Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.] In the quarto and the folio. 1623, the direction here is, "Enter the Pedant, Curate, and Dull." And Holofernes is styled the "Pedant," to the end of the Scene.

b Satis quod sufficit.] The ancient copies have quid; and in them the errors in the Latinity are so frequent and so barbarous that, in mercy to the reader, I have refrained from noting them severally, and have silently adopted the obvious corrections of my predecessors.

c Without affection,-] That is, without affectation. Thus, in "Hamlet," Act II. Sc. 2,

No matter that might indite the author of affection."

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 peregrinate, as I may call it.

d

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, canf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable,"

(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; 't will serve.

[To COSTARD aside.

COST. O, they have lived long on the almsbasket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.

ARM. Monsieur [to HOL.], are you not lettered? MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook::

What is a, b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?

HOL. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. MоTH. Вa, most silly sheep, with a horn.You hear his learning.

HOL. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

HOL. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

MоTH. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u.

ARM. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew (1) of wit: snip, snap, quick, and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

(*) Old copies, abhominable. (†) Old editions, The last. Abhominable,-] The antiquated mode of spelling the word, which appears to have been in a transition state at the period when the present Play was written.

It insinuateth me of insanie:] The old editions have infamie. For this and other corrections in the speech we are indebted to Theobald.

I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy :] The words remember thy courtesy have been a stumbling-block to all the commentators. Mr. Malone wrote a very long note to prove that we should read, "remember not thy courtesy;" and Mr. Dyce says, nothing can be more evident than that Shakespeare so wrote. Whatever may have been the meaning of the words, or whether they were a mere complimentary periphrasis, without

MOTн. Offer'd by a child to an old man ; which is wit-old.

HOL. What is the figure? what is the figure?
MOTн. Horns.

HOL. Thou disputest like an infant go, whip thy gig.

MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà: A gig of a cuckold's horn!

COST. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeonegg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

HOL. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for

unguem.

ARM. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous, Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain?

HOL. Or, mons, the hill.

ARM. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. HOL. I do, sans question.

ARM. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

HOL. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon the word is well culled; choice,* sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

ARM. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend; -For what is inward between us, let it pass :— I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy: I beseech thee, apparel thy head:-And among other importunate and most serious designs,—and of great import indeed, too;-but let that pass: -for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it

(*) First folio, culd, chose, &c.

any precise signification, the following quotations prove, I think beyond question, that the old text is right; and that the expression refers-not, as Mr. Knight supposes, to any obligation of secrecy, but simply to the Pedant's standing bare-headed,—

"I pray you be remembred, and cover your head."
Lusty Juventus. Hawkins' Edition, p. 142.
"Then I pray remember your courtesy."

MARLOWE'S Faustus, Act IV. Sc. 3.

"Pray you remember your courts'y *
***** Nay, pray you be cover'd."

BEN JONSON's Every Man in His Humour,
Act I. Sc. 1. Gifford's Edition.

pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is, but, sevet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

HOL. Sir, you shall present before her the nine Worthies.-Sir Nathaniel,* as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; 'I say, none so fit as to present the nine Worthics.

NATH. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

HOL. Joshua, yourself; myself, ort this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

ARM. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

HOL. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

MOTH. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry, Well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it.

ARM. For the rest of the Worthies?-
HOL. I will play three myself.
MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
ARM. Shall I tell you a thing?
HOL. We attend.

a If this fadge not,-] To fadge is to fit, to suit, to agree with. b Allons!] See note (b) at page 81.

And let them dance the hay.] This dance, Dot ce informs us, was borrowed from the French, and is classed among the brawls in Thoinot Arbeau's "Orchesographie," 4to. 1588.

d To make his godhead wax ;] To wax, is to grow. We say, he waxes in years. The moon waxes and wanes.

"So ripe is vice, so green is virtue's bud,

The world doth war in ill, but wane in good."
SOUTHWELL, Rursus ad Eundem.

• Taking it in snuff;] This was a favourite conceit with Shakespeare and the writers of his time. To take anything in snuff, was to take it in dudgeon, to be in ill temper. Hence the equivoque, which was sometimes in allusion to snuff for the

HOL. Allons! we will employ thee. DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay."

