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defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

Pan. Say one of your watches.

Cre. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it is past watching.

Pan. You are fuch another!

Enter Troilus' Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you. Pan. Where?

Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him. Pan. Good boy, tell him I come [Exit Boy.]: I

doubt he be hurt.-Fare ye well, good niece.

Cre. Adieu, uncle.

Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.
Cre. To bring, uncle,

Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus.

Cre. By the fame token-you are a bawd.

[Exit Pandarus.

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full facrifice,
He offers in another's enterprize :
But more in Troilus thousfand fold I fee
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done, joy's foul lies in the doing:

* At your own house; there he unarms him.] These necessary words are added from the quarto edition. POPE.

The words added are only, there he unarms him. JOHNSON. 3 -joy's foul lies in the doing:] So read both the old editions, for which the later editions have poorly given:

It

-the faul's joy lies in doing. JOHNSON.

is the reading of the zd folio. REMARKS.

That

That she belov'd knows nought, that knows not this,
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is :
• That she was never yet, that ever knew
Love got fo fweet, as when defire did sue:
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach
Atchievement is, command; ungain'd, beseech:
Then though my heart's content firm love doth

bear,

6

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

SCENE

III.

[Exit.

The Grecian camp.

Trumpets. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulyffes, Menelaus, with others.

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample propofition, that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd:
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the found pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
• Nor, princes, is it matter new to us,
That we come short of our suppose so far,
That, after seven years' fiege, yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

+ That she) Means, that woman. JOHNSON. 5 Then though) The quarto reads then; the folio and the modern editions read improperly, that. JOHNSON.

my heart's content - Content, for capacity. WARBURTON. That

That gav't furmised shape. Why then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works; And think them thames, which are, indeed, nought

elfe

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward,
The wife and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and foft, feem all affin'd and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Neft. With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: The fea being finooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare fail
Upon her patient breast, making their way

1 Broad] So the quarto; the folio reads loud. JOHNSON. • With due observance of thy goodly feat,) Goodly is an epithet that carries no very great compliment with it; and Nestor seems here to be paying deference to Agamemnon's state and pre-eminence. The old books have it, -to thy godly feat: godlike, as I have reformed the text, seems to me the epithet designed; and is very conformable to what Æneas afterwards says of Aga

memnon:

Which is that god in office, guiding men ?

So godlike feat is here, ftate fupreme above all other commanders.

THEOBALD.

This emendation Theobald might have found in the quarto, which has:

thegodlike feat. JOHNSON.

• Neftor shall apply

Thy latest words.] Nestor applies the words to another in

ftance. JOHNSON.

-patient breast, -) The quarto not so well:
-ancient breast. JOHNSON.

* With those of nobler bulk?

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold
Thestrong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perfeus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd fides but even now
Co-rival'd greatness ? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour's shew, and valour's worth, divide
In storms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize,
Than by the tyger: but when splitting winds
Make flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies flee under shade, Why, then, the thing of

courage,

As rowz'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize, And with an accent tun'd in self-fame key, * Returns to chiding fortune.

2 With those of nobler bulk?] Statius has the same thought, though more diffusedly express'd:

" Sic ubi magna novum Phario de littore puppis
"Solvit iter, jamque innumeros utrinque rudentes
Lataque veliferi porrexit brachia mali,
"Invafitque vias; it eodem augusta phaselus

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Æquore, et immenfi partem sibi vendicat austri."

Pope has imitated the passage. STEEVENS. 3-by the

brize] The brize is the gad or horfe-fly. So, in

Monfieur Thomas, 1639:

66

- Have ye got the brize there?

"Give me the holy sprinkle."

Again, in Vittoria Corombona, or the White Devil, 1612:

"I will put brize in his tail, set him a gadding presently."

See Vol. VIII. p. 238. STEEVENS.

the thing of courage,] It is faid of the tyger, that in

storms and high winds he rages and roars most furiously.

HANMER.

5 Returns to chiding fortune.] For returns, Hanmer reads replies, unnecessarily, the sense being the fame. The folio and quarto have retires, corruptly. JOHNSON.

Ulys.

Ulyff. Agamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, foul and only spirit,
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides the applaufe and approbation
The which,-most mighty for thy place and sway,-

[To Agamemnon. And thou most reverend for thy stretcht-out life,

[To Neftor.

I give to both your speeches, - which were fuch.

Speeches, which were fuch,

As Agamemnon and the band of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and fuch again,
As venerable Neftor, batch'd in filver,
Should-knit all Greekish ears

To bis experienc'd tongue :-),

As

Ulysses begins his oration with praising those who had spoken before him, and marks the characteristic excellencies of their different eloquence, strength, and sweetness, which he expresses by the different metals on which he recommends them to be engraven for the instruction of posterity. The speech of Agamemnon is such that it ought to be engraven in brass, and the tablet held up by him on the one fide, and Greece on the other, to shew the union of their opinion. And Nestor ought to be exhibited in silver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his soft and gentle elocution. Brass is the common emblem of ftrength, and filver of gentleness. We call a foft voice a filver voice, and a perfuafive tongue a filver tongue. -I once read for hand, the band of Greece, but I think the text right. To batch is a term of art for a particular method of engraving. Hacher, to cut, Fr. JOHNSON.

In the description of Agamemnon's speech, there is a plain allufion to the old custom of engraving laws and public records in brass, and hanging up the tables in temples, and other places of general refort. Our author has the fame allusion in Measure for Measure, act V. fc. i. The Duke, speaking of the merit of Angelo and Efcalus, fays, that

"it deferves with characters of brass
"A forted refidence, 'gainst the tooth of time
"And razure of oblivion.".

So far therefore is clear. Why Nestor is said to be hatch'd in filver, is much more obfcure. I once thought that we ought to

read,

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