King. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

Hel. Ay, my good Lord.

Gerard de Narbon was my father,
In what he did profess, well found.
King. I knew him.

Hel. The rather will I spare my praise toward him;

Knowing him, is enough: on's bed of death
Many receipts he gave me, chiefly one,
Which as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience th' only darling,

He bade me store up, as a triple eye,

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 fo credulous of cure,
When our most learned doctors leave us; and
The congregated college have concluded,
That labouring art can never ransom nature
From her unaidable estate: we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,

To prostitute our paft-cure malady
To empirics; or to dissever fo

1

1

Our great felf and our credit, to esteem
A fenfeless help, when help past sense we deem,
Hel. My duty then shall pay me for my pains;
I will no more inforce mine office on you;
Humbly intreating 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 fuch thanks I give, As one near death to those that with him live; But what at full I know, thou know'lt no part I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try, Since you fet up your reft 'gainst remedy.

1

He

He that of greatest works is finisher,
Oft does them by the weakest minifter:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes; great floods have flown
From fimple fources; and great feas have dry'd,
When mir'cles have by th' greatest been deny'd.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises! and oft it hits
Where hope is coldeft, and defpair most fits.

A

King. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid: [maid; Proffers not took, reap thanks for their reward.

Hel. Inspired merit fo by breath is barr'd
It is not so with him that all things knows,
As 'tis with us, that square our guess by shows:
But most it is prefumption in us, when
The help of Heav'n we count the act of men.
Dear Sir, to my endeavours give consent,
Of Heav'n, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impoftor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;
But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power, nor you paft cure.
King. Art thou so confident? within what space
Hop'st thou my cure ?

Hel. The greatest grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horfes of the fun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his fleepy lamp;
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
Hath told the thievish minutes how thy pass;
What is infirm from your found parts shall fly
Health shall live free, and fickness freely die,
King, Upon thy certainty and confidence,
What dar'st thou venture ?

Hel. Tax of impudence,

1

A ftrumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,
Traduce'd by odious ballads: my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise, no worse of worst extended;

With vileft torture let my life be ended.

t

King

King. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak!
His power full founds within an organ weak;
And what impossibility would flay

In common fenfe, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate;
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call;
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous defperate.
Sweet practifer, thy phyfic I will try;
That minifters thine own death, if I die.

1

Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I fpoke, unpitied let me die,
And well deserv'd! Not helping, death's my fee;
But if I help, what do you promise me?
King. Make thy demand.

Hel. But will you make it even ?

King. Ay, by my fceptre, and my hopes of heaven.
Hel. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,

What husband in thy power I will command.
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To chuse from forth the Royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or impage of thy state:
But fuch a one thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

King. Here is my hand, the premisses observ'd, Thy will by my performance shall be ferv'd : So, make the choice of thine own time; for I, Thy refolv'd patient, on thee still rely. More should I question thee, and more I must; (Though more to know, could not be more to truft): From whence thou cam'st, how tended on, but reft Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted blest, Give me fome help here, hoa! if thou proceed As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Exeunt:

SCENE

A

SCENE IV. Changes to Roufillon.

Enter Countess and Clown.

Count. Come on, Sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.

Clo. I will shew myself highly fed, and lowly taught; I know my business is but to the court.

Count. But to the court? why, what place make you special, when you put off that with fuch contempt; but to the court!

Clo. Truly, Madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand, and fay nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but for me, I have an answer will ferve all men.

Count. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

Clo. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

Gount. Will your anfwer serve fit to all questions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffaty punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a moris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a fcolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.

Count. Have you, I fay, an answer of fuch fitness for all questions?

Clo. From below your Duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.

Count. It must be an anfwer of most monftrous fize, that must fit all demands,

Glo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learn. ed fnould fpeak truth of it; here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me, if I am a courtier: -it shall do you no harm to learn.

Count. To be young again, if we could: I will be a

fool

\

{

fool in a question, hoping to be the wifer by your anfwer. I pray you, Sir, are you a courtier?

Clo. O Lord, Sir *. - there's a fimple putting off: more, more, a hundred of them,

Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of your's, that loves

you.

Clo. O Lord, Sir, thick, thick, spare not me.
Count. I think, Sir, you can eat none of this homely

meat.

Clo, O Lord, Sir, -nay, put me to't, I warrant

you.

Count. You were lately whipp'd, Sir, as I think.
Clo. O Lord, Sir, spare not me.

Count. Do you cry, Lord, Sir, at your whipping, and Spare not me? Indeed, your O Lord, Sir, is very sequent to your whipping, you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were bound to't.

Clo. I ne'er had worse luck in my life, in my O Lord, Sir; I fee, things may serve long, but not serve ever.

Count. I play the noble huswife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.

Clo. O Lord, Sir, why there't ferves again.
Count. An end, Sir; to your business: give Helen this,

And urge her to a present answer back.
Commend me to my kinsmen, and my fon :
This is not much.

Clo. Not much commendation to them?

1

Count. Not much employment for you; you under

stand me?

Glo. Most fruitfully, I am there before my legs.
Count. Haste you again.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Changes to the court of France.

Enter Bertram, Lafeu, and Parolles.

Laf. They fay miracles are past; and we have our philofophical persons to make modern, and famillar, things fupernatural and caufeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors; enfconfing ourselves into

* A ridicule on that foolish expletive of speech then in vogue at

court.

fecming