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Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, Madam, I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, Sir.

Clo. No, Madam; 'tis not fo well that I am poor, tho' many of the rich are damn'd; but, if I have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

Clo. I do beg your good will in this cafe.
Count. In what cafe?

Clo. In Isbel's cafe, and mine own; fervice is no heritage, and, I think, I fhall never have the bleffing of God, 'till I have Iffue of my body; for they fay, bearns are bleffings.

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clo. My poor body, Madam, requires it. I am driven on by the Flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason?

Clo. Faith, Madam, I have other holy reafons, fuch as they are.

Count. May the world know them?

Clo. I have been, Madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, 1 do marry, that I may repent.

fuch knaveries YARE; nimble, dextrous, i. e. Tho' you be fool enough to commit knaveries, yet you have quickness enough to commit them dextroufly: for this obfervation was to let us into his character. But now, tho' this be fet right, and, I dare fay, in Shakespear's own words, yet the former part of the fentence will ftill be inaccurate-you lack not folly to commit THEM. Them, what? the fenfe requires knaveries, but the antecedent referr'd to, is complaints. But this was certainly a negligence of ShakeSpear's, and therefore to be left as we find it. And the reader, who cannot fee that this is an inaccuracy which the Author might well commit, and the other what he never could, has either read Shakespear very little, or gready mifpent his pains. The principal office of a critick is to diftinguith between these two things. But 'tis that branch of criticifm which no precepts can teach the writer to discharge, or the reader to judge of.

VOL. III.

C

Count.

Count. Thy marriage, fooner than thy wickedness. Clo. I am out of friends, Madam, and I hope to have friends for my wife's fake.

Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

Clo. Y' are shallow, Madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am weary of; he, that eares my land, fpares my team, and gives me leave to inne the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge; he, that comforts my wife, is the cherifher of my flesh and blood; he, that cherisheth my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend: ergo, he, that kiffes my wife, is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poyfam the papift, howfoe'er their hearts are fever'd in religion, their heads are both one; they may joul horns together, like any deer i' th' herd.

Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?

2

Clo. A prophet, I, Madam; and I fpeak the truth the next way.

"For I the ballad will repeat, which men full true fhall find;

"Your marriage comes by deftiny, your cuckow fings by kind.

2 A prophet, I, Madam; and I speak the truth the next way.] It is a fuperftition, which has run through all ages and people, that natural fools have fomething in them of divinity. On which account they were efteemed facred: Travellers tell us in what efteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they lefs honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word Benét, for a natural fool. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rablais, advised Panurge to go and confult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occafion to a fatirical Stroke upon the privy council of Francis the First - Par l'avis, confeil, prediction des fols vos fçavez quants princes, &c. ont eflé confervez, &c.-The phrafe-peak the truth the next way, means directly; as they do who are only the inftruments or canals of others; fuch as infpired perfons were fuppofed to be.

Count.

Count. Get you gone, Sir, I'll talk with you more

anon.

1

Stew. May it please you, Madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to fpeak.

Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen I mean.

66

Clo. 3" Was this fair face the cause, quoth fhe,

"Why the Grecians facked Troy?

"Fond done, fond done; for Paris, he,

"Was this King Priam's joy.

"With that the fighed as the ftood,

"And gave this fentence then;

"Among nine bad if one be good, "There's yet one good in ten.

[Singing.

Count, What, one good in ten? You corrupt the fong, Sirrah.

Clo. One good woman in ten, Madam, which is a purifying o'th' fong: 'would, God would ferve the

3 Was this fair face the caufe, quoth fhe,

Why the Grecians facked Troy?

Fond done, fond done;

Was this King Priam's joy.] This is a Stanza of an old ballad, out of which a word or two are dropt, equally neceffary to make the fenfe and the alternate rhime. For it was not Helen, who was King Priam's joy, but Paris. The third line therefore fhould be read thus,

Fond done, fond done, FOR PARIS, HE.

4 Among nine bad if one be good,

There's yet one good in ten] This fecond ftanza of the ballad is turned to a joke upon the women: a confeffion, that there was one good in ten. Whereon the Countefs obferved, that he corrupted the fong; which fhews the fong faid, Nine good in ten. If one be bad amongst nine good,"

There's but one bad in ten.

This relates to the ten fons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well but Paris. For, tho' he once had fifty, yet at this unfortunate period of his reign he had but ten; Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, Hector, Helenus, Hippothous, Pemmon, Paris, and Polites.

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world fo all the year! we'd find no fault with the tythe-woman, if I were the Parfon; one in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman born but every blazing ftar, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one.

Count. You'll be gone, Sir knave, and do as I command you?

Clo. That man that fhould be at a woman's command, and yet no hurt done! tho' honefty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the furplis of humility over the black gown of a big heart: I am going, forfooth, the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit.

Count. Well, now.

Stew. I know, Madam, you love your gentlewoman intirely.

Count. Faith, I do; her father bequeath'd her to me; and the herself, without other advantages, may lawfully make title to as much love as the finds; there is more owing her, than is paid; and more fhall be paid her, than she'll demand.

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her, than, I think, fhe wifh'd me; alone fhe was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; fhe thought, I dåre vow for her, they touch'd not any ftranger fenfe. Her matter was, fhe lov'd your fon; Fortune, fhe faid, was no Goddess, that had put fuch difference betwixt their two eftates; Love, no God, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Diana, no Queen of Virgins, that would fuffer her poor Knight to be furpriz'd without refcue in the first affault, or ransom afterward. This fhe deliver'd in the most bitter touch of forrow, that e'er I heard a virgin exclaim in;

5 Diana added by Mr, Theobald.

which I held it my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; fithence, in the lofs that may happen, it concerns you fomething to know it.

Count. You have difcharg'd this honeftly, keep it to yourself; many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung fo tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe nor mifdoubt; pray you, leave me; ftall this in your bofom, and I thank you for your honest care; I will fpeak with you further [Exit Steward.

anon.

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Count. Ev'n fo it was with me, when I was young; If we are nature's, thefe are ours: this thorn Doth to our rofe of youth rightly belong;

Our blood to us, this to our blood, is born;

It is the fhow and feal of nature's truth,

Where love's strong paffion is impreft in youth;
By our remembrances of days foregone,

'Such were our faults, or then we thought them

none.

Her eye is fick on't; I obferve her now. --
Hel. What is your pleasure, Madam?
Count. Helen, you know, I am a mother to you.
Hel. Mine honourable miftrefs.

Count. Nay, a Mother?

Why not a mother? when I faid a mother, Methought, you faw a ferpent; what's in mother, That you start at it? I fay, I'm your mother;

6 Such were our faults, OR then we thought them none] We fhould read,

O! then we thought them none.

A motive for pity and pardon; agreeable to fact, and the indulgent character of the fpeaker. This was fent to the Oxford Editor, and he altered O, to the'.

C 3

And

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