to be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell.

BER. And I will do so.

PAR. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES.

Enter LAFEU.

LAF. Pardon, my lord, [Kneeling.] for me and for my tidings.

KING. I'll fee thee to stand up.

LAF.

8

Then here's a man

Stands, that has brought his pardon. I would, you
Had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy; and
That, at my bidding, you could so stand up.

KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate, And ask'd thee mercy for't.

LAF. Goodfaith, across 9: But, my good lord, 'tis thus; Will you be cur'd

Of your infirmity ?

KING,

LAF.

No.

O, will you eat No grapes, my royal fox? yes, but you will, My noble grapes, an if my royal fox

Could reach them': I have seen a medicine 2,

8

9

- brought -] Some modern editions read-bought.

MALONE.

across:] This word, as has been already observed, is used when any pass of wit miscarries. JOHNSON.

While chivalry was in vogue, breaking spears against a quintain was a favourite exercise. He who shivered the greatest number was esteemed the most adroit; but then it was to be performed exactly with the point, for if achieved by a side-stroke, or across, it showed unskilfulness, and disgraced the practiser. Here, therefore, Lafeu reflects on the King's wit, as aukward and ineffectual, and, in the terms of play, good for nothing. HOLT WHITE.

See As You Like It, Act III. Sc. IV. vol. vi. p. 454. STEEVENS.

I

- yes, but you will

My noble grapes, &c.] The words-" My noble grapes,"

That's able to breathe life into a stone;

Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary 3,
With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch*
Is powerful to araise king Pepin, nay,

To give great Charlemain a pen in his hand,
And write to her a love-line.

KING.

What her is this?

LAF. Why, doctor she: My lord, there's one

arriv'd

If you will see her,-now, by my faith and honour, If seriously I may convey my thoughts

In this my light deliverance, I have spoke

With one, that, in her sex, her years, profession", Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd me more Than I dare blame my weakness: Will you see

her

seem to Dr. Warburton and Sir T. Hanmer to stand so much in the way, that they have silently omitted them. They may be, indeed, rejected without great loss, but I believe they are Shakspeare's words. "You will eat,” says Lafeu, no grapes. Yes, but you will eat such noble grapes, as I bring you, if you could reach them." JOHNSON.

66

2 — medicine,] Is here put for a she-physician. HANMER.

3 — and make you dance CANARY,] Mr. Richard Brome, in his comedy, entitled, The City Wit, or the Woman wears the Breeches, Act IV. Sc. I. mentions this among other dances: "As for corantoes, lavoltos, jigs, measures, pavins, brawls, galliards, or canaries; I speak it not swellingly, but I subscribe to no man." DR. GREY.

4

whose simple TOUCH, &c.] Thus, Ovid, Amor. iii. vii. 41:
Illius ad tactum Pylius juvenescere possit,
Tithonosque annis fortior esse suis. STEEVENS.

5 And write) I believe a line preceding this has been lost. MALONE.

6

her years, PROFESSION,] By profession is meant her declaration of the end and purpose of her coming. WARBURTON.

7 Than I dare blame my weakness:] This is one of Shakspeare's perplexed expressions. "To acknowledge how much she has astonished me, would be to acknowledge a weakness; and this I am unwilling to do." STEEVENS.

Lafeu's meaning appears to me to be this :-"That the amazement she excited in him was so great, that he could not impute

(For that is her demand,) and know her business? That done, laugh well at me.

KING.

Now, good Lafeu,

Bring in the admiration; that we with thee
May spend our wonder too, or take off thine,
By wondring how thou took'st it.

LAF.

And not be all day neither.

Nay, I'll fit you,

[Exit LAFEU.

KING. Thus he his special nothing ever pro

logues".

Re-enter LAFEU, with HELENA.

LAF. Nay, come your ways.

KING.

This haste hath wings indeed.

9

LAF. Nay, come your ways;

This is his majesty, say your mind to him:
A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle',
That dare leave two together; fare you well.

[Exit. KING. Now, fair one, does your business follow

us ?

it merely to his own weakness, but to the wonderful qualities of the object that occasioned it." M. MASON.

8 Thus he his special nothing EVER PROLOGUES.] So, in Othello:

"'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep." STEEVENS. 9- come your ways ;] This vulgarism is also put into the mouth of Polonius. See Hamlet, Act I. Sc. III. STEEVENS.

Why is this idiomatick phrase to be considered as a vulgarism? Lord Southampton would have used it with as little scruple as Shakspeare. It is twice used by Lafeu, a courtier, in one speech (see Act IV. Sc. V.); and by Henry the VIIIth : "Go thy ways, Kate!" The translation of the Bible has always been considered as a perfect specimen of the language of our poet's time, and there it is perpetually to be met with. For instance, Luke, x. 10. "But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out," &c. MALONE.

CRESSID's uncle,] I am like Pandarus. See Troilus and Cressida. JOHNSON.

HEL. Ay, my good lord. Gerard de Narbon was My father; in what he did profess, well found 2. KING. I knew him.

HEL. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;

Knowing him, is enough. On his bed of death
Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience the only darling,
He bad me store up, as a triple eye 3,

3

Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so:
And, hearing your high majesty is touch'd
With that malignant cause wherein the honour
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power*,
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

KING.

We thank you, maiden;

But may not be so credulous of cure,-
When our most learned doctors leave us; and
The congregated college have concluded
That labouring art can never ransome nature
From her inaidable estate,-I say we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady
To empiricks; or to dissever so

Our great self and our credit, to esteem

A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.

2-well found.] i. e. of known, acknowledged excellence.

3

STEEVENS.

-a TRIPLE eye,] i. e. a third eye. So, in Antony and

Cleopatra :

4

66

The triple pillar of the world, transform'd "Into a strumpet's fool." STEEVENS.

wherein the honour

Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,] Perhaps we may better read:

wherein the power

"Of my dear father's gift stands chief in honour." JOHNSON.

HEL. My duty then shall pay me for my pains: I will no more enforce mine office on you; Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts A modest one, to bear me back again.

KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:

Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I

give,

As one near death to those that wish him live:
But, what at full I know, thou know'st no part;
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

HEL. What I can do, can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy :
He that of greatest works is finisher,
Oft does them by the weakest minister:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes. Great floods have
flown

From simple sources; and great seas have dried, When miracles have by the greatest been denied.

5 So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

When judges have been babes.] The allusion is to St. Matthew's Gospel, xi. 25: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." See also 1 Cor. i. 27: "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." MALONE.

6 When miracles have by the greatest been denied.] I do not see the import or connection of this line. As the next line stands without a correspondent rhyme, I suspect that something has been lost. JOHNSON.

I point the passage thus; and then I see no reason to complain of want of connection:

"When judges have been babes. Great floods, &c.

"When miracles have by the greatest been denied." Shakspeare, after alluding to the production of water from a rock, and the drying up of the Red Sea, says, that miracles had been denied by the GREATEST; or, in other words, that the ELDERS