O, who can give an oath? where is a book?

That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full so black R. KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night'; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well 1. BIRON. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.

beauty doth beauty lack,

If that she learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full so black.] So, in our poet's 132d Sonnet :

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those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O, let it then as well beseem thy heart
"To mourn for me ;-

"Then will I swear, beauty herself is black,
"And all they foul, that thy complexion lack."

See also his 127th Sonnet. MALONE.

- BLACK is the badge of HELL,

The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night;] In former editions:

the school of night.

Black being the school of night, is a piece of mystery above my comprehension. I had guessed it should be:

the stole of night,

But I have preferred the conjecture of my friend Mr. Warburton, who reads:

the scowl of night,

as it comes nearer in pronunciation to the corrupted reading, as well as agrees better with the other images. In our author's 148th Sonnet we have

THEOBALD.

"Who art as black as hell, as dark as night." MALONE. And beauty's CREST becomes the heavens well.] Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the king, is the badge of hell, but that which graces the heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. JOHNSON.

"And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well," i. e. the very top, the height of beauty, or the utmost degree of fairness, becomes the heavens. So the word crest is explained by the poet himself in King John:

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this is the very top,

"The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest
"Of murder's arms."

O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair 2, Should ravish doters with a false aspéct;

And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now;
And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,

Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.
DUM. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers

black.

LONG. And, since her time, are colliers counted

bright.

KING. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion

crack.

DUM. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is

light.

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

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

In heraldry, a crest is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakspeare therefore assumes the liberty to use it in a sense equivalent to top or utmost height, as he has used spire in Coriolanus: to the spire and top of praises vouch'd."

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So, in Timon of Athens : -the cap of all the fools alive" is the top of them all, because cap was the uppermost part of a man's dress. TOLLET.

Ben Jonson, in Love's Triumph through Calipolis, a Masque, says:

σε Το you that are by excellence a queen,

"The top of beauty," &c.

Again, in The Mirror of Knighthood, P. I. ch. xiv. :

"in the top and pitch of all beauty, so that theyr matches are not to bee had." STEEVENS.

2- AND usurping hair,] And, which is wanting in the old copies, was supplied by the editor of the second folio. Usurping hair alludes to the fashion, which prevailed among ladies in our author's time, of wearing false hair, or periwigs, as they were then called, before that kind of covering for the head was worn by men.

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

here.

KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

DUM. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. LONG. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. [Showing his shoe. BIRON. O, if the streets were paved with thine

eyes,

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

lies

The street should see as she walk'd over head. KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love? BIRON. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all for

sworn.

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

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. DUм. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.

LONG. O, some authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. DUM. Some salve for perjury.

BIRON. O, tis more then need!— Have at you then, affection's men at arms*: Consider, what you first did swear unto ;

The sentiments here uttered by Biron, may be found, in nearly the same words, in our author's 127th Sonnet.

3

MALONE.

some QUILLETS,] Quillet is the peculiar word applied to law-chicane. I imagine the original to be this. In the French pleadings, every several allegation in the plaintiff's charge, and every distinct plea in the defendant's answer, began with the words qu'il est:-from whence was formed the word quillet, to signify a false charge or an evasive answer. WARBURTON.

- affection's men at arms :] A man at arms, is a soldier armed at all points both offensively and defensively. It is no more than, Ye soldiers of affection. JOHNSON..

To fast, to study, and to see no woman ;-
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

6

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn 5 his book:
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study'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, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries 7
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes;
And study too, the causer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye®?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.

;

8

5-HATH forsworn-] Old copies-have. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

PRISONS Up] The quarto, 1598, and the folio, 1623, read-poisons up. The emendation was made by Mr. Theobald. A passage in King John may add some support to it:

"Or, if that surly spirit, melancholy,

"Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy, thick,

"Which else runs tickling up and down the veins," &c.

MALONE.

7 The nimble spirits in the ARTERIES ;] In the old system of physic they gave the same office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves; as appears from the name, which is derived from αέρα τηρείν. WARBURTON.

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

Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
With ourselves 9,

3

Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forsworn our books1;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such firy numbers", as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain *;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil :
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;

9 With ourselves,] This hemistich, which is found both in the first 4to. and first folio, is omitted in all the modern editions. Mr. Capell has gone much further, and has cut out no less than fourteen lines of this speech. BOSWELL.

I

-Our BOOKS ;] i. e. our true books, from which we derive most information ;-the eyes of women. MALONE.

2 In LEADEN contemplation, have found out

Such FIRY NUMBERS,] Numbers are, in this passage, nothing more than poetical measures. Could you, says Biron, by solitary contemplation have attained such poetical fire, such spritely numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty? JOHNSON.

"In leaden contemplation," So in Milton's Il Penseroso : "With a sad, leaden, downward cast."

Again, in Gray's Hymn to Adversity:

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

3 Of BEAUTEOUS tutors-] Old copies-beauty's. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE.

4 Other slow arts entirely KEEP the brain;] As we say, keep the house, or keep their bed. M. MASON.

VOL. IV.

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