof. Go with me to it, and I will fhew it you; and, by the way, you fhall tell me where in the. foreft you live: will you go?

Orla. With all my heart, good youth.

Ref. Nay, nay, you muit call me Rofalind.. Come, filter, will you go?

[Exeunt

Enter Clown, AUDREY, and JAQUES..

Clo. Come apace, good Audrey, I will fetch up your goats, Audrey; and now, Audrey, am I the man yet? doth my fimple feature content you?

Aud. Your features, Lord warrant us; what features?

Clo. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the molt capricious poet, honeft Ovid, was an.ong the Goths.

Faq. O knowledge ill-inhabited, worfe than Jove in a thatched house!.

Cło. When a man's verfes cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit feconded with the forward child Understanding, it ftrikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room: truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

Aud. I do not know what poetical is; is it honeft in deed and word? is it a true thing?

Clo. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they fwear in poetry, may be faid, as lovers, they do feign.

Aud. Do you wifh then, that the gods had made me poetical?

Clo. I do, truly; for thou fwearest to me thou art honeft: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have fome hope thou didst feign.

Aud. Would you not have me honest?

Clo. No, truly, unlefs thou wert hard favoured; for honefty coupled to beauty, is to have honey fauce to fugar.

Jaq. A material fool!

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

pray

Clo. Truly, and to caft away honefty upon a foul flut, were to put good meat into an unclean difh.

Aud. I am not a flut, though I thank the gods I am foul

Clo. Well, praifed be the gods for thy foulnefs; fluttishness 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 foreft, and to couple us.

Jaq. I would fain fee this meeting.
Aud. Well, the gods give us joy.

Clo. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, fagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no aflembly but hornbeafts. But what tho'? courage. As horns are odious, they are necellary. It is faid, 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 fo -poor men alone?Ho, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rafcal: is the fingle man therefore bleffed? no. As a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a batchelor; and by how much defence is better than no fkill, fo much is a horn more precious than to want.

Enter Sir OLIVER MAR-TEXT.

Here comes Sir Oliver: Sir Oliver Mar-text, you are well met. Will you difpatch us here under this tree, or fhall we go with you to your chapel ? Sir Oli. Is there none here to give the woman? Clo. I will not take her on gift of any man. Sir Oli. Truly fhe must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.

do

-for

Jaq. Proceed, proceed! I'll give her.

Clo. Good even, good mafter What-ye-call: how you, Sir? you are very well met: God'ld you your laft company, I am very glad to see you: even a toy in hand here, Sir: nay, pray be covered. Jaq. Will you be married, Motley?

Clo. As the ox hath his bow, Sir, the horfe hiscurb, and the faulcon his bells, fo man hath his defire; and as pigeons billy fo wedlock would be nibbling.

Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bufh like a beggar? get you to church, and have a good prieft 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 fhrunk pannel, and, like green timber,

warp, warp.

Clo. I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another; for he is not Jike to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excufe for me hereafter to leave .my wife.

Faq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee, Clo. Come, fweet Audrey, we must be married, or we must live in bawdry: farewel, good Mr Oliver; not O fweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, leave me not behind thee: but wind away, begone, I will not to wedding with thee.

Sir Oli. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knavę of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exeunt,

SCENE changes to a Cottage in the Foreft.

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.

Rof. Never talk to me, I will weep.

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

Rof. But have I not cause to weep?

Cel. As good a caufe as one would defire, there fore weep.

Ref. His very hair is of the diffembling colour. Cel. Something browner then Judas's: marry, his kifles are Judas's own children.

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

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

(

Rof. (19) And his kiffing is as full of fanctity, as the touch of holy bread.

Gel. (20) He hath bought a pair of caft lips of Diana; a nun of Winter's fiterhood kiffes not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.

Rof. But why did he fwear he would come this morning, and comes not?

Cel. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
Ref. Do you think fo?

Cel. Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horfe-ftealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet, or a worm

eaten nut.

(19) And his king is as full of fanctity, as the touch of holy bread. Though this be the reading of the oldest copies, I have made no fcruple to fubftitute an emendation of Mr Warburton, which mightily adds to the propriety of the fimile. What can the Poet be fuppofed to mean by holy bread? not the facramental, fure; that would have been profanation, upon a fubject of fo much levity. But boy beard very beautifully alludes to the kifs of a holy faint, which the Ancients called the kils of charity. And for Rofalind to fay that Orlando kiffed as holily as a faint, renders the comparifin very just.

(20) He hath bought a pair of chafte lips of Diana; a num of Winter's fisterhood kiffes not more religiously; the very ice of chatity is in them. This pair of chafte lips is a corruption as old as the fecond edition in folio; I have reftored with the first folio, a pair of caft lips, i. . a pair left off by Diana. Again, what idea does a nun of Winter's fifterhood give us? though I have not ventured to disturb the text, it seems more probable to me that the Poet wrote;

A nun of Winifred's fifier hood.

Not, indeed, that there was any real religious order of that denomination: but the legend of st Winifred is this. She was a Chriflian virgin at Holywell a fmall town in Flintfhire, fo tenacious of her chastity, that when a tyrannous governor laid fiege to her, he could not reduce her to compliance. but was obliged to ravish, and afterwards beheaded her in revenge of her obftinacy. Vid. Cambden's Britannia by Dr Gibfon, p. 638. This tradition forts very well with our Poet's allufion.