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Changes to the Countess's at Roufillon.

Enter Countefs, Steward and Clown 3:

Will now hear; what fay you of this gentlewoman?

4

Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our defervings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? get you gone, Sirrah; 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.

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3 Steward and Clown.] A Clown in Shakespeare is commonly taken for a licensed jefter, or domestick fool. We are not to. wonder that we find this character often in his plays, fince fools were, at that time, maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the house. In the picture of Sir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbein, the only fervant represented is Patifon the fool. This is a proof of the familiarity to which they were admitted, not by the great only, but the wife,

In fome plays, a fervant, or ruftic, of remarkable petulance and freedom of fpeech, is like wife called a Clown.

4 To even your content.] To act up to your defires.

Clo.

5 you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries YOURS; Well, but if he had folly to commit them, he neither wanted knavery, nor any thing else, fure, to make them his own. This nonfenfe fhould be read, To make fuch knaveries YARE; nimble, dextrous, i. e. Tho' you be fool enough to commit knaveries, yet you have quicknefs enough to commit them dextroufly: for this observation was to let us into his character. But now, tho' this be fet right, and, I dare fay, in Shakespeare's own words, yet the former part of the fentence will still be inaccurate you lack not folly to commit THEM. Them, what? the sense requires knaveries, but the antecedent

U 3

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, bel 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 bel's cafe, and my own; service 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 the 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 reafon ?

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.

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.

cedent referr'd to, is complaints. But this was certainly a negligence of Shakespeare'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 Shakespeare very

little, or greatly mispent his pains. The princ pal office of a critic is to diftinguith between thefe two things Buts that branch of criticiim w..no precepts can teach the who di charge, or the reader 1. jage of. WARBURTON.

Clo. Y'are fhallow, 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 inn the crop; If I be his cuckold, he's my drudge; he, that comforts my wife, is the cherisher 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 kisses 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 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 calum-. nious knave?

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.

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

anon.

6A prophet, I, Madam; and 1 fpeak the truth the next away.] It is a superstition, 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 esteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they lefs honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word Benet, for a natural fool. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rablais, ad

vised Panurge to go and confult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occafion to a satirical Stroke upon the privy council of Francis the First- -Par l'avis, confeil, prediction des fols vos feavez quants princes, &c. ont efté confer vez, &c.. -The phrafe-Speak 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. WARBURTON.

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Steen

Stew. 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 caufe, quoth fhe,

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Why the Grecians facked Troy?

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

"Was this King Priam's joy.

"With that fhe 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 world fo all the year! we'd find no fault with the tythewoman, 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 lot

Was this fair face the cauft,
quoth jhe,
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.
WARB.
8 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 Countess obferved, that he corrupted the fong; which shews the fong faid, Nine good in ten.

If one be bad among ft nine good, There's but one bad in ten. This relates to the ten fons of Priam, who all behaved themfelves 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, Hippotheus, Pemmon, Paris, and Polites. WARBURTON.

tery

tery 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 fhould be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done !-tho' honefty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the furplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart-I am going, forfooth. The bufinefs 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 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, fhe wifh'd me; alone fhe was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; fhe thought, I dare vow for her, they touch'd not any ftranger fenfe. Her matter was, fhe lov'd your fon;

? Clo. That man, &c.] The clown's answer is obfcure. His lady bids him do as he is commanded. He anfwers with the licentious petulance of his character, that if a man does as a avoman commands, it is likely he will do amifs; that he does not amifs, being at the command of a woman, he makes the effect, not of his Lady's goodness, but of his own bonefty, which, though not very nice or puritanical, will do no burt; and will not only do no hurt, but, unlike the Puritans, will comply with the in

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junctions of fuperiours, and wear the furplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart; will obey commands, though not much pleased with a state of subjection.

Here is an allufion, violently enough forced in, to fatirife the obftinacy with which the Puritans refufed the ufe of the ecclefiaftical habits, which was, at that time, one principal caufe of the breach of union, and, perhaps, to infinuate, that the modeft purity of the furplice was fometimes a cover for pride.

Fortune,

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