Oli. Farewel, good Charles. Now will I ftir this gamefter: I hope, I fhall fee an end of him; for my foul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than him. Yet he's gentle; never fchool'd, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all Sorts enchantingly beloved; and, indeed, fo much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people who beft know him, that I am altogether mifprifed. But it fhall not be fa long-this wrestler fhall clear all. Nothing remains, but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. [Exit.

SCENE IV.

Changes to an Open Walk, before the Duke's Palace.

Cel.

Enter Rofalind and Celia.

I pray thee, Rifalind, went my coz, be my Rof. Dear Celia, I fhow more mirth than I am miftrefs of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unlefs you could teach me to forget a banish'd father, you muft 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 wouldst 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 estate, 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 fhalt 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

that oath, let me turn monster. Therefore, my fweet Rofe, 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 pr'ythee, do, to make fport withal; but love no man in good earneft; nor no further in fport neither, than with fafety of a pure blufh thou may'st 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 mifplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Cel. 'Tis true; for thofe, that he makes fair, fhe fcarce makes honeft; and thofe, that she makes honest, fhe makes very ill-favoured.

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 she 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 this 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

8- mock the good houferwife Fortune from her wheel,] The wheel of fortune is not the wheel of a bouferwife. Shakespeare has confounded fortune whofe wheel

only figures uncertainty and vi ciffitude, with the deftinie that fpins the thread of life, though indeed not with a wheel.

Natural

Natural for our whetstone: for always the dulnefs of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, Wit, whither wander you?

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 swore 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 mustard was good, and yot was not the Knight forfworn.

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

Rof. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom.

Clo. Stand you both forth now; ftroke your chins, and fwear by your beards that I am a knave.

if

Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. Clo. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but 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 mustard.

Cel. Pr'ythee, who is that thou mean'ft?

Clo. One, that old Frederick your father loves.
Cel. My father's love is enough to honour him:-

9 Clo. One, that old Frederick your father loves. Rof. My Father's Love is enough to honour him enough;] This Reply to the Clown is in all the Books plac'd to Rofalind; but Frederick was not her Father, but Celia's: I have therefore ventur'd to prefix the Name of Celia. There is no Countenance from any Paffage in the Play, or from

the Dramatis Perfond, to imagine, that Both the BrotherDukes were Namefakes; and One call'd the Old, and the Other the Younger Frederick; and, without fome fuch Authority, it would make Confufion to suppose it.

THEOBALD.

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

enough!

YOU LIKE

enough! fpeak no more of him, you'll be whipt for taxation one of these days.

Clo. The more pity, that fos 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 Beu.

SCENE V.

Enter Le Beu.

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-cram'd.

Cel. All the better, we fhall be the more marketable. Bon jour, Monfieur le Beu; what news?

Le Beu. Fair Princefs, you have loft much good. Sport.

Cel. Sport; of what colour?

Le Beu. 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 trowel1.

Clo. Nay, if I keep not my rank,

Rof. Thou lofeft thy old fmell.

Le Beu. You amaze me, ladies. I would have

- fince the little wit that fools have was filenc'd.] Shake peare probably alludes to the ufe of fools or jefters, who for fome ages had been allowed in all courts an unbridled liberty of cenfure and mockery, and about this time began to be lefs tolerated.

·laid on with a trowel.]

I fuppofe the meaning is, that there is too heavy a mass of big words laid upon a flight fubject.

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

told

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

Rof. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

Le Beu. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your Ladyfhips, you may fee the end, for the best 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 Beu. There comes an old man and his three fons,

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

Rof. With bills on their necks: Be it known unto all men by these prefents",

Le Beu. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charlesthe Duke's Wreftler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, and there is little hope of life in him: fo he ferv'd the Second, and fo the Third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man their father making fuch pitiful Dole over them, that all the beholders take his his part with weeping. Rof. Alas!

4 With BILLS on their necks: Be it known unto all men by these prefents; The ladies and the fool, according to the mode of wit at that time, are at a kind of cross purposes. Where the words of one fpeaker are wrefted by another, in a repartee, to a different meaning. As where the Clown fays just before Nay, if I keep not my rank. Rofalind replies-thou lofft thy old fmell. So here when Rofalind had faid,, With bills on their necks, the Clown, to be quits with her, puts in, Know all men by these pre fents. She spoke of an inftru

ment of war, and he turns it to an inftrument of law of the fame name, beginning with these words: So that they must be given to him. WARBURTON.

This conjecture is ingenious. Where meaning is fo very thin, as in this vein of jocularity, it is hard to catch, and therefore, I know not well what to determine; but I cannot fee why Rofalind should fuppofe, that the competitors in a wrestling match carried bills on their shoulders, and I believe the whole conceit is in the poor resemblance of prefence and prefents.

Clo. But