King. I would I had ; so I had broke thy pate, And ask'd thee mercy for't. King. No. Laf. O, will you eat King. What her is this? Laf. Why, doctor she : My lord, there's one arriv'd, King. Now, good Lafeu, Laf. Nay, I'll fit you, [Exit Lareu. King. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues. Re-enter LAFEU, with HELENA. Laf. Nay, come your ways ; (7} This word, as has been already observed, is used when any pass of wit miso See As you like it, Act III. sc. iv. p. 52. STEEVENS. [8] Mr. Rich. Brome, mentions this among other dances : “ As for corantoes, la voltos, jigs, measures, pavins, brawls, galliards, or canaries: I speak it not swellingly, but I subscribe to no man" carries. JOHNSON. DR GREY. His majesty seldom fears : I am Cressid's uncle," 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 praises towards him ; King. We thank you, maiden ; Hel. My duty then shall pay me for my pains : King. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful. Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try, 19] I am like Pandarus. See Troilus and Cressida. JOHNSON When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown King. I must not hear thee ; fare thee well, kind maid; Hel. Inspired merit so by breath is barr’d: space Hop'st thou my cure ? Hel. The greatest grace lending grace, King. Upon thy certainty and confidence, Hel. Tax of impudence,- [1] The allusion is to St. Matthew's Gospel, xi. 25: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth; I thank thee, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and pro 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. See tbe Book of Exodus, particularly chap. xvii. 5, 6, &c. HENLEY. (2) I would bear (says she) the tax of impudence, which is the denotement of a Slompet; would endure a shame resulting from my failure in what I have under dent, and revealed then unto babes." See also 1 Cor. i. 27 : « But God hath choses taken, and thence become the subject of odious ballads ; let my maiden reputation be otherwise branded; and, no worse of worst extended, i. e. provided nothing worse is offered to me (meaning violation) let my life be ended with the worst of tortures. The poet, for the sake of rhyme, has obscured the sense of the passage. The worst that can befal a woman being extended to me, seems to be the meaning of the last line. STEEVENS King. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak; Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property King. Make thy demand. Hel. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly band, any branch or image of thy state : But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. King. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd, [Flourish. Exeunt SCENE II. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Coun tess and Clown. Count. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. Člo. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught : I know my business is but to the court. Count. To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such 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 say 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 serve 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. Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger, as a pancake for ShroveTuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding 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 say, an answer of such fitness for all questions? Clo. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands. Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned [3] The allusion is to an ancient practice of marrying with a rush ring, as well in other countries as in England. Breval, in his Antiquities of Paris, mentions it as a kind of espousal used in France, by such persons as meant to live together in a state of concubinage; but in England it was scarce ever practised except by designing men, for the purpose of corrupting those young women to whom they pre Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, in his Constitutions, anni, 1217, forbids the putting of rush rings, or any the like matter, on women's fingers, in order to the debaucbing them more readily : and he insinuates, as the reason for the prohibition, that tbere were some people weak enough to believe, that what was Thus done in jest, was a real marriage. Sir J. HAWKINS. tended love. |