230

hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I conftant to my profeffion.

Enter Clown and Shepherd.

Afide, afide;-here's more matter for a hot brain: Every lane's end, every fhop, church, feffion, hanging, yields a careful man work.

Clown. See, fee; what a man you are now! there is no other way, but to tell the king fhe's a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood.

Shep. Nay, but hear me.

Clown. Nay, but hear me.
Shep. Go to then.

Clown. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and, fo, your flesh and blood is not to be punish'd by him. Shew those things you found about her; thofe fecret things, all but what he has with her: This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you.

Shep. I will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his fon's pranks too; who, I may fay, is no honest man neither to his father, nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-law.

Clown. Indeed, brother-in-law was the fartheft off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been. the dearer, by I know how much an ounces.

Aut. Very wifely; puppies!

[Afide. Shep. Well; let us to the king; there is that] in this farthel, will make him fcratch his beard.

Aut. I know not, what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my mafter.

Clown. 'Pray heartily he be at palace.

Aut. Though I am not naturally honeft, I am fo fometimes by chance :-Let me pocket up my pedler's excrement.-How now, rufticks? whither are you bound?

Shep.

8 and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce. I fufpect that a word was omitted at the prefs. We might, I think, fafely read by I know not how much an ounce. Sir T. Han mer, I find, had made the fame emendation. MALONE. 9-pedler's excrement.] Is pedler's beard. JOHNSON.

So

Shep. To the palace, an it like your worship.

Aut. Your affairs there? what? with whom? the condition of that farthel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having *, breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be known, discover.

Clown. We are but plain fellows, fir.

Aut. A lie; you are rough and hairy: Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradefmen, and they often give us foldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with ftamped coin, not ftabbing fteel; therefore they do not give us the lie1.

Clown. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner +.

Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, fir?

Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. See'ft thou not the air of the court, in these enfoldings? hath not my gait in it, the measure of the court? receives not thy nofe court-odour from me? reflect I not on thy basenefs, court-contempt? Think'ft thou, for that I infinuate, and toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier, cap-a-pè; and one that will either

So, in the Comedy of Errors: "Why is time fuch a niggard of his hair, being, as it is, fo plentiful an excrement?" See alto Vol. II. p. 396, n. 9. STEEVENS.

—of what having,] i. e. fortune, estate. See Vol. I. p. 253, n. 5.

MALONE.

therefore they do not give us the lie.] The meaning is, they are paid for lying, therefore they do not give us the lye, they fell it us. JOHNSON.

with the manner.] In the fact. See Vol. II. p. 316, n. 8.

MALONE.
For the

2- - infinuate and toze-] The old copy reads-at toaze. emendation now made the prefent editor is anfwerable. To infinuate, I believe, means here to cajole, to talk with condefcenfion and humility. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis :

"With death the humbly doth infinuate, &c.

The word touze is ufed in the fame fenfe in Mcafure for Measure: We'll touze you joint by joint,

"But we will know this purpose."

To toufe, fays Minfhieu, is, to pull, to tug. MALONE.

To teaze, or toze, is to difentangle wool or flax. Autolycus adopts a phrafeology which he fuppofes to be intelligible to the clown, who would not have understood the word infinuate, without fuch a comment en it. STEEVENS.

Q4

pufh

push on, or pluck back thy bufinefs there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

Shep. My bufinefs, fir, is to the king.
Aut. What advocate haft thou to him?
Shep. I know not, an't like you.

Clown. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasants; say, you have none.

Shep. None, fir; I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen. Aut. How blefs'd are we, that are not fimple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are ; Therefore I will not difdain.

Clown. This cannot be but a great courtier.

Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handfomely.

Clown. He feems to be the more noble in being fantaftical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth 4.

Aut. The farthel there? what's i'the farthel? Wherefore that box?

Shep. Sir, there lies fuch fecrets in this farthel, and box, which none must know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him.

Aut. Age, thou haft loft thy labour.

Shep. Why, fir?

Aut. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'ft capable of things ferious, thou must know, the king is full of grief.

Shep. So 'tis faid, fir; about his fon, that should have married a fhepherd's daughter.

3 Advocate's the court-word for a pleasant;] As he was a fuitor from the country, the clown fuppofes his father should have brought a prefent of game, and therefore imagines, when Autolycus afks him what advocate he has, that by the word advocate he means a pheasant. STEEVENS.

4 — a great man,—by the picking on's teeth.] It seems, that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of fome pretenfion to greatness or elegance. So, the Baftard, in King John, speaking of the traveller, fays: He and his pick-tooth at my worship's mefs." JOHNSON.

Aut.

Aut. If that shepherd be not in hand-faft, let him fly; the curfes he fhall have, the tortures he fhall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monfter.

Clown. Think you so, fir?

Aut. Not he alone fhall fuffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but thofe that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, fhall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is neceffary. An old fheep-whiftling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some fay, he fhall be ftoned; but that death is too foft for him, fay I: Draw our throne into a sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the fharpest too easy.

Clown. Has the old man e'er a fon, fir, do you hear, an't like you, fir?

Aut. He has a fon, who fhall be flay'd alive; then, 'nointed over with honey, fet on the head of a wafp's neft; then stand, till he be three quarters and a dram dead: then recovered again with aqua-vitæ, or fome other hot infufion: then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognoftication proclaims, fhall he be fet against a brick-wall, the fun looking with a fouthward eye upon him; where he is to behold him, with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rafcals, whofe miferies are to be fmiled at, their offences being fo capital? Tell me, (for you feem to be honeft plain men,) what you have to the king: being fomething gently confidered", I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your perfons to his prefence, whisper him in your behalfs; and, if it be in man, befides the king, to effect your fuits, here is man shall do it.

Clown. He feems to be of great authority: clofe with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn

5- the botteft day prognoftication proclaims,] That is, the botteft day foretold in the almanack. JOHNSON.

being fomething gently confidered,] means, I having a gentlemanlike confideration given me, i. e. a bribe, will bring you, &c. So, in the Ile of Gulls, 1606: "Thou shalt be well confidered, there's twenty crowns in carneft." STEEVENS,

bear,

bear, yet he is oft led by the nofe with gold: fhew the infide of your purfe to the outfide of his hand, and no more ado: Remember, ftoned, and flay'd alive.

Shep. An't please you, fir, to undertake the bufinefs for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more; and leave this young man in pawn, till I bring it you.

Aut. After I have done what I promised?

Shep. Ay, fir.

Aut. Well, give me the moiety:-Are you a party in this business?

Clown. In fome fort, fir: but though my cafe be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flay'd out of it.

Aut. O, that's the cafe of the thepherd's fon :-Hang him, he'll be made an example.

Clown. Comfort, good comfort: We must to the king, and fhew our strange fights: he must know, 'tis none of your daughter, nor my fifter; we are gone elfe. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the bufinefs is perform'd; and remain, as he fays, your pawn, till it be brought you.

Aut. I will truft you. Walk before toward the fea-fide; go on the right hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

Clown. We are blefs'd in this man, as I may fay, even blefs'd.

Shep. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd, and Clown. Aut. If I had a mind to be honeft, I fee, fortune would not fuffer me; fhe drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occafion; gold, and a means to do the prince my mafter good; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him if he think it fit to fhore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me, rogue, for being fo far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what fhame elfe belongs to't: To him will I present them; there may be matter in it. [Exit.

ACT