As I do live by food, I met a fool;

Who laid him down and bask'd him in the fun,
And rail'd on lady Fortune in good terms,
In good fet terms, and yet a motley fool.
Good-morrow, fool, quoth I: No, fir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till heaven hath fent me fortune :^
And then he drew a dial from his poke;
And looking on it with lack-luftre eye,
Says, very wifely, It is ten o'clock:

Thus may we fee, quoth he, how the world wags;
'Tis but an hour ago, fince it was nine;
And after one hour more, 'twill be eleven;
And fo, from bour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot, and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear

The motley fool thus moral on the time,

motley fool, was it therefore a miserable world? This is fadly blundered; we should read:

a miferable varlet.

His head is altogether running on this fool, both before and after these words, and here he calls him a miferable varlet, notwithstanding he railed on lady Fortune in good terms, &c. Nor is the change we may make, fo great as appears at firft fight.

WARBURTON.

I fee no need of changing world to varlet, nor, if a change were neceffary, can I guess how it fhould certainly be known that varlet is the true word. A miferable world is a parenthetical exclamation, frequent among melancholy men, and natural to Jaques at the fight of a fool, or at the hearing of reflections on the fragility of life. JOHNSON.

4 Call me not fool, till heaven hath fent me fortune:] Fortuna favet fatuis, is, as Mr. Upton obferves, the faying here alluded to; or, as in Publius Syrus:

"Fortuna, nimium quem fovet, ftultum facit."

So, in the prologue to The Alchemift:

Fortune, that favours fooles, these two short houres "We wish away."

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour, A&t I. fc. iii:

66

Sog. Why, who am I, fir?

"Mac. One of those that fortune favours.

"Car. The periphrafis of a foole." REED.

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools fhould be fo deep-contemplative;
And I did laugh, fans intermiffion,
An hour by his dial.-O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.'
DUKE S. What fool is this?

F42. O worthy fool!-One that hath been a

courtier ;

And fays, if ladies be but young, and fair,
They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,—
Which is as dry as the remainder bifket

After a voyage,—he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms :-O, that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE S. Thou fhalt have one.

It is my only fuit;' Provided, that you weed your better judgments Of all opinion that grows rank in them, That I am wife. I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind,"

3 Motley's the only wear.] It would have been unneceffary to repeat that a motley, or party-coloured coat was anciently the drefs of a fool, had not the editor of Ben Jonfon's works been mistaken in his comment on the 53d Epigram:

66

where, out of motley,'s he

"Could fave that line to dedicate to thee?"

Motley, fays Mr. Whalley, is the man who out of any odd mixture, or old fcraps, could fave, &c. whereas it means only, Who but a fool, i. e. one in a fuit of motley, &c.

See Fig. XII. in the plate at the end of the first part of King Henry IV. with Mr. Tollet's explanation. STEEVENS.

6-only fuit;] Suit means petition, I believe, not drefs. JOHNSON. The poet meant a quibble. So A&t V: "Not out of your apparel, but out of your fuit." STEEVENS.

7 as large a charter as the wind,] So, in K. Henry V: "The wind, that charter'd libertine, is ftill." MALONE.

To blow on whom I please; for fo fools have:
And they that are moft galled with my folly,
They most must laugh: And why, fir, muft they fo?
The why is plain as way to parish church:
He, that a fool doth very wifely hit,
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Not to seem fenfelefs of the bob: if not,
The wife man's folly is anatomiz'd

8

Even by the fquandring glances of the fool.'
Invest me in my motley; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanfe the foul body of the infected world,"
If they will patiently receive my medicine.

DUKE S. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

F42. What, for a counter,' would I do, but good?

Not to feem fenfeless of the bob:] The old copies read onlySeem fenfelefs, &c. Not to were fupplied by Mr. Theobald. See the following note. STEEVENS.

