BIRON. Pompey is moved:-More Ates, more Ates; stir them on! stir them on!

DUM. Hector will challenge him.

BIRON. Ay, if he have no more man's blood in's belly than will sup a flea.

ARM. By the north pole, I do challenge thee.

COST. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man; I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword:-I pray you, let me borrow my arms again.

DUM. Room for the incensed Worthies.
COST. I'll do it in my shirt.
DUM. Most resolute Pompey!

MOTH. Master, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not see, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

ARM. Gentlemen, and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt.

DUM. You may not deny it; Pompey hath made the challenge.

ARM. Sweet bloods, I both may and will. BIRON. What reason have you for 't? ARM. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance.*

BOYET. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of Jaquenetta's; and that 'a* wears next his heart, for a favour.

Enter MERCADE.

MER. God save you, madam!
PRIN. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.

MER. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring

Is heavy in my tongue. The king, your father— PRIN. Dead, for my life.

MER. Even so; my tale is told.

BIRON. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.

(*) Folio, 1623, he.

a I go woolward for penance.] To go woolward, i. e. to go with a woollen garment next the skin, was a penance appointed for pilgrims and penitents; and from this arose the saying, when any one was shirtless, that he went woolward. Thus, in Lodge's "Incarnate Devils," 1596,-" His common course is to go always untrust; except when his shirt is a washing, and then he goes woolward."

And in Samuel Rowland's collection of Epigrams and Satyres, which he quaintly intitules, "The Letting of Humour's blood in the Head-Vaine," &c., Satyre 4 :

"He takes a common course to goe untrust,
Except his shirt 's a washing; then he must
Goe wool-ward for the time."

b A heavy heart bears not a humble tongue :] I am very doubtful of the genuineness of this line; the true lection is probably,"A heavy heart bears but a humble tongue."

Or, as Theobald suggested,

"A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue."

The extreme parts of time-] The word parts here is an admitted misprint. Mr. Singer proposes to substitute haste. Mr. Collier's corrector rewrites the line,

"The extreme parting time expressly forms," &c.

A much slighter change will render the sense clear. I would read,

"The extreme dart of time extremely forms All causes to the purpose of his speed," &c. And I am strengthened in my belief that parts is a corruption for dart or shaft by the next line,—

"And often, at his very loose, decides," &c.

ARM. For mine own part, I breathe free breath : I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. [Exeunt Worthies. KING. How fares your majesty? PRIN. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night. KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay. PRIN. Prepare, I say.-I thank you, gracious lords,

For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
In your rich wisdom, to excuse, or hide,
The liberal opposition of our spirits:
If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it.-Farewell, worthy lord!
A heavy heart bears not a humble tongue :
Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks
For my great suit so easily obtain’d.

C

KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms

All causes to the purpose of his speed;
And often, at his very loose, decides

That which long process could not arbitrate:
And though the mourning brow of progeny

Forbid the smiling courtesy of love,

The holy suit which fain it would convince; d
Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it

From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost,
Is not by much so wholesome-profitable,
As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

PRIN. I understand you not; my griefs are double.

Thus, in Midsummer-Night's Dream," Act II. Sc. 1,—

"And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts."

So also in Ben Jonson's "Every Man out of His Humour," Act III. Sc. 3 (Gifford's Edition): "her brain's a very quiver of jests! and she does dart them abroad with that sweet loose, and judicial aim, that you would &c. Where, from not knowing, strangely enough, the technical meaning of this term, the accomplished editor has punctuated the passage thus,"She does dart them abroad with that sweet, loose, and judicial aim," &c.

By the extreme dart of time, the King means as he directly after explains it," The latest minute of the hour."

d Which fain it would convince:] To convince is to conquer, to So in " Macbeth," Act I. Sc. 7,

overcome.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won,)
You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
BIRON. To move wild laughter in the throat of
death?

It cannot be; it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing
spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you, empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

BIRON. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will
befal,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

PRIN. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my
leave.
[To the KING.

KING. No, madam, we will bring you on your

ARM. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show.

KING. Call them forth quickly, we will do so. ARM. Holla! approach.

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, CosTARD, and others.*

This side is Hiems, winter: this Ver, the spring: the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

THE SONG.

I.

SPRING. When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,

When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer

smocks,

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

[SCENE II.

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.