Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, fhew'd much more than jeft.

Long. So did our looks.

Rof. We did not quote them fo4.

King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves.

Prin. A time, methinks, too short

To make a world-without-end bargain in :
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much,
Full of dear guiltinefs; and, therefore, this,-

And in our maiden council rated them
At courtship, pleasant jeft, and courtesy,
As bombaft and as lining to the time ;
But more devout than these are our respects

Have we not been, and therefore met your loves

In their own fashion, like a merriment.

The fixth verfe being evidently corrupted, Dr. Warburton proposes to read :

But more devout than this, (fave our respects)

Have we not been ;

Dr. Johnfon prefers the conjecture of fir Thomas Hanmer :

But more devout than this, in our respects.

I would read, with lefs violence, I think, to the text, though with the alteration of two words:

But more devout than these are your respects

Have we not feen,

I read with fir T. Hanmer :

TYRWHITT.

But more devout than this, in our refpects, JOHNSON. The difficulty I believe arifes only from Shakespeare's remarkable pofition of his words, which may be thus conftrued. But we have not been more devout, or made a more ferious matter of your letters and favours than these our respects, or confiderations and reckonings of them, are, and as we have just before faid, we rated them in our maiden council at courtship, pleafant jeft, and courtefy. TOLLET.

4 We did not coat them fo.] We fhould read, quote, esteem, reckon, though our old writers fpelling by the ear, probably wrote cote, as it was pronounced. JOHNSON.

We did not quote 'em fo, is, we did not regard them as fuch. So, in Hamlet:

"I'm forry that with better heed and judgment
"I had not quoted him. See, act II. fc.i." STEEVENs.

If for my love (as there is no fuch caufe)
You will do aught, this fhall you do for me:
Your oath I will not truft: but go with speed
To fome forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There ftay, until the twelve celeftial figns
Have brought about their annual reckoning:
If this auftere infociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frofts, and fafts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip, not the gaudy bloffoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge, challenge me by thefe deferts,
And, by this virgin palm, now kiffing thine,
I will be thine: and, till that inftant, fhut
My woeful felf up in a mourning houfe;
Raining the tears of lamentation,

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up thefe powers of mine with reft, The fudden hand of death clofe up mine eye!

Hence ever then my heart is in thy breaft. Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me? Ref.

To flatter up these powers of mine with reft,] Dr. Warburton would read fetter, but flatter or footh is, in my opinion, more appofite to the king's purpofe than fetter. Perhaps we may read: To flatter on thefe hours of time with reft;

That is, I would not deny to live in the hermitage, to make the year of delay pass in quiet. JOHNSON.

Biron. And what to me, my love? and what tɔ me ?

Rof. You must be purged too: your fins are rank:
You are attaint with fault and perjury :

Therefore if you my favour mean to get,

A twelvemonth fhall you spend, and never reft,
But feck the weary beds of people fick.]

Thefe

Rof. You must be purged too, your fins are rank'; You are attaint with fault and perjury: Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelve-month fhall you fpend, and never reft, But feek the weary beds of people fick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife-a beard, fair health, and honefty; With three-fold love I with you all these three.

Dum. O, fhall I fay, I thank you, gentle wife? Kath. Not fo, my lord ;-a twelve-month and a day I'll mark no words that finooth-fac'd wooers fay: Come when the king doth to my lady come, Then, if I have much love, I'll give you fome. Dum. I'll ferve thee true and faithfully till then. Kath. Yet fwear not, left you be forfworn again. Long. What fays Maria?

Mar. At the twelve-month's end,

I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll ftay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you; few taller are fo young.
Biron. Studies my lady? miftrefs, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble fuit attends thy anfwer there;
Impofe fome fervice on me for thy love.

Rof. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron, Before I faw you and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;

Thefe fix verfes both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concur to think thould be expunged; and therefore I have put them between crotchets not that they were an interpolation, but as the authors first draught, which he afterwards rejected; and executed the fame thought a little lower with much more spirit and elegance. Shakespeare is not to answer for the prefent abfurd repetition, but his actor-editors; who, thinking Rofaline's speech too long in the fecond plan, had abridgal it to the lines above quoted; but, in publifhing the play, ftupidly printed both the original fpeech of Shakespeare, and their own abridgment of it.

THEOBALD.

7 —are rank.] The folio and 4to 1631, read-aré rack'd.

L13

STEEVENS.

Full

Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts;
Which you on all eftates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain;
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won)

You fhall this twelve-month term from day to day
Vifit the fpeechlefs fick, and ftill converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to fmile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impoffible:

Mirth cannot move a foul in agony.

Rof. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing spirit,
Whofe influence is begot of that loofe grace,
Which fhallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jeft's profperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if fickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle fcorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I fhall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelve-month? well, befal what will befal, I'll jeft a twelve-month in an hofpital'.

Prin.

3 fierce endeavour.-] Fierce is vehement, rapid. So, in ·K. John:

66

-fierce extremes of ficknefs." STEEVENS. 9 dear groans,] Dear fhould here, as in many other places, be dere, fad, odious. JOHNSON.

I believe dear in this place, as in many others, means only immediate, confequential. So, already in this fcene:

full of dear guiltinefs. STEEVENS.

The characters of Biron and Rofaline, fuffer much by compa rifon with thofe of Benedick and Beatrice. We know that Love's Labour's Loft was the elder performance; and as our author grew

more

Prin. Ay, fweet my lord; and fo I take my leave. [To the King. King. No, madam; we will bring you on your way. Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: thefe ladies' courtesy

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, fir, it wants a twelve-month and a day, And then 'twill end.

Biron. That's too long for a play.

Enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet majefty, vouchfafe me,
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. That worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kifs thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her fweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatnefs, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckow? it fhould have follow'd in the end of our fhow.

King Call them forth quickly, we will do fo.
Arm. Holla! approach.-

Enter all, for the fong,

This fide is Hiems; winter.

This Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, The other by the cuckow.

Ver, begin.

more experienced in dramatic writing, he might have seen how much he could improve on his own originals. To this circumstance, perhaps, we are indebted for the more perfect comedy of Much Ado about Nothing. STEEVENS.