Befides that the third verfe is defective one whole foot in meafure, the tenour of what Jaques continues to fay, and the reasoning of the paffage, fhow it no lefs defective in the fenfe. There is no doubt, but the two little monofyllables, which I have fupplied, were either by accident wanting in the manufcript, or by inadvertence were left out. THEOBALD.

9 if not, &c.] Unlefs men have the prudence not to appear touched with the farcafms of a jefter, they fubject themselves to his power; and the wife man will have his folly anatomifed, that is, diffeted and laid open, by the fquandring glances or random shots of a fool. JOHNSON.

2 Cleanfe the foul body of the infected world,] So, in Macbeth: "Cleanfe the ftuff'd bofom of that perilous ftuff."

DOUCE.

-for a counter,] Dr. Farmer obferves to me, that about the time when this play was written, the French counters (i. e. pieces of falfe money ufed as a means of reckoning) were brought into use in England. They are again mentioned in Troilus and Creffida: will you with counters fum

"The paft proportion of his infinite?" STEEVENS,

DUKE S. Moft mifchievous foul fin, in chiding fin: For thou thyself haft been a libertine,

As fenfual as the brutish fting' itself;

And all the emboffed fores, and headed evils,
That thou with licence of free foot haft caught,
Wouldst thou difgorge into the general world.
J42. Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party?
Doth it not flow as hugely as the fea,
Till that the very very means do ebb?4
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I fay, The city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in, and fay, that I mean her,
When fuch a one as fhe, fuch is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function,

That fays, his bravery is not on my coft,
(Thinking that I mean him,) but therein fuits
His folly to the mettle of my speech?

There then; How, what then? Let me fee wherein

3 As fenfual as the brutish fting-] Though the brutish fting is capa ble of a fenfe not inconvenient in this paffage, yet as it is a harsh and unufual mode of fpeech, I fhould read the brutish fly. JOHNSON. I believe the old reading is the true one. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. I. c. viii:

A heard of bulls whom kindly rage Again, B. II. c. xii:

doth fting."

"As if that hunger's point, or Venus' fting,
"Had them enrag'd.'

Again, in Othello:

66

our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts." STEEVENS. 4 Till that the very very-] The old copy reads-weary very. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

5

his bravery-] i. e. his fine clothes. So, in The Taming of the Shrew:

"With scarfs and fans, and double change of bravery." STEEVENS.

6 There then; How, what then? &c.] The old copy reads, very redundantly--

There then; How then? What then? &c. STEEVENS.

My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right, Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free, Why then, my taxing like a wild goofe flies, Unclaim'd of any man.-But who comes here?

Enter ORLANDO, with his fword drawn.

ORL. Forbear, and eat no more.

Why, I have eat none yet. ORL. Nor fhalt not, till neceffity be ferv'd. 742. Of what kind should this cock come of? DUKE S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy diftrefs;

Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
That in civility thou feem'ft fo empty?

ORL. You touch'd my vein at firft; the thorny point

Of bare diftrefs hath ta'en from me the show
Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred,
And know fome nurture: But forbear, I fay;
He dies, that touches any of this fruit,
Till I and my affairs are answered.

I believe we should read-Where then? So, in Othello: "What then? How then? Where's fatisfaction?" MALONE. 7 the thorny point

Of bare diftrefs hath ta'en from me the show

Of fmooth civility:] We might read torn with more elegance, but elegance alone will not justify alteration. JOHNSON.

8 inland bred,] Inland here, and elsewhere in this play, is the oppofite to outland, or upland. Orlando means to say, that he had not been bred among clowns. HOLT WHITE.

9 And know fome nurture:] Nurture is education, breeding, manSo, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616:

ners.

"He fhew'd himfelf as full of nurture as of nature." Again, as Mr. Holt White obferves to me, Barret fays in his Alvearie, 1580: "It is a point of nurture, or good manners, to falute them that you meete. Urbanitatis eft falutare obvios."

STEEVENS.