Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be walh'd away.
King. 'Twere good, yours did : for, Sir, to tell you

plain, I'll find a fairer face not walh'd to day : Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk 'till dooms-day here.

King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love ; my foot and her face

see. Biron. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty for such tread. Dum. O vile! then as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see as she walkt over head. King. But what of this, are we not all in love ?

Biron. Nothing fo sure, and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now

prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there

fome flattery for this evil. Long. O, fome Authority how to proceed ; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron, 0, 'tis more than need.
Have at you then, Affection's Men at arms;
Consider, what you first did swear unto :
To fast, to study, and to see no woman ;
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you faft? your stomachs are too young :
And abstinence ingenders maladies.
And where that you have vow'd to study, (Lords)
In that each of you hath forsworn his book.

still dream, and pore, and thereon look ?
For when would you, my Lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of Study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face ?
From womens eyes this doctrine I derive;
They are the ground, the book, the academies,

From

Can you

K4

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire:
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries ;
As motion and long-during A&tion tires
The finewy Vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in That forsworn the use of eyes ;
And Study too, the causer of your vow.
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to our felf,
And where we are, our Learning likewise is.
Then, when our felves we fee in ladies eyes,
Do we not likewise see our Learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords ;
And in that vow we have forsworn our books :
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with ?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain ;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce shew a harvest of their heavy toile
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain :
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power ;
And gives to every power a double power,
· Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious Seeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind!
A lover's ear will hear the lowest Sound,
When the suspicious head of thrift is stopt. (26)

Love's

(26) A Lover's Ear will hear the lowest Sound,

When the suspicious Head of Theft is ftop'd.] I have venrur'd to substitute a Word here, against the Au. thority of all the printed Copies. There is no Concraft of Terms, berwixt a Lover and a Thief: but betwixt a Lover and a Man of Thrift there is a remarkable Antitheks. Nor is it true Love's Feeling is more soft and sensible, Than are the tender horns of cockled snails. Love's Tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in Tafte ; For Savour, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? (27) Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair : And when Love speaks the voice of all the Gods, (28) Mark, Heaven drowfie with the harmony ! in Fa&, I believe, that a Thief, harden'd to the Profe..ion, is: always suspicious of being apprehended ; but He may sleep as. found as an honefter Man. But, according to the Ideas we have of a Miser, a Man who makes Lucre and Pelf his fole Object and Pursuit, his Sleeps are broken and disturb’d with perpetual Apprehensions of being robb’d of his darling Treafure : consequently, his Ear is upon the attentive Bent, even when he Deeps beft. (27) For Valour is not Love a Hercules,

Still climbing Trees in the Hesperides ?) I have here again ventur'd to transgress against the printed Books. The Poet is here observing how all the Sepses are refin'd by Love. But what has the poor Sense of Smelling done, not to keep its Place among its Brethren? Then Hercules's Van lour was not in climbing the Trees, but in attacking the Dra. gon gardant. I rather think, the Poet meant, that Hercules was allured by the Odour and Fragrancy of the golden Appics.. (28) And when Love Speaks, the Voice of all the Gods,

Make Heaven drowfie with the Harmony.) As this is writ and pointed in all the Copies, there is neither Sense, nor Concord; as will be obvious to every understanding Reader. The fine and easy Emendation, which I have inserted in the Text, I owe to my ingenious Friend Mr. Warburton, His Comment on Heaven being drowfie with the Harmony is no less ingenious; and therefore, I'll fubjoin it in his own Words. ". Musick, we must observe, in our Author's time “ had a very different Use to what it has now. . At present, “ it is only employ'd to raise and inflame the Passions; then, to “ calm and allay all kind of Perturbations. And, agreeable to " this Observation, throughout all Shakespeare's Plays, where “ Musick is either actually used, or its Power describ’d, 'ris " always said to be for these Ends,

Neyer

K.5

Never durft Poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's fighs;
0, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From womens eyes this doctrine I derive :
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire,
They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That shew, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then fools you were, these women to forswear :
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's fake (a word, that all men love)
Or for love's fake, (a word, that loves all men ;)
Or for mens fake, (the author of these women ;)
Or womens sake, (by whom we men are men ;)
Let us once lose our oaths, to find our selves;
Or else we lose our selves, to keep our Oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity it self fulfils the law ;
And who can sever love from charity ?

King. Şaint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field !
Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them,

Lords ;
Pell-mell, down with them ; but be first advis'd,
In conflict that you get the fun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing, lay these glozes by ;
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France ?

King. And win them too; therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their Tents.

Biron. First, from the Park let us conduct them this

ther i

Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress ; in the afternoon
We will with fome strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape :
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Forerun fair love, strewing her way with flowers.

King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.

Biron. Allons ! Allons! fown Cockle reap'd no

corn; (29) And justice always whirls in equal measure ; Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;

If so, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt.

SCENE, the Street.
Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel and Dulla

HOLOFERN E S.

,

Nath. I praise God for you, Sir, your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without Scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without Impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without herefy: I did converse this quondam-day with a companion of the King's, who is entituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem, tanquam te.

His humour is: lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gate majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too piqued, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were ; too peregri. nate, as I may call it. Nath. A most fingular and choice epithet.

[draws out his table-book. (29) Alone, alone, sow'd Cockrel,] The Editors, sure, could have no idea of this Passage. Biron begins with a repetition in French of what the King had said in English; Away, away! and then proceeds with a proverbial Expression, inciting them to what he had before advis'd, from this Inference; if we only row Cockle, we shall never reap Corn. i. c. If we don't take the proper Measures for winning these Ladies, we shalli never atchieve them. Mr. Warburton..

Hoke