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loved; and, indeed, fo much in the heart of the world, and efpecially of my own. people, who best know him, that I am altogether mifprised: but it fhall not be fo long; this wreftler fhall clear all: nothing remains, but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. [Exit.

SCENE II.

An open walk before the Duke's palace.
Enter Rofalind and Celia.

Cel. I pray thee, Rofalind, fweet my coz, be merry. Rof. Dear Celia, I fhow more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banifh'd father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

Cel. Herein, I fee, thou lov'ft me not with the full weight that I love thee: if my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, fo thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; fo would it thou, if the truth of thy love to me were fo righteously temper'd as mine is to thee,

Rof. Well, I will forget the condition of my eftate, to rejoice in yours."

Cel. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir: for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break that oath, let me turn monfter: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rofe, be merry.

Rof. From henceforth I will, coz, and devife sports: let me fee; What think you of falling in love? Cel. Marry, I pry'thee, do, to make sport withal: but love no man in good earneft; nor no further in

sport

fport neither, than with fafety of a pure blush thou may'ft in honour come off again.

Rof. What fhall be our sport then?

Cel. Let us fit and mock the good housewife, Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Rof. I would, we could do fo; for her benefits are mightily misplaced: and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Cel. 'Tis true: for thofe, that the makes fair, fhe fcarce makes honeft; and thofe, that the makes honeft, she makes very ill-favour'dly.

Rof. Nay, now thou goeft from fortune's office to nature's fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature.

Enter Touchstone, a clown.

Cel. No? When nature hath made a fair creature, may the not by fortune fall into the fire?-Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune fent in this fool to cut off the argument?

Rof. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit.

Cel. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work neither, but nature's; who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reafon of fuch goddeffes, hath fent this natural for our whetstone: for always the dulnefs of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.-How now, wit? whither wander you?

2 mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel,] The wheel of Fortune is not the wheel of a housewife. Shakspeare has confounded Fortune, whofe wheel only figures uncertainty and viciffitude, with the destiny that fpins the thread of life, though not indeed with a wheel. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare is very fond of this idea. He has the fame in Antony and Cleopatra:

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and rail fo high,

"That the falfe housewife Fortune break her zubeel.”

STEEVENS.

Clo.

Clo. Miftrefs, you must come away to your father.
Cel. Were you made the meffenger?

Clo. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.

Rof. Where learned you that oath, fool

Clo. Of a certain knight, that fwore by his honour they were good pancakes, and fwore by his honour the mustard was naught; now, I'll ftand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the muftard was good; and yet was not the knight forfworn.

Cel. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?

Rof. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wifdom. Clo. Stand you both forth now: ftroke your chins, and fwear by your beards that I am a knave.

Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. Clo. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were: but if you fwear by that that is not, you are not forfworn: no more was this knight, fwearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had fworn it away, before ever he faw thofe pancakes or that

muftard.

Cel. Pr'ythce, who is't that thou mean?

2

Clo. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. Cel. My father's love is enough to honour hini : Enough! fpeak no more of him; you'll be whip'd for taxation, one of these days.

2 Clo. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

Rof. My father's love is enough to honour him:]

This reply to the Clown is in all the books placed to Rofalind; but Frederick was not her father, but Celia's: I have therefore ventured to prefix the name of Celia. There is no countenance from any paffage in the play, or from the Dramatis Perfonæ, to imagine, that both the Brother-Dukes were namefakes; and one called the Old, and the other the Younger-Frederick; and with out fome fuch authority, it would make confufion to fuppofe it. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald feems not to know that the Dramatis Perfou were first enumerated by Rowe. JOHNSON.

i

VOL. III.

U

Clo.

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Clo. The more pity, that fools may not speak wifely what wife men do foolishly.

Cel. By my troth, thou fay'ft true: for fince the little wit that fools have, was filenc'd', the little foolery that wife men have, makes a great show. Here comes Monfieur Le Beau.

Enter Le Beau.

Rof. With his mouth full of news.

Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

Rof. Then fhall we be news-cramm'd.

Cel. All the better; we fhall be the more marketable. Bonjour, Monfieur le Beau; what's the news?

Le Beau. Fair princess, you have loft much good fport.

Cel. Sport? of what colour?

Le Beau. What colour, madam? How fhall I anfwer you?

Rof. As wit and fortune will.

Clo. Or as the deftinies decree.

Cel. Well faid; that was laid on with a trowel 4.
Clo. Nay, if I keep not my rank,-

Rof. Thou lofeft thy old finell.

Le Beau. You amaze me ladies: I would have

3 -fince the little wit that fools have, as filenc'd,] Shakfpeare probably alludes to the ufe of fools or jefters, who for fome had been allowed in all courts an unbridled liberty of cen fure and mockery, and about this time began to be less tolerated. JOHNSON.

ages

4 laid on with a trowel,] I fuppofe the meaning is, that there is too heavy a mafs of big words laid upon a flight fubject. JOHNSON.

This is a proverbial expreffion which is generally ufed to fignify a glaring falfhood. See Ray's Proverbs. STEEVENS. It means a good round hit thrown in without judgment or defign. REMARKS.

You amaze me, ladies :] To amaze, here, is not to astonish or frike with wonder, but to perplex; to confufe, fo as to put out of the intended narrative. JoHNSON.

told

told you of good wrestling, which you have loft the fight of.

Rof. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

Le Beau. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your lady fhips you may fee the end; for the beft is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three fons,

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence;

Rof. With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by thefe prefents,

Le Beau. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke's wreftler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, that

6 With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by thefe prefents,- -] With bills on their necks, should be the conclufion of Le Beau's fpeech. Mr. Edwards ridicules Dr. Warburton, "As if people carried fuch inftruments of war, as bills and guns on their necks, not on their fhoulders!" But unluckily the ridicule falls upon himself. Laffels, in his Voyage of Italy, fays of tutors,

Some perfuade their pupils, that it is fine carrying a gun upon their necks. But what is ftill more, the expreffion is taken immediately from Lodge, who furnished our author with his plot. "Ganimede on a day fitting with Aliena, (the affumed names, as in the play) caft up her eye, and faw where Rofader came pacing towards them with his foreft-bill on his necke." FARMER. The quibble may be countenanced by the following paffage in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612:

"Good-morrow, taylor, I abhor bills in a morning"But thou may'ft watch at night with bill in hand." Again, in Rowley's When you fee me you knew me, 1513: "Enter King, and Compton, with bills on his back.” Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

Again,

"And each of you a good bat on his neck.”

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