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-lustre 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 hour 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 sadly 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, so great as appears at first sight.

WARBURTΟΝ.

I fee no need of changing world to varlet, nor, if a change were neceffary, can I guess how it should 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 sent me fortune: Fortuna favet fatuis, is, as Mr. Upton observes, the saying here alluded to; or, as in Publius Syrus:

Fortuna, nimium quem fovet, stultum facit."

So, in the prologue to The Alchemist :

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

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour, Act I. fc. iii:

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 should be so 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?

JAR. 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 bisket
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 shalt have one.

FAR
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,"

5

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

"Could save 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 dress. JOHNSON. The poet meant a quibble. So Act V: "Not out of your apparel, but out of your fuit." STEEVENS.

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

:

To blow on whom I please; for so fools have:
And they that are most galled with my folly,
They most must laugh: And why, fir, must they so?
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 feem senseless of the bob: if not,
The wife man's folly is anatomiz'd
Even by the squandring glances of the fool.9
Invest me in my motley; give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse 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.

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

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

Befides that the third verse is defective one whole foot in meafure, the tenour of what Jaques continues to say, and the reasoning of the passage, show it no less defective in the sense. There is no doubt, but the two little monofyllables, which I have supplied, were either by accident wanting in the manufcript, or by inadvertence were left out. THEOBALD.

9

if not, &c.] Unless men have the prudence not to appear touched with the sarcasms of a jester, they subject themselves to his power; and the wise man will have his folly anatomised, that is, diffected and laid open, by the squandring glances or random shots of a fool. JOHNSON.

2 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,] So, in Macbeth : "Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff."

DOUCE. 3-for a counter,] Dr. Farmer observes to me, that about the time when this play was written, the French counters (i. e. pieces of false 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. Most mischievous foul fin, in chiding fin:

For thou thyfelf haft been a libertine,
As sensual as the brutish sting itself;
And all the embossed fores, and headed evils,
That thou with licence of free foot haft caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.

JA2. 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 say, The city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in, and say, that I mean her,
When fuch a one as the, such is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function,
That fays, his bravery is not on my cost,
(Thinking that I mean him,) but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech?
There then; How, what then? Let me fee wherein

3 As fenfual as the brutish sting-] Though the brutish fting is capable of a sense not inconvenient in this passage, yet as it is a harsh and unusual mode of speech, I should read the brutish fly. JOHNSON.

I believe the old reading is the true one. So, in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. I. c. viii:

"A heard of bulls whom kindly rage doth fting."

Again, B. II. c. xii:

"As if that hunger's point, or Venus' fting,

"Had them enrag'd."

Again, in Othello :

66

- our carnal stings, 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 fearfs and fans, and double change of bravery." STEEVENS.

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

There then; Horu 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 goose 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 shalt not, till necessity be serv'd. JA2. Of what kind should this cock come of? DUKE S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy

distress;

Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
That in civility thou seem'st so empty ?

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

point

8

Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
Of fmooth civility: yet am I inland bred,
And know fome nurture: But forbear, I say;
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:

7

"What then? How then? Where's fatisfaction?" MALONE.

the thorny point

Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show

Of smooth 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 opposite to outland, or upland. Orlando means to say, that he had not been bred among clowns. HOLT WHITE.

ners.

9 And know some nurture:) Nurture is education, breeding, manSo, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "He shew'd himself as full of nurture as of nature." Again, as Mr. Holt White observes 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.