Val. How now, fir? what are you reasoning with

youríeif?:

SPEED. Nay, I was rhiming; 'tis

you

that have the reason.

VAL. To do what?
SPEED. To be a spokesinan from madam\Silvia.
VAL. To whom?
SPEED. To yourself: why, she wooes you by a

figure.
VAL. What figure?
SPEED. By a letter, I should say.

VAL. Why, she hath not writ to me?

SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jeft?

VAL. No, believe me.

SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir: But did you perceive her carnest?

VAL. She gave me none, except an angry word.
SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.
VAL. That's the letter I writ to her friend.

SPEED. And that letter hath fhe deliver'd, and there an end.4

VAL. I would it were no worse.

SPEED. I'll warrant you, 'tis as well: For often you have writ to her; and she, in modesly, Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply ;

3

4

reasoning with yourself?] That is discourfing, talking. An Italianism. JOHNSON.

and there an end.] i. e. there's the conclusion of the So, in Macbeth :

Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind

discover, Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her

lover. All this I speak in print;' for in print I found it.Why muse you, fır? 'tis dinner-time.

VAL. I have din'd.

SPEED. Ay, but hearken, fir: though the cameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my viduals, and would fain have meat: 0, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved,

[Exeunt.

SC E N E II.

Verona. A Room in Julia's House,

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA.

Pro. Have patience, gentle Julia.
Jul. I must, where is no remedy.
Pro. When peffibly I can, I will return.

Jul. If you turn not, you will return the sooner: Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's fake.

[Giving a ring: Pro. Why then we'll make exchange; here,

take you this. Jul. And seal the bargin with a holy kiss. Pro. Here is my hand for my true constancy;

.

5 All this I Speak in print;] In print means with exactress. So, in the comedy of All Fooles, 1605 :

16_not a hair

" About his bulk, but it stands in print." Again, in The Poriraiture of Hypocrisie, bl. 1. 1589:"

others lalh out to maintaine their porte, which must needes bec in print."

STEEVENS.

And when that hour o'er-flips me in the day,
Wherein I sigh not, Julia; for thy fake,
The next ersuing hour fome foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears ;
That tide will stay me longer than I should:

[ Exit Julia.
Julia, farewell.-What! gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds, than words, to grace it.

Enter PANTHINO.

PAN. Sir Proteus, you are staid for.

Pro. Qo; I come, I come:
Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

[ Exeunt, SC с Е N E III.

The same. A freet.

Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog. LAUN. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault: I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with fir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think, Crab my dog be the fourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble-flone, and has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show

you

the manner of it: This shoe is my father;—no, this left shoe is my father;--no, no, this left shoe is my mother;--nay, that cannot be fo neither ;-yes, it is so, it is fo; it hath the worser sole: This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; A vengeance on't! there 'tis : now, fir, this faff is my fister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat' is Nan, our maid; I am the dog:6-no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog,"

-0, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, fo, fo. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing; now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on : how come I to my mother, (O, that she could fpeak now!) like a wood woman;'_well, I kiss

6

I am the dog: &c.] A similar thought occurs in a play printed earlier than the present. See A Chrifiian turu'd Turk, 1612 :

you shall band for the lady, you for her dog, and I the page; you and the dog looking one upon another: the page prefcuts himself." STEEVENS.

7 ---- I am the dog, &c.] \This passage is much confused, and of confusion the present reading makes no end. Sir T. Hanmer reads, I am the dog, no, the dog is himself and I am me, the dog is the dog, and I am myself. This certainly is more reasonable, but I know not how much. reason the author intended io bestow on Launce's soliloquy. JOHNSON,

like a wood woman; -1 The first folios agree in would-woman: for which, because it was a mystery 10 Mr. Pope, he has un meaningly subftituied ould woman. But it must be writ, or at least underitood, wood womer, i. e. crazy, frantic with grief; or distracted, from any other cause.

The word is very frequently used in Chaucer; and sometimes writ wood, sometimes wode. THEOBALD.

Print thus: “Now come I to my mother, (0, that she could fpeak now!) like a wood womau.”

Perhaps the humour would be heightened by reading-(0, that ihe shoe could speak now!) BLACKSTONE.

8

her ;--why there 'tis ; here's my mother's breath up and down : now come I to my filler; mark the moan she makes: now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with

my tears.

Enter PANTHINO.

Pan. Launce, away, away, aboard; thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? why weep'lt thou, man? Away, ass; you will loose the tide, if you tarry any longer.

LAUN. It is no matter if the tide were lost; for it is the unkindest ty’d that ever any man ty’d.

PAN. What's the unkindest tide ?
LAUN. Why, he that's ty'd here; Crab, my dog.
Pan. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood;

I have followed the pun&uation recommended by Sir W. Blackftone. The emendation proposed by him was made, I fud, by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE.

0, that she could speak now like a wood woman! ] Launce is describing the melancholy parting between him and his family. In order to do this more methodically, he makes one of his shoes stand for his father, and the other for his mother. And when he has done taking leave of his father, he says, Now come I to my mother, turning to the shoe that is supposed to personate her. And in order to render the representation more perfe&, he expresses his wish that it could speak like a woman frantic with grief! There could be no doubt about the sense of the passage, had he said " that it could speak like a wood woman!" But he uses the feminive pronoun in speaking of the ihoe, because it is supposed to represent a woman. M. MASON.

9- if the ty'd were lost;] This quibble, 'wretched as it is, might have been borrowed by Shakspeare from Lilly's Endymion, 1591: " Epi. You know it is said, the tide tarrieth for no man.Sam. True.- Epi. A monstrous lye; for I was ty'd iwo hours, and ţarried for one to unloose me." The same play on words occurs in Chapman's Andromeda Liberata, 1614:

" And now came roaring to the ticd the tide," STEEVENS,