(Think not, I flatter, for, I swear, I do not,)
Valiant, wise, remorseful,' well accomplish'd.
Thou art not ignorant, what dear good will
I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very foul abhorr'd.
Thyself haft lov’d; and I have heard thee say,
No grief did ever come so near thy heart,
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vowd’ft pure chastity.? ?
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
To Mantua, where, I hear, he makes abode;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a lady's grief;
And on the justice of my flying hence,
To keep me from a most unholy match,
Which heaven and fortune still reward with plagues.

6- remorseful,] Remorseful is pitiful. So, in The Maids Metamorphosis by Lyly, 1600:

* Provokes my mind to take remorse of thee." Again, in Chapman's translation of the ad book of Homer's Iliad, 1598: “ Descend on our long-toyled host with thy remorseful eye."

STEEVENS. 7. Upon whose grave thou vow'd pure chastity.] It was common in former ages for widowers and widows to make vows of chastity in honour of their deceased wives or husbands. In Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, page 1013, there is the form of a commission by the bishop of the diocele for taking a vow of chastity made by a widow. It seems that, besides observing the vow, the widow was, for life, to wear a veil and a mourning habit

. Some such distinction we may suppose to have been made in respect of male votarists; and therefore this circumstance might inform the players how fir Eglamour should be dreft; and will account for Silvia's having chosen him as a person in whom she could confide without injury to her own character. STEEVENS,

So much of bad already hath possess'd them.

Pro. Then in dumb filence will I bury mine, For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.

VAL. Is Silvia dead? Pro. No, Valentine. Val. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia!Hath she forsworn me?

Pro. No, Valentine.

VAL. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me! What is your news? Laun. Sir, there's a proclamation that you are

vanish'd. Pro. That thou art banished, 0, that's the news; From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.

VAL. O, I have fed upon this woe already, And now excess of it will make me surfeit. Doth Silvia know that I am banished ?

Pro. Ay, ay; and she hath offer'd to the doom, (Which, unrevers’d, stands in effectual force,) A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears : Those at her father's churlish feet the tender'd; With them, upon her knees, her humble self; Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became

them, As if but now they waxed pale for woe: But neither bended knees, pure hands held up, Sad fighs, deep groans, nor silver-lhedding tears, Could penetrate her uncompassionate fire; But Valentine, if he be ta’en, must die. Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so, When she for thy repeal was suppliant, That to close prison he commanded her, With many bitter threats of 'biding there. PAL. No more ; unless the next word, that thou

speak'st,

a

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have taught him-even as one would

say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher, and steals her capon's leg. 0, 'tis a foul thing, when a cur cannot keep

O himselfo in all companies ! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog! indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hang'd for’t; sure as I live, he had suffer'd for't: you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the

company

of three or four gentlemen-like dogs, under the duke's table: he had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while,+ but all the chamber smelt him. Out with the dog, says one; What cur is that? says another; Whip him out, says the third ; Hang him up, says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs :: Friend, quoth I, you mean to whip the dog? Ay, marry, do I, quoth he. You do him the more wrong, quoth I; 'twas I did the thing you wot of. He makes me no more ado, but whips 'me out of the chamber. How many masters would

3

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keep himself-] i. e. restrain himself. STEVENS.

to be a dog -] I believe we should read - I would have, &c. one that takes upon him to be a dog, to be a dog indeed, to be, &c. Johnson.

4 — pissing while,] This expression is used in Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady: * -- have patience but a pishing while.” It appears from Ray's Collection, that it is proverbial. STEVENS.

s The fellow that whips the dogs :) This appears to have been part of the office of an ulher of the table. So, in Mucedorus: -I'll prove my office good : for look you, &c.

When a dog chance to blow his nose backward, then with a whip I give him good time of the day, and strew rulhes presently." STEEVENS,

As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,
Regard thy danger, and along with me.

VAL. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy, Bid him make haste, and meet me at the north-gate.

Pro. Go, firrah, find him out. Come, Valentine. VAL. O my dear Silvia ! hapless Valentine !

[Exeunt Valentine and Proteus. Laun. I am but a fool, look you ; and yet I have the wit to think, my master is a kind of a knave: but that's all one, if he be but one knave. He

3 Laun. I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to ibink, my master is a kind of knave: but that's all one, if he be but one KNAVE.) Where is the sense ! or, if you won't allow the speaker that, where is the humour of this speech ? Nothing had given the fool occasion to suspect that his master was become douBle, like Antipholis in The Comedy of Errors. The last word is corrupt. We should read :

if he be but one KIND. He thought his master was a kind of knave; however, he keeps himself in countenance with this reflection, that if he was a knave but of one kind, he might pass well enough amongst his neighbours. This is truly humourous. WARBURTON.

This alteration is acute and specious, yet I know not whether, in Shakspeare's language, one knave may not fignify a knave on only one eccafron, a single knave. We still use a double villain for a villain beyond the common rate of guilt. Johnson.

This passage has been altered, with little difference, by Dr. Warburton and fir Tho. Hanmer.-Mr. Edwards explains it, -" if be only be a knave, if I myself be not found to be another.” I agree with Dr. Johnson, and will support the old reading and his interpretation with indisputable authority. In the old play of Damon and Pythias, Ariftippus declares of Carifophus, “ you lose money by him if you sell him for one knave, for he serves for twayne.'

This phraseology is often met with : Arragon says in the Merchant of Venice:

“ With one fool's head I came to woo,

“ But I go away with two.” Denne begins one of his sonnets :

" I am two fools, I know,
“ For loving and for saying fo." &c.

lives not now, that knows me to be in love: yet I am in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who 'tis I love, and yet 'tis a woman: but what woman, I will not tell myself; and yet 'tis a milk-maid: yet ’tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips : S yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves for wages. She hath more qualities thana water-spaniel,—which is much in a bare christian. Here is the cat-log [Pulling out a paper] of her conditions. Imprimis, She can fetch and carry.

Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore, is she better than a jade. Item, She can milk; look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands.

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And when Panurge cheats St. Nicholas of the chapel, which he vowed to him in a storm, Rabelais calls him “ a rogue-a rogue and an half-Le gallant, gallant de demy." FARMER. Again, in Like will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587:

Thus thou may'st be called a knave in graine, “ And where knaves be fcant, thou may'st go for twayne."

STEEVENS. a team of horfe shall not pluck —] I see how Valentine suffers for telling his love-secrets, therefore I will keep mine close.

Johnson. Perhaps Launce was not intended to shew so much sense; but here indulges himself in talking contradictory nonsense.

STEEVENS. s—for she bath had goffips :) Gossips not only fignify those who answer for a child in baptism, but the tattling women who attend lyings-in. The quibble between these is evident.

STEEVENS. - a bare christian.] Lannce is quibbling on. Bare has two

mere and naked. In Coriolanus it is used in the first :

“ 'Tis but a bare petition of the state.” Launce uses it in both, and opposes the naked female to the water-spaniel cover'd with hairs of remarkable thickness. STEEVENS.

7 —her conditions.] i.e. qualities. The old copy has conditioni Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

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senses;