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, your's did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

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

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.

see.

Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face [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 overhead. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum. Ay, marry, there ;-some flattery for this evil. Long. O, some authority how to proceed;

9

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

Biron. O, 'tis more than need!

Have at you then, affection's men at arms:1
Consider, what you first did swear unto ;-
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.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn his book:
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look ?

[9] 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 qui'il est ;-from whence was formed the word quillet, to signify a false charge or an evasive answer. WARB.

[1]A man at arms, is a soldier armed at all points both offensively and defensively. It is no more than, Ye soldiers of affection.

JOHNS.

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 ;'
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? 2
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
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 books ;3
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with ?4
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain ;5
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;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;

A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,

[1] In the old system of physic they gave the same office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves. WARB.

[2] i.e. a lady's eyes give a fuller notion of beauty than any author. JOH. [3] i. e. our true books from which we derive most information ;-the eyes of women. MAL.

[4] 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?' JOH. [5] As we say, keep the house, or keep their bed. M. MASON.

When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd ;"
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,

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

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet, and musical,
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair ;7
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.8
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs ;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent :
Then fools you were these women to forswear;
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's sake, a word, that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men ;
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
'Or women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion to be thus forsworn:

For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords; Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,

[6] i. e. A lover in pursuit of his mistress has his sense of hearing quicker than a thief (who suspects every sound he hears) in pursuit of his prey. WARB. [7] This expression, like that other in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, of Orpheus' harp was strung with poet's sinews,

is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the sun, is represented with golden hair; so that a lute strung with his hair, means no more than strung with gilded wire. WARB.

[8] The meaning is, whenever love speaks all the gods join their voices with his in harmonious concert. HEATH.-For makes, read make. See the sacred writings: "The number of the names together were about an hundred and twenty."

34

Acts i. 15.

VOL. II.

MAL.

In conflict that you get the sun of them. 9

Long. Now to plain dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hour's,
Fore-run fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.

Bir. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn; 1
And justice always whirls in equal measure:
Light wenches may prove plagués to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt.

ACT V.

Enter HOLOFERNES,

SCENE I-Another part of the same.
Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL.

SATIS quod sufficit.

Holofernes.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; 2 pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, 3 audacious without

[9] In the days of archery, it was of consequence to have the sun at the back of the bowmen, and in the face of the enemy. This circumstance was of great advantage to our Henry the Fifth at the battle of Agincourt.—Our poet, however, I believe, had also an equivoque in his thoughts. MAL. [1] This proverbial expression intimates, that beginning with perjury, they can expect to reap nothing but falshood. WARB.

[2] I know not well what degree of respect Shakspeare intends to obtain for his vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished representation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to his character of the school-master's table-talk, and perhaps all the prec pts of Castiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly delin. eated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limited. It may be proper just to note, that reassa here, and in many other places, signifies discourse; and that audacious is used in a good sense for spirited, animated, confident. Opixion is the same with obstinacy or opiniatrete. JOHNS.

impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it.

Nath. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable 5 (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone ?-bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.

Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd.

Hol. Most military sir, salutation.

[TO MOTH.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside.

[4] To have the beard piqued or shorn so as to end in a point, was, in our author's time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions. JOHN. Piqued may allude to the length of the shoes then worn. Bulwer says,-"We weare our forked shoes almost as long again as our feete, not a little to the hindrance of the action of the foote; and not only so, but they prove an impediment to reverentiall devotion, for our bootes and shooes are so long snouted, that we can hardly kneele in God's house." STEEV.

I believe picked (for so it should be written) signifies nicely drest in general, without reference to any particular fashion of dress. It is a metaphor taken from birds, who dress themselves by picking out or pruning their broken or superfluous feathers. TYRWHITT.

[5] Abhominable,-Thus the word is constantly spelt in the old moralities and other antiquated books. STEEY.