And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!
That can such sweet use make of what they hate,
When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night! so lust doth play
With what it loaths, for that which is away:
But more of this hereafter :-You, Diana,
Under my poor instructions yet must suffer
Something in my behalf.

Dia. Let death and honesty

Go with your impositions, I am yours
Upon your will to suffer.

Hel. Yet, I pray you,

But with the word, the time will bring on summer,
When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns,

And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;
Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us :
All's well that ends well: still the fine's, the crown ;*
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Countess, LAFEU, and Clown.

Laf. No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipttaffata fellow there; whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour: your daughter-in-law had been alive at

[3] The meaning of this observation is, that as briers have sweetness with their prickles, so shall these troubles be recompensed with joy. JOHNSON. [4] i. e. the end. MALONE.

[5] Parolles is represented as an affected follower of the fashion, and an encourager of his master to run into all the follies of it; where he says, Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords-they wear themselves in the cap of timeand though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed.' Here some particularities of fashionable dress are ridiculed. Snipt-taffata needs no explanation; but villanous saffron is more obscure. This alludes to a fantastic fashion, then much followed, of using yellow starch for their bands and ruffs. This was invented by one Turner, a tire-woman, a court-bawd, and, in all respects of so infamous a Character, that her invention deserved the name of villanous saffron. This woman was, afterwards, amongst the miscreants concerned in the murder of sir Thomas Overbury, for which she was hanged at Tyburn, and would die in a yellow ruff of her own invention: which made yellow starch so odious, that it immediately went out of fashion. WARBURTON.

Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, speaks of starch of various colours."The one arch or piller wherewith the devil's kingdome of great ruffes is underpropped, is a certain kind of liquid matter, which they call startch, wherein the devil hath learned them to wash and die their ruffes, which being drie, will stand stiff and inflexible about their neckes. And this startch, they make of divers substances of wheate flower, of branne, and other graines: sometimes of rootes, and sometimes of other thinges of all colours and hues, as white, redde, blewe, purple, and the like." STEEVENS.

this hour; and your son here at home, more advanced by the king, than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak of.

Count. I would, I had not known him! it was the death of the most virtuous gentle woman, that ever nature had praise for creating: if she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted love.

Laf. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads, ere we light on such another herb.

Clo. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace.

Laf. They are not salad-herbs, you knave, they are

nose-herbs.

Clo. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grass.

Laf. Whether dost thou profess thyself; a knave, or a fool?

Clo. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave, at a

man's.

Laf. Your distinction?

Clo. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service.

Laf. So you were a knave, at his service, indeed.

Clo. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.

Laf. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool.

Clo. At your service.

Laf. No, no, no.

Clo. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a prince as you are.

Laf. Who's that? a Frenchman?

Clo. Faith, sir, he has an English name, but his phisnomy is more hotter in France, than there.

Laf. What prince is that?

Clo. The black prince, sir, alias, the prince of darkness; alias, the devil.

[6] Part of the furniture of a fool was a bauble, which, though it be generally taken to signify any thing of small value, has a precise and determinable meaning. It is in short, a kind of truncheon with a head carved on it, which the fool anciently carried in his hand. SIR J. HAWKINS.

When Cromweli, 1653, forcibly turned out the rump-parliament, he bid the soldiers, "take away that fool's bauble," pointing to the speaker's mace.

BLACKSTONE.

The word bauble is here also used in another sense, besides that which the editor alludes to. M. MASON

Laf. Hold thee, there's my purse: I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talkest of; serve him still.

Clo. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of, ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world, let his nobility remain in his court. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter some, that humble themselves, may; but the many will be too chill and tender; and they'll be for the flow. ery way, that leads to the broad gate, and the great fire. Laf. Go thy ways, I begin to be a-weary of thee; and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee..

Go thy ways; let my horses be well looked to, without

any tricks.

Clo. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades' tricks; which are their own right by the law of

nature.

Laf. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy."

[Exit.

