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DUM. To look like her, are chimney-fweepers black.

LONG. And, fince her time, are colliers counted

bright.

KING. And Ethiops of their fweet complexion

crack.

DUм. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

BIRON. Your miftreffes dare never come in rain, For fear their colours fhould be wash'd away. KING. 'Twere good, yours did; for, fir, to tell you plain,

I'll find a fairer face not wafh'd to-day.

BIRON. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-day here.

KING. No devil will fright thee then fo much as

fhe.

DUM. I never knew man hold vile fluff fo dear. LONG. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her [Showing his fhoe. BIRON. O, if the ftreets were paved with thine

face fee.

eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty for fuch tread! DUM. O vile! then as fhe goes, what upward

lies

The ftreet fhould fee as fhe walk'd over head. KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love? BIRON. O, nothing fo fure; and thereby all forfworn.

KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón,

now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

DUM. Ay, marry, there ;-fome flattery for this

evil.

LONG. O, fome authority how to proceed; Some tricks, fome quillets, how to cheat the devil. DUM. Some falve for perjury.

BIRON.
O, 'tis more than need!-
Have at you then, affection's men at arms: .9
Confider, what you firft did fwear unto;-
To faft,-to ftudy,-and to fee no woman ;-
Flat treafon 'gainst the kingly flate of youth.
Say, can you faft? your flomachs are too young;
And abftinence engenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to ftudy, lords,
In that each of you hath forfworn his book:
Can you fill dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of ftudy's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive :
They are the ground, the books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, univerfal plodding prifons up

8

Some quillets, ] Quillet is the peculiar word apdlied to law-chicane. I imagine the original to be this. In the French pleadings, every feveral allegation in the plaintiff's charge, and every diftin&t plea in the defendant's anfwer, began with the words qu'il eft; - from whence was formed the word quillet, to fignify a falfe charge or an evasive answer. WARBURTON.

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affection's men at arms: A man at arms, is a foldier armed at all points both offenfively and defenfively. It is no more than, Ye foldiers of affection. JOHNSON.

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Mr. Pope.

3

hath forfworn-Old Copies -have.

MALONE.

Corrected by

prifons up] The quarto, 1598, and the folio, 1623, read-poifons up. The emendation was made by Mr. Theobald. A paffage in King John may add fome fupport to it:

The nimble fpirits in the arteries; *
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The finewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forfworn the use of eyes;
And ftudy too, the caufer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye?'
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewife is.
Then, when ourfelves we fee in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewife fee our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to ftudy, lords;
And in that vow we have forfworn our books ;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes

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'Or, if that furly fpirit, melancholy,

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"Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy, thick,
"Which elfe runs tickling up and down the veins," &c.

MALONE.

4 The nimble Spirits in the arteries;] In the old fyftems of phyfic they gave the fame office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves; as appears from the name, which is derived from spa Tnpeiv. WARBURTON.

• Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye?] i. e. a lady's eyes give a fuller notion of beauty than any author. JOHNSON.

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our books; ] i. c. our true books, from which we derive moft information;

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the eyes of women.

7 In leaden contemplation, have found out Such fiery numbers, ]

more than poetical measures.

MALONE.

Numbers are, in this paffage, nothing
Could you, fays Biron, by folitary con

templation, have attained fuch poetical fire, fuch Spritely numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty? JOHNSON.

In leaden contemplation, ] So, in Milton's Il Penferofa:

"With a fad, leaden, downward caft.

Again, in Gray's Hymn to Adversity:

"

"With leaden eye that loves the ground." STIEVENS.

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9

Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other flow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practifers,
Scarce fhow a harveft of their heavy toil:
But love, firft learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as fwift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious feeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the loweft found,
When the fufpicious head of theft is ftopp'd;"

Of beauteous tutors-] Old Copies - beauty's. Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE.

Corre&ed by

9 Other flow arts entirely keep the brain;] As we fay, keep the houfe, or keep their bed. M. MASON.

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the fufpicious head of theft is flopp'd;] i. e. a lover in purfuit of his miftrefs has his fenfe of heating quicker than a thief (who fufpecs every found he hears) in purfuit of his prey.

WARBURTON.

"He

"The fufpicious head of theft is the head fufpicious of theft." watches like one that fears robbing," fays Speed, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. This tranfpofition of the adjective is sometimes met with. Grimme tells us, in Damon and Pythias:

"A heavy pouch with golde makes a light bart."

FARMER.

The thief is as watchful on his part, as the perfon who fears to be robbed, and Biron poetically makes theft a person.

M. MASON.

Mr. M, Mason might have countenanced his explanation, by a paffage in the third part of K. Henry VI:

Sufpicion always haunts the guilty mind: "The thief doth fear each bush an officer:"

and yet my opinion concurs with that of Dr. Farmer; though his explanation is again controverted, by a writer who figns himself Lucius in The Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. The fufpicious

Love's feeling is more foft, and fenfible,

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Than are the tender horns of cockled fnails; Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus grofs in tafte: For valour, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?3

Subtle as fphinx; as fweet, and musical,
As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair;'

head of theft (fays he) is the fufpicious head of the thief. There is no man who liftens fo eagerly as a thief, or whose ears are so acutely upon the fretch." STEEVENS.

I rather incline to Dr. Warburton's interpretation. MALONE. cockled i. e. infhelled, like the fish called a cockle. STEEVENS.

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3 Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?] Our author had heard or read of the gardens of the Hefperides," and feems to have thought that the latter word was the name of the garden in which the golden apples were kept; as we fay, the gardens of the Tuilleries, &c.

Our poet's contemporaries, I have lately obferved, are chargeable with the fame inaccuracy. So, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, 1598:

"Shew thee the tree, leav'd with refined gold,
"Whereon the fearful dragon held his feat,

"That watch'd the garden, call'd HESPERIDES. "

The word may have been used in the fame fenfe in The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, a poem, 1597:

And, like the dragon of the Hefperides, "Shutteth the garden's gate,———. '

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MALONE.

4 As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair;] This expreffion, like that other in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, of

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Orpheus harp was ftrung with poets' finews,"

is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the fun, is represented with golden hair; fo that a lute ftrung with his hair, means to more than ftrung with gilded wire. WARBURTON.

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"As bright Apollo's lute ftrung with his hair."

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The author of the Revifal fuppofes this expreffion to be allegorical, p. 138. Apollo's late ftrung with funbeams, which in poetry are called hair. But what idea is conveyed by Apollo's lute firung with funbeams? Undoubtedly the words are to be taken in their literal fenfe; and in the file of Italian imagery, the thought is highly elegant. The very fame fort of conception occurs

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