Orla. Not fo: but I anfwer you right painted cloth,[4] from whence you have ftudied your questions.

Jaq. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you fit down with me; and we two will rail against our mistress, the world, and all our mifery.

Orla. I will chide no breather in the world, but myfelf, against whom I know moft faults.

Jaq. The worst fault you have is, to be in love. Orla. 'Tis a fault I would not change for your beft virtue. I am weary of you.

Jaq. By my troth, I was looking for a fool, when I found you.

Orla. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you fhall fee him.

Jaq. There I fhall fee mine own figure.

Orla. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cypher. Jaq. I'll ftay no longer with you: Farewel, good fignior Love.

[Exit. Orla. I am glad of your departure: adieu, good monfieur Melancholy. [CEL. and Ros. come forward. Rof. I will fpeak to him like a faucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.-Do you hear, forefter ?

Orla. Very well; what would you?

Rof. I pray you, what is't a clock?

Orla. You should ask me, what time o'day; there's no clock in the foreft.

Rof. Then there is no true lover in the foreft; else fighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time, as well as a clock.

Orla. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper ?

Rof. By no means, fir: Time travels in divers paces with divers perfons: I'll tell you whom time ambles withal, whom time trots withal, whom time gallops withal, and whom he stands ftill withal.

Orla. I pr'ythee whom doth he trot withal?

Rof. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage and the day it is folemniz'd: if the interim be but a fe❜nnight, time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years.

[4] This alludes to the fashion, in old tapeftry hangings, of mottos and moral fentences from the mouths of the figures worked or printed in them. THEOB.

Rof. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one fleeps eafily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain: the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning; the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury: Thefe time ambles withal.

Orla. Whom doth he gallop withal?

Rof. With a thief to the gallows: for though he go as foftly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too foon there. Orla. Whom ftays it ftill withal?

Rof. With lawyers in the vacation: for they fleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.

Orla. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Rof. With this fhepherdefs, my fifter; here in the skirts of the foreft, like fringe upon a petticoat. Orla. Are you native of this place?

Rof. As the cony, that you fee dwell where the is kindled.

Orla. Your accent is fomething finer than you could purchase in fo removed a dwelling.

Rof. I have been told fo of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an in-land man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; I thank God I am not a woman, to be touch'd with fo may giddy offences, as he hath generally tax'd their whole fex withal.

Orla. Can you remember any of the principal evils, that he laid to the charge of women ?

Rof. There were none principal; they were all like one another, as half-pence are: every one fault feeming monftrous, till his fellow fault came to match it.

Orla. I pr'ythee, recount some of them.

Rof. No; I will not caft away my physic, but on those that are fick. There is a man haunts the foreft, that abuses our young plants with carving Rofalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forfooth, deifying the name of Rofalind: If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him fome good counsel, for he feems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

Orla. I am he that is fo love-fhak'd; I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Rof. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am fure you are not prisoner.

Orla. What were his marks?

Rof. A lean cheek; which you have not a blue eye, and funken; which you have not an unquestionable fpirit; which you have not: a beard neglected; which you have not :-but I pardon you for that; for, fimply, your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue :Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your fhoe untied, and every thing about you demonftrating a careless defolation. But you are no fuch man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than feeming the lover of any other.

Orla. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Rof. Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, fhe is apter to do than to confefs fhe does that is one of the points in the which women ftill give the lie to their confciences. But, in good footh, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rofalind is fo admired?

Orla. I fwear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rofalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

Rof. But are you so much in love as your thimes speak? Orla. Neither rhime nor reafon can express how much. Rof. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do: and the reason why they are not fo punish'd and cured, is, that the lunacy is fo ordinary, that the whippers are in love too: Yet I profefs curing it by counfel.

Orla. Did you ever cure any fo?

He was to ima

Rof. Yes, one; and in this manner. gine me his love, his miftrefs; and I fet him every day to woo me: At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of fmiles; for every paffion fomething, and for no paffion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the moft part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loath him; then entertain him, then for

fwear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my fuitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madnefs; which was, to forfwear the full ftream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monaftic: And thus I cur'd him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clear as a found fheep's heart, that there fhall not be one spot of love in't.

Orla. I would not be cur'd, youth.

Rof. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rofalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me. Orla. Now, by the faith of my love, I will

where it is.

tell me Rof. Go with me to it, and I will fhew it you: and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the foreft you live: Will you go?

Orla. With all my heart, good youth.

Rof. Nay, nay, you must call me Rofalind :-Come, fifter, will you go

[Exe.

SCENE III.

Enter Clown and AUDREY, JAQUES watching them.

Clo. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats, Audrey And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my fimple feature content you?

Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? Clo. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. Faq. [Afide.] O knowledge ill-inhabited! worse than Jove in a thatch'd house!

Clo. When a man's verfes cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit feconded with the forward child, underftanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room [5] Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

Aud. I do not know what poetical is: Is it honeft in deed and word? Is it a true thing?

Clo. No, truly; for the trueft poetry is the most feign

[5] Nothing was ever wrote in higher humour than this fimile. A great. reckoning, in a little room, implies that the entertainment was mean, and the bill extravagant. The poet here alluded to the French proverbialphrafe of the quarter of hour of Rabelais'; who faid, there was only one quarter of an hour in human life paffed ill, and that was between the call ing for the reckoning and paying it. WARB.

ing; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they fwear in poetry, may be faid, as lovers, they do feign.

Aud. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?

Clo. I do truly for thou fwear'ft to me thou art honeft; now if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.

Aud. Would you not have me honeft?

Clo. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd: for honefty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a fauce to fugar.

Faq. [Afide.] A material fool ![6]
Aud. Well, I am not fair

gods make me honeft!

and therefore I pray the

Clo. Truly, and to caft away honesty upon a foul flut, were to put good meat into an unclean dish.

Aud. I am not a flut, though I thank the gods I am foul. Clo. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! flut tishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee; and, to that end, I have been with Sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village; who hath promis'd to meet me in this place of the foreft, and to couple us.

Faq. [Afide.] I would fain fee this meeting.

Aud. Well, the gods give us joy!

Clo. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no affembly but horn-beafts. But what tho? Courage! As horns are odious, they are neceffary. It is faid,-Many a man knows no end of his goods: right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them, Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even fo :-Poor men alone?—No, no; the nobleft deer hath them as huge as the rafcal. Is the fingle man therefore bleffed? No: as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, fo is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor and by how much defence is better than no fkill, fo much is a horn more precious than to want.

Enter Sir OLIVER MAR-TEXT.

Here comes Sir Oliver [7]-Sir Oliver Mar-text, you [6] A fool with matter in him; a fool flocked with notions. JOHNS. [7] He that has taken his firft degree at the university, is, in the aca-.