HOL. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

PRIN. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,

If fairings come thus plentifully in:

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
Look you, what I have from the loving king.

Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that?

PRIN. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhyme,

As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Writ on both sides of the leaf, margent and all; That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Ros. That was the way to make his godhead

wax;

d

nose, and sometimes to the snuff of a candle. Everybody is familiar with Hotspur's fop and his pouncet-box,

which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took 't away again;-
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff."

So in "Midsummer-Night's Dream," Act V. Sc. 1.

"He dares not come there, for the candle; for you see, it is already in snuff."

So, too, in Decker's "Satiro-mastix," where the characters are speaking of tobacco,

"" 'tis enough,

Having so much feel, to take him in snuff."

PRIN. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.

But, Rosaline, you have a favour too:
Who sent it? and what is it?

Ros.
I would, you knew:
An if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron :

The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too,

I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
PRIN. Anything like?

Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise.

PRIN. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
KATH. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

b

Ros. 'Ware pencils, Ho! let me not die your debtor,

My red dominical, my golden letter:
O that your face were not so full of O's!
PRIN. A pox of that jest! and Ia beshrew all
shrows !

But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair
Dumain?

MAR. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

PRIN. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so. Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking

So.

That same Biron I'll torture ere I go.

O, that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek;
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes;
And shape his service wholly to my behests;*
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So portent-like would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

PRIN. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,

As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school; And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such

excess,

As gravity's revolt to wantonness.†

MAR. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply, To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Enter BOYET.

PRIN. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.

BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's. her grace?

PRIN. Thy news, Boyet?
BOYET.

KATH. Madam, this glove.
PRIN.

KATH. Yes, madam; and moreover,
Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

MAR. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville;

The letter is too long by half a mile.

PRIN. I think no less: Dost thou not † wish in heart,

The chain were longer, and the letter short?

■ Past cure is still past care.] The old editions transpose the words care and care; but Rosaline is quoting a familiar adage,"Things past cure, past care."

Ware pencils, Ho!] The elder copies read, Ware pensals. How Mr. Dyce has shown that, in books of the period, Ho! is frequently printed How? but he is wrong in saying that all editions have hitherto retained the old reading. Sir Thomas Hanmer, in his edition, 1744, gives the lection in the text.

My golden letter:] Rosaline was a "darke ladye;" Katharine fair and golden haired; and, as in the early alphabets for children, A was printed in red, and B in black, ink, the taunting allusions are sufficiently expressive.

(*) The quarto and first folio have device.
(+) The quarto and first folio read wantons be.
(1) First folio omits is.

d And I beshrew all shrows! To beshrew, is to imprecate sorrou,

or evil, on any person or thing, to curse, &c.

e He were but in by the week !] To be in by the week, i.e. for a fixed period, was a frequent saying in former times; and is supposed to be taken from the custom of hiring servants, or operatives, generally.

f So portent-like-] The old copies have pertaunt-like. Han mer first suggested portent-like; and he has been followed by most of the subsequent editors.

Toward that shade I might behold address'd
The king and his companions: warily
I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
And overheard what you shall overhear;
That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.
Their herald is a pretty knavish page,
That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage:
Action, and accent, did they teach him there;
Thus must thou speak, and thus thy body bear:
And ever and anon they made a doubt,
Presence majestical would put him out;
For, quoth the king, an angel shalt thou see;
Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.
The boy replied, An angel is not evil;

I should have fear'd her had she been a devil. With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder;

Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.
One rubb'd his elbow, thus; and fleer'd, and swore,
A better speech was never spoke before:
Another with his finger and his thumb,
Cried, Via! we will do't, come what will come :
The third he caper'd, and cried, All goes well.;
The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.

With that, they all did tumble on the ground,
With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
That, in this spleen ridiculous, appears,
To check their folly, passion's solemn tears."

PRIN. But what, but what, come they to visit us? BOYET. They do, they do; and are apparell'd thus,

Like Muscovites, or Russians, as I guess.
Their purpose is, to parle, to court, and dance :
And every one his love-feat will advance
Unto his several mistress; which they'll know
By favours several, which they did bestow.
PRIN. And will they so? the gallants shall be
task'd:-
:-