But most it is presumption in us, when

The help of Heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent:
Of Heaven, not me, make an experiment.

I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;

But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power, nor you past cure.
KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop'st thou my cure?

HEL.

The greatest Grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;

Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp;
Or four-and-twenty times the pilot's glass a
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass;
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence,

What dar'st thou venture?

HEL.

Tax of impudence,-
A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,-
Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise; norb worse of worst extended,
With vilest torture let my life be ended.

KING. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak;
His powerful sound within an organ weak:

And what impossibility would slay

In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life in thee hath estimate;
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, alle
That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
That ministers thine own death, if I die.
HEL. If I break time, or flinch in property

• The pilot's glass must be a two-hour glass.
Nor. In the original ne, the old word for nor.
The line is usually printed—

"Youth, beauty wisdom, courage, virtue, all.”

Virtue was added by Warburton, "to supply a defect in the measure." This mode of emendation is most unsatisfactory. The King enumerates all the qualities which are apparent in Helenawhich she has displayed in her interview with him.

The congregated college have concluded
That labouring art can never ransom nature
From her inaidable estate,-I say, we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady

To empirics; or to dissever so

Our great self and our credit, to esteem

A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
HEL. My duty then shall pay me for my pains:
I will no more enforce mine office on you;
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one, to bear me back again.
KING. I cannot give thee less to be call'd grateful:
Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I g
As one near death to those that wish him live:
But, what at full I know thou know'st no part;
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

HEL. What I can do can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy:
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes. Great flood
From simple sources; and great seas have
When miracles have by the greatest been
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits,
Where hope is coldest, and despair most
KING. I must not hear thee; fare thee well
Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be
Proffers not took reap thanks for their
HEL. Inspired merit so by breath is barr

It is not so with Him that all things!
As 't is with us that square our guess

Shifts. We print these three lines as in the
Pope changed shifts to sits; and, as a rhyme
acquiesced in. Before we change a word we
Should we change shifts to sits, if the surroun
The apparent necessity for rhyme has alone de
hits-is rewarded,-where hope is coldest, an
depends upon chances, catches at straws. Wh
must shift." The shifts of de * often realize
not the word stand? Aurla
this line-

The couplets"). out a correspon

a is said,

ourish. Exeunt.

tess's Palace.

ight of your breeding. ght: I know my business is

linarily printed as prose, as they stand in the original. But we have no written as verse, to mark the change in the tone of the Countess.

y printed, "An end, sir, to your business." The Countess means,-an end to to your business.

Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;

And well deserv'd: Not helping, death 's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me?

KING. Make thy demand.

HEL.

But will you make it even?

KING. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven a.
HEL. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,
What husband in thy power I will command:
Exempted be from me the arrogance

To choose from forth the royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate

With any branch or image of thy state:
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,
Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd;
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust;
From whence thou cam'st, how tended on,- But rest
Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted blest.-
Give me some help here, hoa!-If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Clown.

COUNT. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.
CLO. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is

but to the court.

COUNT. To the court? why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt-But to the court?

CLO. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court he that cannot make a leg, put off 's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.

COUNT. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

CLO. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

COUNT. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

Heaven. In the original, help. The rhyme requires the correction.

CLO. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

COUNT. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

CLO. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. COUNT. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands. CLO. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to 't: ask me if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.

COUNT. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer-I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?

CLO. O Lord, sir,—There's a simple putting off;-more, more, a hundred of them.

COUNT. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

CLO. O Lord, sir,-Thick, thick, spare not me.

COUNT. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
CLO. O Lord, sir,-Nay, put me to 't, I warrant you.
COUNT. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

CLO. O Lord, sir,-spare not me.

COUNT. Do you cry, “O Lord, sir," at your whipping, and “

Indeed, your

spare not me?"

O Lord, sir," is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to 't 10.

CLO. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my-"O Lord, sir:" I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.

COUNT. I play the noble housewife with the time,

To entertain it so merrily with a foola.

CLO. O Lord, sir,-Why, there 't serves well again.

COUNT. An end, sir: To your business: Give Helen this,

And urge her to a present answer back:

Commend me to my kinsmen, and my son;

This is not much.

CLO. Not much commendation to them.

COUNT. Not much employment for you: You understand me?

CLO. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.

COUNT. Haste you again.

[Exeunt severally.

These lines are ordinarily printed as prose, as they stand in the original. But we have no doubt that they were written as verse, to mark the change in the tone of the Countess.

This is generally printed, “An end, sir, to your business." The Countess means,—an end to this trifling; now to your business.