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DUKE S. Come, shall we go and kill us venifon?

And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,Being native burghers of this defert city,3Should, in their own confínes, with forked heads 4

Have their round haunches gor'd.

I LORD.

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And, in that kind, fwears you do more ufurp
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him, as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood : 5
To the which place a poor fequefter'd stag,
That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth fuch groans,

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3 Native burghers of this defert city,] In Sidney's Arcadia, the deer are called "the wild burgeffes of the forest." Again, in the 18th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion :

"Where, fearless of the hunt, the hart securely ftood, " And every where walk'd free, a burgess of the wood."

STEEVENS,

A kindred expression is found in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592:

" About her wond'ring ftood
"The citizens o' the wood."

Our author afterwards uses this very phrafe:

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Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens." MALONE.

with forked heads-] i. e. with arrows, the points of

which were barbed. So, in A Mad World my Masters:

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"While the broad arrow with the forked head
"Miffes," &c. STEEVENS.

as he lay along

Under an oak, &c.]

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

"That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

"His liftless length at noon-tide would he stretch,

" And pore upon the brook that babbles by." Gray's Elegy.

STEEVENS.

That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the fwift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE S.

But what faid Jaques ?

Did he not moralize this spectacle?

I LORD. O, yes, into a thousand fimiles. First, for his weeping in the needless stream; " Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'ft a testament As worldlings do, giving thy fum of more To that which had too much : Then, being alone, Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends; 'Tis right, quoth he; thus mifery doth part The flux of company: Anon, a careless herd, Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,

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- the big round tears, &c.] It is said in one of the marginal notes to a fimilar passage in the 13th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion, that "the harte weepeth at his dying: his tears are held to be precious in medicine." STEEVENS.

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in the needless stream;) The stream that wanted not fuch a fupply of moisture. The old copy has into, caught probably by the compofitor's eye from the line above. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

8 To that which had too much:] Old copy-too muft. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

Shakspeare has almost the same thought in his Lover's Com plaint:

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_ in a river

Upon whose weeping margin she was fet,

" Like ufury, applying wet to wet."

Again, in K. Henry VI. P. III. Act V. fc. iv:

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"With tearful eyes add water to the fea,
" And give more strength to that which hath too much."

STEEVENS.

-Then, being alone,) The old copy redundantly reads

Then being there alone. STEEVENS.

And never stays to greet him; Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greafy citizens ;
'Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life: swearing, that we
Are mere ufurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up,
In their assign'd and native dwelling place.

DUKE S. And did you leave him in this contem

plation?

2 LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and comment

ing Upon the fobbing deer. DUKE S.

Show me the place;

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
For then he's full of matter.

2 LORD. I'll bring you to him straight. [Exeunt.

The body of the country,] The oldest copy omits-the; but it is supplied by the second folio, which has many advantages over the first. Mr. Malone is of a different opinion; but let him speak for himself. STEEVENS.

Country is here used as a trifyllable. So again, in Twelfth Night:

"The like of him. Know'st thou this country?" The editor of the second folio, who appears to have been utterly ignorant of our author's phraseology and metre, reads-The body of the country, &c. which has been followed by all the subsequent editors. MALONE.

Is not country used elsewhere also as a dissyllable? See Coriolanus, Act I. sc. vi:

"And that his country's dearer than himself." Besides, by reading country as a trifyllable, in the middle of a verse, it would become rough and dissonant. STEEVENS.

3-to cope him-] To encounter him; to engage with him.

JOHNSON.

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SCENE II.

A Room in the Palace.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants.

DUKE F. Can it be possible, that no man faw

them?

It cannot be fome villains of my court
Are of confent and fufferance in this.

I LORD. I cannot hear of any that did fee her.
The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
Saw her a-bed; and, in the morning early,
They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.

2 LORD. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom
fo oft

Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
Hesperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
Confeffes, that she secretly o'er-heard
Your daughter and her cousin much commend
The parts and graces of the wrestlers
That did but lately foil the finewy Charles;

4 the roynish clown,] Roynish from rogneux, Fr. mangy, scurvy. The word is used by Chaucer, in The Romaunt of the Rofe, 988:

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"That knottie was and all roinous."

Again, by Dr. Gabriel Harvey, in his Pierce's Supererogation,
4to. 1593. Speaking of Long Meg of Westminster, he says-
Although she were a lusty bouncing rampe, somewhat like
Gallemetta or maid Marian, yet was the not fuch a roinish rannel,
fuch a diffolute gillian-flirt," &c.

We are not to fuppofe the word is literally employed by Shak-
speare, but in the same sense that the French still use carogne, a
term of which Moliere is not very sparing in fome of his pieces.
STEEVENS,

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of the wrestler-] Wrestler, (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed in a note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona,) is here to be founded as a trifyllable, STEEVENS.

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And she believes, wherever they are gone,
That youth is furely in their company.

DUKE F. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant

hither;

If he be absent, bring his brother to me,
I'll make him find him: do this suddenly;
And let not search and inquifition quail 1
To bring again these foolish runaways.

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[Exeunt.

Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting.

ORL. Who's there?

ADAM. What! my young master?-O, my gentle

master,

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O, my sweet master, O you memory
Of old fir Rowland! why, what make you here?
Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?

6 Send to his brother; I believe we should read-brother's. For when the Duke says in the following words: "Fetch that gallant hither;" he certainly means Orlando. M. MASON.

7-quail] To quail is to faint, to fink into dejection. So, in Cymbeline:

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which my false spirits

Quail to remember." STEEVENS.

O you memory-] Shakspeare often uses memory for memorial: and Beaumont and Fletcher sometimes. So, in the Humorous Lieutenant:

" I knew then how to feek your memories."

Again, in The Atheist's Tragedy, by C. Turner, 1611:

"And with his body place that memory

"Of noble Charlemont."

Again, in Byron's Tragedy:

"That statue will I prize past all the jewels

"Within the cabinet of Beatrice,

"The memory of my grandame." STEEVENS.

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