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and make foul the clearnefs of our defervings, when of ourfelves we publish them.

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Count. What does this khavé here? get you gone, ferrah: the complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe 'tis my flowness that I do not, for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries yours.

CL. "Tis not unknown to you, Madam, I am 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 Ladyfhip's good will to go to the world,

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?

bel the

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

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

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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 3

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, I do marry, that I may repent.

1

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.

ἀλλ ̓ ἐναισίμως

Αἰνεῖν, παρ' ἄλλων χρὴ τόδ' ἔρχεσθαι ημέρας.
But to be prais'd with honour, is a tribute
That must be paid us from another's tongue.

Clo. Y' are fhallow, Madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am weary of; he, that cares my land, fpares my team, and gives me leave to inne the crop; if I be his cuckold, he'st my drudge; he, that comforts my wife, is the che rifher of my flesh and blood; he, that cherifheth 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 calumRious knave?

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

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

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

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

anon..

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

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

Clo. "Was this fair face the cause, quoth the (6),

(6) Was this fair face the caufe, quotb fbe

Why the Grecians facked Troy?

3

[Singing Why

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Was this King Priam's joy] As the ftanza, that follows, is in alternate rhyme, and as a rhyme is here wanting to be in the it verfe; 'tis evident, the 3d line is wanting. The old folio's give us a part of it; but how to fupply the loft part, was the queftion. Mr. Rowe has given us the fragment honeftly, as he found it: but Mr. Pope, rather than to feem founder'd, has funk it upon us.-I communicated to my ingenious friend Mr. Warburton how I found the pallage in the old books,

[Fond done, done, fond,
Was this King Priam's joy?

And:

"Why the Grecians facked Troy?
"Fond done, fond done;-for Paris he
"Was this King Priam's joy.

"With that she fighed as the food (7),

"And

And from him I received that fupplement, which I have given to the text, and the following juftification of it. "I will firft proceed "to juftify my fenfe and emendation, and then account for the cor"ruption. In the first place, 'tis plain, the laft line should not "have been read with an interrogation: For was Helen King "Priam's joy? No, furely, fhe was not. Who then? why, the "hiftorians tell us it was Paris, who was his favourite fon. And "how natural was it, when this he (whoever he was,) had faid, "was this the face that ruin'd Try to fall into a moral reflection, "and fay, what a fond deed was this! Priam's mifery proceeded "from him, that was his only joy. This is exactly agreeable to the fimplicity of thofe ancient fongs as the phrafe, For Paris "be-is to their mode of locution. So far we have the genius of "the Ballad, hiftory, and the context, to make it probable. An "obfervation upon the ensuing fianza may make it clear to demon• § "Atration."

I will only fubjoin, in confirmation of my friend's ingenious conjecture, that, in The Maid in the Mill by Beaumont and Fletcher, I find a fcrap of another old ballad upon the fame subject, most nearly correfponding with ours.

And here fair Paris comes,
The hopeful youth of Troy;
Queen Hecuba's darling fon,
King Priam's only joy.

(7) With that he figbed, as fhe flood,

And gave this fentence then

Among nine bad if one be good,

There's yet one good in ten.]

This 2d ftanza is a joke turn'd upon the women: a confeffion that there was one good in ten. Upon which the Countess fays, "What! one good in ten! you corrupt the fong, firrah."-This fhews, that the fenfe of the fong was, one bad only in ten; or, nine good in ten ≈ and this clears up the myftery. The ad ftanza was certainly thus in the old ballad.

With that he figbed as she flood,
And gave this fentence then;
If one be bad among ft nine good,

There's but one bad in ten.

A vifible continuation of the thought, as amended, in the latter part of the firft ftanza: and it relates to the ten fons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well except this Paris. But why Priam's ten fons, may it not be afk'd, when univerfal tradition has given him

fifty &

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And gave this fentence then;

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

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

Clo. One good woman in ten, Madam, which is a purifying o' th' fong: would, God would ferve the world for all the year! we'd find no fault with the tithe-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 com mand you.

Clo. That man that fhould be at a woman's com, mand, and yet no hurt done! tho' honesty be no. puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the furplis of humility over the black gown of a big heart: F am going, for footh, the bufinefs is for Helen to come [Exit,

hither.

Count. Well, now.

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

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

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her, than, I think, the wifh'd me; alone fhe was, and did com.. municate to herself her own words to her own ears ; the thought, I dare vow for her, they touch'd not any,

fifty? To this I reply, that, at the time of this unfortunate part of his reign, he had but ten. To these this: fongfter alludes. They were, Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, He&or, Helenus, Hippotbous, Pammon, Paris and Poli es. It feems particularly humorous in the clown, (aad fuiting with the licence of his character, as a. jefter;) all at once to deprave the text of the ballad, and turn it to a farcalm upon the women. Mr. Warburton.. franger

Aranger fenfe. Her matter was, fhe lov'd your fon Fortune,, fhe faid, was no god defs (8), 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 firft affault, or ranfom afterward. This the deliver'd in the most bitter touch of forrow, that e'er I heard a virgin exclaim in; which I held it my duty fpeedily 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 yourfelf; 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 speak with you further anon.

Enter Helena.

[Exit Stewards

Count. Ev'n fo it was with me, when I was young,

If we ate nature's, these are ours: this thorn

Doth to our rofe of youth rightly belong;

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

(8) Fortune, fhe faid, was no goddess, &c. Love, no god, &c. tomplain'd against the Queen of virgins, &c.] This paffage ftands thus in the old copies.

Love, no god, that would not extend bis might only where qualities. were level, Queen of virgins, that would fuffer ber poor Knight, &c. "Tis evident to every fenfible reader that fomething must have slip'á out here, by which the meaning of the context is render'd defectives There are no traces for the words, [complain'd against the] which take to have been first conjecturally fupply'd by Mr. Rowe. But the form of the fentence is intirely alter'd by their infertion; and they, at best, make but a botch. The Beward is speaking in the very words he overheard of the young Lady; fortune was no gbodefs, the said, for one reafon; love no god, for another; what could the cher more naturally fubjoin, than as I have amended in the text?

Diana no Queen of virgins, that would suffer ber poor Khight to be furpriz'd without refcue, &c.

For in poetical history Diana was as well known to prefidé over cbafity, as Cupid over love, or Fortune over the change or regulation of our circumftances.

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