defend mine honefty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all thefe: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

Pan. Say one of your watches.

Cre. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefeft of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unlefs it fwell paft hiding, and then it is paft watching.

Pan. You are fuch another!

Enter Troilus' Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you. Pan. Where?

Boy. At your own houfe; there he unarms him.
Pan. Good boy, tell him I come [Exit Boy.]: I
doubt he be hurt.-Fare ye well, good niece.
Cre. Adieu, uncle.

Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.
Cre. To bring, uncle,-

Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus.

Cre. By the fame token-you are a bawd.

[Exit Pandarus.

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full facrifice, He offers in another's enterprize :

But more in Troilus thoufand fold I fee

Than in the glafs of Pandar's praise may be ;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done, 'joy's foul lies in the doing:

At your own boufe; there he unarms him.] Thefe neceffary words are added from the quarto edition. POPE.

The words added are only, there he unarms him. JOHNSON. 3-joy's foul lies in the doing:] So read both the old editions, for which the later editions have poorly given:

-the faul's joy lies in doing. JOHNSON. It is the reading of the ad folio. REMARKS.

That

That the belov'd knows nought, that knows not this, Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is: That fhe was never yet, that ever knew

Love got

fo fweet, as when defire did fue: Therefore this maxim out of love I teach, Atchievement is, command; ungain'd, befeech:

The Grecian camp.

Trumpets. Enter Agamemnon, Neftor, Ulyffes, Menelaus, with others.

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath fet the jaundice on your cheeks? The ample propofition, that hope makes

In all defigns begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largenefs: checks and difafters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd :

As knots, by the conflux of meeting fap,
Infect the found pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his courfe of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us,

That we come fhort of our fuppofe so far,

That, after feven years' fiege, yet Troy walls ftand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,

Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

4 That she] Means, that woman. JOHNSON.

5 Then though ] The quarto reads then; the folio and the modern editions read improperly, that. JOHNSON.

⚫my heart's content-] Content, for capacity. WARBURTON.

That

That gav't furmifed fhape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works;
And think them fhames, which are, indeed, nought
elfe

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find perfiftive conftancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward,
The wife and fool, the artift and unread,

The hard and foft, feem all affin'd and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mafs, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Neft. With due obfervance of thy godlike feat, Great Agamemnon, Neftor fhall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: The fea being finooth,
How many fhallow bauble boats dare fail
Upon her patient breast, making their way

↑ Broad] So the quarto; the folio reads loud. JOHNSON. With due obfervance of thy goodly feat,] Goodly is an epithet that carries no very great compliment with it; and Neftor seems here to be paying deference to Agamemnon's ftate and pre-eminence. The old books have it,-to thy godly feat: godlike, as I have reformed the text, feems to me the epithet defigned; and is very conformable to what Æneas afterwards fays of Aga

memnon:

Which is that god in office, guiding men?

So godlike feat is here, ftate fupreme above all other commanders.

THEOBALD.

This emendation Theobald might have found in the quarto, which has:

the godlike feat. JOHNSON.

• Neftor fhall apply

Thy lateft words.] Neftor applies the words to another inAtance. JOHNSON.

] The quarto not fo well:

patient breaft,-
ancient breast. JOHNSON.

* With thofe of nobler bulk?

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold
Theftrong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moift elements,
Like Perfeus' horse: Where's then the faucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd fides but even now
Ca-rival'd greatnefs? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toaft for Neptune. Even fo

Doth valour's fhew, and valour's worth, divide
In ftorms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize?,
Than by the tyger: but when splitting winds
Make flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies flee under shade, Why, then, the thing of courage,

As rowz'd with rage, with rage doth fympathize, And with an accent tun'd in self-fame key,

2 With thofe of nobler bulk ?] Statius has the fame thought, though more diffufedly exprefs'd:

Sic ubi magna novum Phario de littore puppis

"Solvit iter, jamque innumeros utrinque rudentes
Lataque veliferi porrexit brachia mali,

་

Invafitque vias; it eodem augusta phafelus

Equore, et immenfi partem fibi vendicat auftri."

Pope has imitated the paffage. STEEVENS.

3

by the brize] The brize is the gad or horfe-fly. So, in Monfieur Thomas, 1639:

66

Have ye got the brize there? "Give me the holy fprinkle."

Again, in Vittoria Corembona, or the White Devil, 1612: I will put brize in his tail, fet him a gadding presently." See Vol. VIII. p. 238. STEEVENS.

4

-the thing of courage,] It is faid of the tyger, that in ftorms and high winds he rages and roars most furiously. HANMER.

5 Returns to chiding fortune.] For returns, Hanmer reads replies, unneceffarily, the fenfe being the fame. The folio and quarte

have retires, corruptly. JOHNSON.

Ulyf

Ulyff. Agamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece;
Heart of our numbers, foul and only fpirit,

In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up,- -hear what Ulyffes fpeaks.
Befides the applaufe and approbation

--

The which,-moft mighty for thy place and fway,[To Agamemnon. And thou most reverend for thy stretcht-out life,

[To Neftor.

I give to both your fpeeches,-which were fuch.

fpeeches,-which were fuch,

As Agamemnon and the band of Greece

Should bold up bigh in brafs; and fuch again,
As venerable Neflor, batch'd in filver,

Should

-knit all Greekifh ears

To bis experienc'd tongue :-]

As

Ulyffes begins his oration with praising those who had spoken before him, and marks the characteristic excellencies of their different eloquence, ftrength, and fweetnefs, which he expreffes by the different metals on which he recommends them to be engraven for the inftruction of pofterity. The fpeech of Agamemnon is fuch that it ought to be engraven in brafs, and the tablet held up by him on the one fide, and Greece on the other, to fhew the union of their opinion. And Neftor ought to be exhibited in filver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his foft and gentle elocution. Brafs is the common emblem of ftrength, and filver of gentlencfs. We call a foft voice a filver voice, and a perfuafive tongue a filver tongue.—I once read for band, the band of Greece, but I think the text right.-To batch is a term of art for a particular method of engraving. Hacher, to cut, Fr. JOHNSON.

In the defcription of Agamemnon's fpeech, there is a plain allufion to the old cuftom of engraving laws and public records in brass, and hanging up the tables in temples, and other places of general refort. Our author has the fame allufion in Measure for Meafure, at V. fc. i. The Duke, fpeaking of the merit of Angelo and Efcalus, fays, that

sit deferves with characters of brass

"A forted refidence, 'gainst the tooth of time
"And razure of oblivion.".

So far therefore is clear. Why Neftor is faid to be hatch'd in filver, is much more obfcure. I once thought that we ought to

read,