Among nine bad if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.s

Count. What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

Clo. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' th' song: 'Would God would serve the world so all the year! we'd find no fault with the tythe-woman, if I were the parson: One in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman born but every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one.

Count. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you?

Clo. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!-Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.—I am going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit.

Count. Well, now.

Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

Count. Faith, I do her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds: there is more owing her, than is paid; and more shall be paid her, than she'll demand.

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, she wished me alone she was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love, no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level;

[5] This second stanza of the ball is turned to a joke upon the women; a confession that there was one good in ten. Whereon the countess observed, that he corrupted the song, which shews the song said, Nine good in ten.

If one be bad amongst nine good,
There's but one bad in ten.

This relates to the ten sons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well but Paris. For though he once had fifty, yet, at this unfortunate period of his reign, he had but ten; Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, Hector, Helenus, Hippothous, Pammon, Paris, and Polites. WARBURTON.

[6] Here is an allusion violently enough forced in, to satirize the obstinacy with which the puritans refused the use of the ecclesiastical habits, which was, at that time, one principal cause of the breach of union, and, perhaps, to insinuate, that the modest purity of the surplice was sometimes a cover for pride.

JOHNSON.

Diana, no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight to be surprised, without rescue, in the first assault, or ransome afterward: This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow, that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in which I held my duty, speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

Count. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance, that I could nei ther believe, nor misdoubt: Pray you, leave me : stall this in your bosom, and I thank you for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon. [Exit Steward.

Enter HELENA.

Count. Even so it was with me, when I was young:

If we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn

Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;

Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;

It is the show and seal of nature's truth,

Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:

By our remembrances of days forgone,

Such were our faults;-or then we thought them none, Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now.

Hel. What is your pleasure, madam?

Count. You know, Helen,

I am a mother to you.

Hel. Mine honourable mistress.

Count. Nay, a mother;

Why not a mother? When I said, a mothér,
Methought you saw a serpent: What's in mother,
That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
And put you in the catalogue of those

That were enwombed mine: 'Tis often seen,
Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds:

You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
Yet I express to you a mother's care :-
God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood,
To say,
I am thy mother? What's the matter,
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,

[7] Sithence,-i e. since. Chaucer frequently uses sith, and sithen, in the same sense. STEEVENS.

[8] There is something exquisitely beautiful in this representation of that suffusion of colours which glimmers around the sight when the eye-lashes are wet with tears. The poet has described the same appearance in his Rape of Lucrece:

The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
Why? that you are my daughter?

Hel. That I am not.

Count. I say, I am your mother.

Hel. Pardon, madam;

The count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
No note upon my parents, his all noble :
My master, my dear lord he is; and I
His servant live, and will his vassal die :
He must not be my brother.

Count. Nor I your mother?

Hel. You are my mother, madam; 'Would you were (So that my lord, your son, were not my brother,) Indeed, my mother!-or were you both our mothers I care no more for, than I do for heaven,' So I were not his sister: Can't no other, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law;
God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother,
So strive upon your pulse: What, pale again?
My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see
The mystery of your loneliness, and find

Your salt tears' head.' Now to all sense 'tis gross,
You love my son; invention is asham'd,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,

To say, thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so :-for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, one to th' other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected: speak, is't so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
If it be not, fors wear't: howe'er I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,

To tell me truly.

Hel. Good madam, pardon me!
Count. Do you love my son?

Hel. Your pardon, noble mistress!

"And round about her tear-distained eye

"Blue circles stream'd like rainbows in the sky." HENLEY.

[9] There is a designed ambiguity: I care no more for, is, I care as much for. I wish n equally. FARMER.

[1] The source, the fountain of your tears, the cause of your grief. JOHNSON.

Count. Love you my son?

Hel. Do not you love him, madam ?

Count. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond, Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose The state of your affection; for your passions

Have to the full appeach'd.

Hel. Then, I confess,

Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son :-

My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
Be not offended; for it hurts not him,

That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not

By any token of presumptuous suit ;

Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore

:

The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do: but, if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,

Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and love; O then, give pity
To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose
But lend and give, where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.
Count. Had you not lately an intent, speak truly,
go to Paris?

To

Hel. Madam, I had.

Count. Wherefore? tell true.

Hel. I will tell truth; by grace itself, I swear.
You know, my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading,
And manifest experience, had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,

As notes, whose faculties inclusive were,

More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,

To cure the desperate languishes, whereof
The king is render'd lost.

Count. This was your motive

For Paris, was it? speak.

Hel. My lord your son made me to think of this;
Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king,
Had, from the conversation of my thoughts,
Haply, been absent then.

Count. But think you, Helen,

If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
They, that they cannot help: How shall they credit
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself?

Hel. There's something hints,

More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified

By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your
But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure,
By such a day, and hour.

Count. Dost thou believe't?

Hel. Ay, madam, knowingly.

honour

Count. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love, Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings

To those of mine in court; I'll stay at home,
And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
Begone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss.

ACT II.

[Exeunt

SCENE I.-Paris. A Room in the King's Palace. Flourish. Enter King, with young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and Attendants.

King. FAREWELL, young lord, these warlike principles

[2] Receipts, in which greater virtues were inclosed than appeared to observation. JOHNSON