Count. So he is. My lord, that's gone, made himself much sport out of him: by his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness; and, indeed, he has no pace, but runs where he will.

Laf. I like him well; 'tis not amiss: and I was about to tell you, since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the king my master, to speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of them both, his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance, did first propose: his highness hath promised me to do it: and, to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?

Count. With very much content, my lord, and I wish it happily effected.

Laf. His highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered thirty; he will be here to-morrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed.

Count. It rejoices me, that I hope I shall see him ere

[7] Shakespeare is but rarely guilty of such impious trash. And it is observable, that then he always puts that into the mouth of his fools, which is now grown the characteristic of the fine gentleman. WARBURTON.

i. e. mischievously waggish, unlucky. JOHNSON.

A pace is a certain or prescribed walk; so we say of a man meanly obsequi. ous, that he has learned his paces, and of a horse who moves irregularly, that be bas no paces. JOHNSON.

I die. I have letters, that my son will be here to-night: I shall beseech your lordship, to remain with me till they meet together.

Laf. Madam, I was thinking, with what manners ! might safely be admitted.

Count. You need but plead your honourable privilege. Laf. Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but, I thank my God, it holds yet.

Re-enter Clown.

Clo. O madam, yonder's my lord your son, with a patch of velvet on's face: whether there be a scar under it, or no, the velvet knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of velvet: his left cheek is a cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.

Laf. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery of honour; so, belike, is that.

Clo. But it is your carbonadoed face.'

Laf. Let us go see your son, I pray you: I long to talk with the young noble soldier.

Clo. 'Faith, there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats, and most courteous feathers which bow the head, and nod at every man. [Exeunt

ACT V.

SCENE I.-Marseilles. A Street. Enter Helena, Widow, and DIANA, with two Attendants.

Helena.

BUT this exceeding posting, day and night,

Must wear your spirits low: we cannot help it;
But, since you have made the days and nights as one,
To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,

Be bold, you do so grow in my requital,

As nothing can unroot you. In happy time ;-
Enter a gentle Astringer.

This man may help me to his majesty's ear,

If he would spend his power.-God save you, sir.

[1] Carbonadoed-i. e. scotched like a piece of meat for the gridiron. So, in Coriolanus: "Before Corioli, he scotched and notched him like a carbonado."

STEEVENS.

[2] An ostringer or astringer is a falconer, and such a character was probably to be met with about a court which was famous for the love of that diversion. So in Hamlet:-"We'll e'en to it like French falconers." A gentle astringer is a gentleman falconer. The word is derived from ostercus or austercus, a goshawk.

STEEVENS

Gent And you.

Hel. Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.
Gent. I have been sometimes there.

Hel. I do presume, sir, that you are not fallen
From the report that goes upon your goodness;
And therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions,
Which lay nice manners by, I put you to
The use of your own virtues, for the which
I shall continue thankful.

Gent. What's your will?

Hel. That it will please you

To give this poor petition to the king;
And aid me with that store of power you have,
To come into his presence.

Gent. The king's not here.

Hel. Not here, sir?

Gent. Not, indeed :

He hence remov'd last night, and with more haste
Than is his use.

Wid. Lord, how we lose our pains!

Hel. All's well that ends well; yet;

Though time seems so advérse, and means unfit.-
I do beseech you, whither is he gone?

Gent. Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon;
Whither I am going.

Hel. I do beseech you, sir,

Since you are like to see the king before me,
Commend the paper to his gracious hand;
Which, I presume, shall render you no blame,
But rather make you thank your pains for it:
I will come after you, with what good speed
Our means will make us means.

Gent. This I'll do for you.

Hel. And you shall find yourself to be well thank’d. Whate'er falls more.-We must to horse again;

-Go, go, provide.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt

Rousillon. The inner Court of the Countess's Palace. Enter Clown and PAROLLES.

Par. Good monsieur Lavatch, give my lord Lafeu this letter: I have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held familiarity with fresher clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in fortune's moat, and smell some what strong of her strong displeasure.