CLO. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant ; fay, you have none.

SHEP. None, fir; I have no pheafant, cock, nor hen.2

AUT. How blefs'd are we, that are not fimple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I'll not difdain.

CLO. This cannot be but a great courtier.

SHEP. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

CLO. He feems to be the more noble in being fantaftical; a great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth.3

AUT. The fardel there? what's i'the fardel? Wherefore that box?

1 Advocate's the court-word for a pheafant ;] As he was a fuitor from the country, the Clown fuppofes his father should have brought a prefent of game, and therefore imagines, when Autolycus afks him what advocate he has, that by the word advocate he means a pheasant. STEEVENS.

2

I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen.] The allufion here was probably more intelligible in the time of Shakspeare than it is at prefent, though the mode of bribery and influence referred to, has been at all times employed, and as it should feem, with fuccefs. Our author might have had in his mind the following, then a recent inftance. In the time of Queen Elizabeth there were Juftices of the Peace called Basket Juftices, who would do nothing without a prefent; yet, as a member of the Houfe of Commons expreffed himself, "for half a dozen of chickens would difpenfe with a whole dozen of penal statutes." See Sir Simon D'Ewes's Journals of Parliament, in Queen Elizabeth's Reign. REED.

3

a great man, by the picking on's teeth.] It feems, that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of some pretenfion to greatness or elegance. So, the Bastard, in King John, speaking of the traveller, fays:

"He and his pick-tooth at my worship's mess."

JOHNSON.

SHEP. Sir, there lies fuch fecrets in this fardel, and box, which none must know but the king; and which he fhall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him.

AUT. Age, thou haft lost thy labour.

SHEP. Why, fir?

AUT. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new fhip to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'ft capable of things ferious, thou must know, the king is full of grief.

SHEP. So 'tis faid, fir; about his fon, that should have married a fhepherd's daughter.

AUT. If that fhepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curfes he fhall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monfter.

CLO. Think you so, fir?

AUT. Not he alone fhall fuffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but thofe that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, fhall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is neceffary. An old sheep-whiftling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say, he shall be ftoned; but that death is too foft for him, say I: Draw our throne into a fheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

CLO. Has the old man e'er a fon, fir, do you hear, an't like you, fir?

AUT. He has a fon, who fhall be flayed alive; then, 'nointed over with honey,+ fet on the head

4 then, 'nointed over with honey, &c.] A punishment of this fort is recorded in a book which Shakspeare might have

of a wafp's neft; then ftand, till he be three quarters and a dram dead: then recovered again with aqua-vitæ, or fome other hot infufion: then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims,5 fhall he be fet against a brick-wall, the fun looking with a fouthward eye upon him; where he is to behold him, with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being fo capital? Tell me, (for you seem to be honest plain men,) what you have to the king: being fomething gently confidered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your perfons to his prefence, whisper him in your behalfs; and, if it be in man, befides the king to effect your fuits, here is man fhall do it. CLO. He seems to be of great authority: close

:

feen :-" - he caused a cage of yron to be made, and set it in the funne and, after annointing the pore Prince over with hony, forced him naked to enter into it, where hee long time endured the greatest languor and torment in the worlde, with fwarmes of flies that dayly fed on him; and in this forte, with paine and famine, ended his miferable life." The Stage of Popifh Toyes, 1581, p. 33. REED.

5 the hotteft day prognoftication proclaims,] That is, the hottest day foretold in the almanack. JOHNSON.

Almanacks were in Shakspeare's time published under this title: "An Almanack and Prognoftication made for the year of our Lord God, 1595." See Herbert's Typograph. Antiq. II, 1029. MALONE.

6

being fomething gently confidered,] Means, I having a gentlemanlike confideration given me, i. e. a bribe, will bring you, &c.

So, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

66

fure, fir, I'll confider it hereafter if I can. "What, confider me? doft thou think that I am a bribetaker ?"

Again, in The Ile of Gulls, 1633: "Thou shalt be well confidered, there's twenty crowns in earneft." STEEVENS.

with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: fhow the infide of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado: Remember stoned, and flayed alive.

SHEP. An't please you, fir, to undertake the bufiness for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more; and leave this young man in pawn, till I bring it you.

AUT. After I have done what I promised?

SHEP. Ay, fir.

AUT. Well, give me the moiety :-Are you a party in this business ?

CLO. In fome fort, fir: but though my cafe be a pitiful one, I hope I fhall not be flayed out of it.

AUT. O, that's the cafe of the fhepherd's fon :Hang him, he'll be made an example.

CLO. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the king, and fhow our strange fights: he must know, 'tis none of your daughter nor my fifter; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says, your pawn, till it be brought you.

AUT. I will truft you. Walk before toward the fea-fide; go on the right hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

CLO. We are bleffed in this man, as I may fay, even bleffed.

SHEP. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.

[Exeunt Shepherd and Clown. AUT. If I had a mind to be honeft, I fee, fortune

would not fuffer me; fhe drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occafion; gold, and a means to do the prince my mafter good; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to fhore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me, rogue, for being fo far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame elfe belongs to't: To him will I present them, there may be matter in it. [Exit.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Sicilia. A Room in the Palace of Leontes.

Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Others.

CLEO. Sir, you have done enough, and have per

form'd

A faint-like forrow: no fault could

you make, Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down More penitence, than done trefpafs: At the laft, Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evil; With them, forgive yourself.

LEON.

Whilft I remember Her, and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them; and fo ftill think of The wrong I did myfelf: which was fo much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and