Your oaths are pass'd, and now subscribe your

names;

That his own hand may strike his honour down,
That violates the smallest branch herein :
If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep them* too.
LONG. I am resolv'd: 'tis but a three years' fast;
The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt† quite the wits.

DUM. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves :
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all these living in philosophy.

BIRON. I can but say their protestation over;
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances:
As, not to see a woman in that term;
Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there :
And, one day in a week to touch no food,
And but one meal on every day beside;
The which, I hope, is not enrolled there:
And then to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day;
(When I was wont to think no harm all night,
And make a dark night too of half the day;)
Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there:
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep;
Not to see ladies, -study, fast, not sleep.

KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from
these.

BIRON. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please; I only swore, to study with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years' space. LONG. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. BIRON. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest. What is the end of study? let me know.

KING. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

BIRON. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from

common sense?

If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
Study knows that, which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say, no.

KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,

And train our intellects to vain delight.

BIRON. Why, all delights are vain; but* that most vain,

Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain :
As, painfully to pore upon a book,

To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eye-sight of his look:

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye; Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights,

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

KING. How well he's read, to reason against
reading!

DUM. Proceeded well, to stop all good pro-
ceeding!
LONG. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow
the weeding.

BIRON. The spring is near, when green geese
are a-breeding.
DUM. How follows that?
BIRON.

Fit in his place and time.

DUM. In reason nothing. BIRON. Something then in rhyme. KING. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost, That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BIRON. Well, say I am; why should proud

summer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate."

KING. Well, sit you out; go home, Biron; adieu!

BIRON. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:

And, though I have for barbarism spoke more,
Than for that angel knowledge you can say;
Yet, confident I'll keep what I have swore,*
And bide the penance of each three years' day.
Give me the paper, let me read the same ;
And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.

KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from

shame!

KING. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

BIRON. So study evermore is over-shot;
While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should :
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
'T is won, as towns, with fire; so won, so lost.

So the old copies, but Theobald first, and all the modern editors since, have deprived Longaville of the second line, and given it to Biron. I have no hesitation in restoring it to the proper speaker. The only difficulty in the passage is the word gentility, (in the quarto, gentletie,) which could never have been the expression of the poet. Mr. Collier's old annotator proposes garrulity; that, or scurrility, certainly comes nearer to the sense, but neither

With a refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain:
One who the music of his own vain tongue

Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
For interim to our studies, shall relate,
In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate,
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

BIRON. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.

KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado. BIRON. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONG. A high hope for a low heaven: b (2) God grant us patience! BIRON. To hear? or forbear laughing? LONG. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

BIRON. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness.

Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.d

BIRON. In what manner?

Cost. In manner and form following, sir; all

following her into the park; which, put together,

is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for

CosT. Still me.

KING.

to a woman: for the form, in some form.

not fight!

KING. No words!

Cost. of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
KING.

So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when : Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon it is ycleped, thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: But to the place where, it standeth north-northeast and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,

Cost. Me. KING.

COST. O me!

KING.

-sorted, and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, with*— with,-O with but with this I passion to say wherewith,

COST. With a wench. KING.

-with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.

DULL. Me, an 't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

KING.

For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,) I keep her as a vessel of thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine in all complements of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

the best that ever I heard. BIRON. This is not so well as I looked for, but

what say you to this? KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah,

Cost. Sir, I confess the wench.

KING. Did you hear the proclamation?

little of the marking of it.

Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it, but

KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench.

Cost. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damosel.

KING. Well, it was proclaimed damosel.

Cost. This was no damosel, neither, sir; she

was a virgin.

virgin. KING. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed

Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

KING. This maid will not serve your turn, sir. Cost. This maid will serve my turn, sir.

KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

KING. And don Armado shall be your keeper. My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er.And go we, lords, to put in practice that

Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

[Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. BIRON. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat, These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.-Sirrah, come on.

COST. I suffer for the truth, sir: for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore, Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, Sit thee down, sorrow!*

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Another part of the same.
Armado's House.

Enter ARMADO and Mотн.

ARM. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy ?

МотH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. ARM. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.

Мотн. No, no; O lord, sir, no.

ARM. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?

Мотн. Ву a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.†

ARM. Why tough senior?† why tough senior?† Мотн. Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal?

ARM. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton, appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate, tender.

МотH. And I, tough senior,† as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name, tough. ARM. Pretty, and apt.

Мотн. How mean you, sir; I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? ARM. Thou pretty, because little.b

Мотн. Little pretty, because little: Wherefore apt?

ARM. And therefore apt, because quick.

Мотн. Speak you this in my praise, master?

ARM. Impossible.

MOTH. How many is one thrice told? ARM. I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.

МотH. You are a gentleman, and a gamester, sir.(3)

ARM. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete man.

МотH. Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to. ARM. It doth amount to one more than two. MOTH. Which the base vulgar do‡ call, three. ARM. True.

Мотн. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here's three studied, ere you'll thrice wink: and how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years in two words, the dancing horse (4) will tell you.

ARM. A most fine figure!

МотH. To prove you a cipher. [Aside. ARM. I will hereupon confess, I am in love: and, as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh; methinks, I should outswear Cupid. Comfort me, boy: What great men have been in love?

Мотн. Hercules, master.

ARM. Most sweet Hercules! -More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

Мотн. Sampson, master; he was a man of