From simple sources ; and great seas have dry'd,
When mir’cles have by th' greatest been deny’d.
Oft expectation fails, and moft oft there
Where most it promises: and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and defpair moft fits.

King. I must not hear thee ; fare thee well, kind

Maid ;

Thy pains, not us’d, muft by thyself be paid :
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.

Hel. Inspired merit lo by breath is barrid':
It is not so with him that all things knows,
As 'tis with us, that square our guess by fhows:
But most it is presumption in us, when
The help of heav'n we count the act of men.
Dear Sir, to my endeavours give consent,
Of heav'n, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
4 Myself against the level of mine aim;
But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power, nor you paft cure.

King. Art thou fo confident within what space Hopłt thou my cure?

Hel. The greatest grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moift Hesperus hath quench'd his neepy lamp ;
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass';
What is infirm from your found parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and fickness freely die.

King. Upon thy certainty and confidence,
What dar’st thou venture ?

Hel. Tax of impudence, 4 Myself against the level of mine aim ;] i. e. pretend to greater things than befits the mediocrity of my condition.

А.

A strumpet's boldness, a divulged sha.ne
Traduc'd by odious ballads : my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise, no worse of worst extended;
With vileft corture let my life be ended.
King. 5 Methinks, in thee fome blessed Spirit doth

speak:
His power full sounds within an organ weak;
And what impossibility would Nay
In common sense, fenfe saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can race
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate:
• Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call ;
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet Practiser, thy physick I will cry;
That ministers.chine own death, if I die.

Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,
And well deserv'd! Not helping, death's my fee ;
But if I help, what do you promise me?

$ Metbinks, in thee fome bleffed fpirit doth speak

His powerful sound, within an organ weak; ] To Speak a found is a barbarism: Por to speak fignifies to utter an articulate found, i. e. a voice. So Shakespear, in Love's Labour Loft, says with propriety, And when love speaks the voice of all the Gods. To speak a found therefore is improper, tho' to utter a found is not ; because the word utter may be applied either to an articulate or inar. ticulate. Besides, the construction is vicious with the two ablatives, in thee, and, witbin an organ weak. The lines therefore hould be thus read and pointed,

Metbinks, in thee fome blessed fpirit doth speak:

His power full sounds within an organ weak.
But the Oxford Editor would be only fo far beholden to this emen-
dation, as to enable him to make sense of the lines another way,
whatever become of the rules of criticifm or ingenuous dealing.

It powerful sounds wirkin an organ weak.
6 Youth, Beauty, wisdom, courage, all] The verse wants a foot,
VIRTUE, by mischance, has dropt out of the line,
VOL. III.

D

King

King. ? Make thy demand.
Hel, But will you make it even?
King. Ay, by my scepter, and my hopes of heaven.

Hel. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,
What Husband in thy power I will command.
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To chuse from forth the royal blood of France ;
My low and humble name to propagate

With any branch or impage of thy state:
But such a one thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

King. Here is my hand, the premises observd,
Thy will by my performance shall be ferv'd:
So, make the choice of thine own time; for I,
Thy resolvid Patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must;
(Tho' more to know, could not be more to trust :)
From whence thou cam'ít, how tended on, but reft
Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted bleft.
Give me some help here, hoa! if thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Exeunt. 7 King. Make the demand.

Hel. But will you make it even!

King. Ay, by my scepter and my hopes of help.] The King - could have but a very night hope of belp from her, scarce enough to fwear by: and therefore Helen might suspect he meant to equivocate with her. Befides, obferve, the greatest part of the scene is strictly in rhyme, and there is no shadow of reason why -it should be interrupted here. I rather imagine the poet wrote, Ay, by my frepter, and my hopes of heaven.

Dr. Thirlby. 8 With any branch or IMAGE of thy flate:] Shakespear unquestionably wrote IMPAGE, grafting. IMPE a graff, or flip. or fucker: by which the means one of the sons of France. So Caxton calls our Prince Arthur, thai roble i MPs of fame.

S C EN Ν' Ε IV.

Changes to Rousillon.

Enter Countess and. Clcron. Count. OME øn, Sir; I shall now put you to

the height of your breeding... Clo. I will thew myself highly fed, and lowly taught; I know, my business is but to the court,

Count. But to the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off chat with such contempt ; but to the court!

Clo. Truly, Madam, if God have. Jent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the courc: but for me, I have an answer will serve all mien.

Count. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

Clo. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks, the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn. buttock, or any buttock.

Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attora ney, as your French crown for your taffatý punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as á scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

Count. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

Clo. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. D 2

Count.

Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands.

Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned fhould speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me, if I am a courtier ; it shall do you no harm to learn.

Count. To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in a question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, Sir, are you a courtier ?

Clo. ' lord, Sir there's a simple putting off: more, more, a hundred of them.

Gount. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you wanna Clo. O lord, Sir -- thick, thick, spare not me.

Count. I think, Sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

Clo. O lord, Sirnay, put me to't, I warrant you.

Count. You were lately whip’d, Sir, as I think.
Clo. O lord, Sir spare not me.

Count. Do you cry, O.lord, Sir, at your whipping, and spare not me? indeed, your O lord, Sir, is very fequent to your whipping: you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to't.

Clo. I ne'er had worse luck in my life, in my—0 lord, Sir ; I see, things may serye long, but not serve ever.

Count. I play the noble huswife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.

Clo. O lord, Sir --- why, there't ferves well again.

Count. An end, Sir; to your business: give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back.
Commend me to my kinsmen, and my fon:
This is not much.

90 lord, Sir, ) A ridicule on that foolish expletive of speech then in vogue as court.

Cle