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Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us.

Enter Jaquenetta and Costard.

Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. Hol. Master parson, quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it.

Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrâ.

Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan ! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.— Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, domine.

Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful

prove;

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine

eyes;

Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suf

fice;

Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend:

All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts

admire ;)

Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horsel his rider.-But damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto :

Your ladyship's in all desired employment,

BIRON. Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a se

(1) Horse adorned with ribbands.

quent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu! Jaq. Good Costard, go with me.-Sir, God save your life!

Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt Cost. and Jaq. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please you, sir Nathaniel?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shail please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto, where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too: for society (saith the text) is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes,' the text most infallibly concludes it.-Sir, [To Dull.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.—Another part of the same. Enter Biron, with a paper.

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch; pitch that defiles; defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for So, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool.

(1) In truth.

Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: Well proved again on my side! I will not love : it I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye,by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a tree.

Enter the King, with a paper.

King. Ah me!

Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap:-I'faith secrets.

King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light; Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep: No drop but as a coach doth carry thee, So ridest thou triumphing in my wo; Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through thy grief will show: But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel! No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper; Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside.

Enter Longaville, with a paper.

What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Biron. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, ap

pear!

Long. Ah me! I am forsworn.

[Aside.

Biron. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wear

ing papers.

[Aside.

King. In love, I hope; Sweet fellowship in

shame!

[Aside.

Biron. One drunkard loves another of the name.

[Aside.

Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Biron. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort; not by two, that I know:

Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,

The shape of love's Tyburn that hangs up sim

plicity.

Long. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to

move:

O sweet Maria, empress of my love!

These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. Biron. [Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:

Disfigure not his slop.

Long.

This same shall go.—

[He reads the sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye

('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,) Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but, I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee; My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.

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