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Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.

JAQ God blefs the king!

KING.

What prefent haft thou there?

Cost. Some certain treafon.

KING.

What makes treafon here?

If it mar nothing neither,

Cosr. Nay, it makes nothing, fir.
KING.

The treafon, and you, go in peace away together.
JAQ I befeech your grace, let this letter be

read;

Our parfon mifdoubts it; 'twas treafon, he said. KING. Biron, read it over.

Where hadft thou it?

JAQ. Of Coftard.

KING. Where hadft thouit?

[ Giving him the letter.

COST. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. KING. How now! what is in you? why doft thou tear it?

BIRON. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs

not fear it.

LONG. It did move him to paffion, and therefore let's hear it.

DUM. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. BIRON. Ah, you whorefon loggerhead, [ To Cos, TARD.] you were born to do me fhame.Guilty, my lord, guilty; 1 confefs, I confess. KING. What?

7 Our parfon] Here, as in a former inftance, in the authentick copies of this play, this word is fpelt perfon; but there being no reason for adhering here to the old spelling, the modern is pre ferred. MALONE,

BIRON. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess:

He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I,
Are pick-purfes in love, and we deferve to die.
O, difmifs this audience, and I fhall tell you more.
DUM. Now the number is even.

BIRON.

True true; we are four:

Will thefe turtles be gone?

KING.

Hence, firs; away.

COST. Walk afide the true folk, and let the traitors flay. [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA. BIRON. Sweet lords, fweet lovers, O let us embrace!

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The fea will ebb and flow, heaven fhow his face; Young blood will not obey an old decree: We cannot crofs the caufe why we were born; Therefore, of all hands muft we be forfworn.

KING. What did thefe rent lines fhow fome love of thine?

EIRON. Did they, quoth you? Who fees the heavenly Rofaline,

That, like a rude and favage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east,▾ Bows not his vaffal head; and firucken blind,

Kiffes the base ground with obedient breaft?

What peremptory eagle-fighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,

That is not blinded by her majefty?

KING. What zeal, what fury hath infpir'd thee now?

the gorgeous Eaft, ] Milton has tranfplanted this into the third line of the fecond book of Paradife Loft:

"Or where the gorgeous Eaft

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My love, her miftrefs, is a gracious moon;
She, an attending ftar, fcarce feen a light.
BIRON. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón :"
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Of all complexions the cull'd fovereignty

Do meet, as at fair, in her fair cheek;
Where feveral worthies make one dignity;

Where nothing wants, that want itfelf doth feek.

Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,

Fie, painted rhetorick! O, fhe needs it not: To things of fale a feller's praise belongs;

2

She paffes praife; then praife too fhort doth

blot.

A wither'd hermit, five-fcore winters worn,
Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,

And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.

8 She, an attending ftar,] Something like this is a ftanza of Sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion :

"You meaner beauties of the night,

"That poorly fatisfy our eyes

se More by your number than your light,

"You common people of the skies,

What are you when the fun fhall rife?] JOHNSON.

Micat inter omnes

Julium fidus, velut inter ignes

"Luna minores.' HOR.

MALONE.

9 My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón:] Here, and indeed throughout this play, the name of Birón is accented on the fecond fyllable. In the first quarto, 1598, and the folio, 1623, he is always called Berowne.. From the line before us it appears, that in our author's time the name was pronounced Biroon. MALONE.

2 To things of fale a feller's praise belongs;] So, in our author's 21ft Sonnet :

“I will not praise, that purpose not to fell." MALONE.

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O, 'tis the fun, that maketh all things fine! KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. BIZON. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of fuch wood were felicity.

O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may fwear, beauty doth beauty lack, If that the learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full fo black. * KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the fcowl of night;" And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well. 6 BIRON. Devils founeft tempt, refembling spirits of light.

3 Is ebony like her? O wood divine!] Word is the reading of all the editions that I have feen: but both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concurr'd in reading, (as I had likewife conjectured,} O wood divine!" THEOBALD.

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beauty doth beauty lack,

If that he learn not of her eye to look:

No face is fair, that is not full fo black.] So, in our poet's 132d

Sonnet:

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thofe two mourning eyes become thy face:
"O, let it then as well befeem thy heart
"To mourn for me;

"Then will I fwear, beauty herself is black,
And all they foul, that thy complexion lack.

See alfo his 127th Sounet. MALONE.

Black is the badge of hell,

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The hue of dungeons, and the fcowl of night; ] In former editions: the fchool of night."

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Black being the School of night, is a piece of mystery above my comprehenfion. I had gueffed, it should be:

the ftole of night:

but I have preferred the conje&ure of my friend Mr. Warburton,

who reads:

the fcowl of night,”

as it comes nearer in pronunciation to the corrupted reading, as well as agrees better with the other images.

In our author's 148th Sonnet we have

THEOBALD.

"Who art a black as hell, as dark as night." MÁLONE.

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O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,
It mourns, that painting, and ufurping hair,
Should ravifh doters with a falfe afpect;

And therefore is fhe born to make black fair, Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid difpraife, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.

6 And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well.] Creft is here pro perly oppofed to badge. Black, fays the king, is the badge of hell, but that which graces the heaven is the creft of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. JOHNSON.

And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well, i. e. the very top, the height of beauty, or the utmoft degree of fairness, becomes the heavens. So the word creft is explained by the poet himself in King John:

this is the very top

"The height, the creft, or creft unto the creft

Of murder's arms.

In heraldry, a creft is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakspeare therefore affumes the liberty to use it in a sense equiva lent to top or utmost height, as he has ufed fpire in Coriolanus:

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to the fpire and top of praises vouch'd.

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So, in Timon of Athens: "———— the cap of all the fools alive" is the top of them all, because cap was the uppermoft part of a man's drefs. TOLLET.

Ben Jonson, in Love's Triumph through Calipolis, a Masque, fays:
To you that are by excellence a queen,

"The top of beauty,

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Again, in The Mirror of Knighthood, P. I. ch. xiv:

in the top and pitch of all beauty, so that theyr matches are. not to bee had. STEEVENS.

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and ufurping hair,] And, which is wanting in the old copies, was fupplied by the editor of the fecond folio. Ufurping hair alludes to the fashion, which prevailed among ladies in our author's time, of wearing false hair, or periwigs, as they were then called, before that kind of covering for the head was worn by men. The fentiments here uttered by Biron may be found, in nearly the fame words, in our author's 127th Sonnet.

VOL. VII.

MALONE.
V

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