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are mightily misplaced: and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

CEL. 'Tis true: for those, that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those, that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favour'dly.

Ros. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to nature's fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature.

Enter TOUCHSTONE.

CEL. No? When nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by fortune fall into the fire?Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?

Ros. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit.

CEL. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work neither, but nature's; who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone: for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of his wits.-How now, wit? whither wander you?

TOUCH. Mistress, you must come away to your father.

CEL. Were you made the messenger?

TOUCH. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.

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who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath sent &c.] The old copy reads-" perceiveth -" Mr. Malone retains the old reading, but adds— "and hath sent," &c. STEEVens.

VOL. VIII.

с

Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool?

TOUCH. Of a certain knight, that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now, I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good; and yet was not the knight forsworn. CEL. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?

Ros. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom. TOUCH. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

CEL. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

TOUCH. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were: but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn no more was this knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away, before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

CEL. Pr'ythee, who is't that thou mean'st?

TOUCH. One that old Frederick, your father,loves. CEL. My father's love is enough to honour him.'

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

Cel. My father's love is enough to honour him.] This reply to the Clown is in all the books placed to Rosalind; but Frederick was not her father, but Celia's: I have therefore ventured to prefix the name of Celia. There is no countenance from any passage in this play, or from the Dramatis Personæ, to imagine, that both the Brother-Dukes were namesakes; and one called the Old, and the other the Younger-Frederick; and without some such authority, it would make confusion to suppose it. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald seems not to know that the Dramatis Persona were first enumerated by Rowe. JOHNSON.

Frederick is here clearly a mistake, as appears by the answer of Rosalind, to whom Touchstone addresses himself, though the

Enough! speak no more of him; you'll be whip'd for taxation, one of these days.

TOUCH. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely, what wise men do foolishly.

CEL. By my troth, thou say'st true: for since the little wit, that fools have, was silenced,3 the little

question was put to him by Celia. I suppose some abbreviation was used in the MS. for the name of the rightful, or old duke, as he is called, [perhaps Fer. for Ferdinand,] which the transcriber or printer converted into Frederick. Fernardyne is one of the persons introduced in the novel on which this comedy is founded. Mr. Theobald solves the difficulty by giving the next speech to Celia, instead of Rosalind; but there is too much of filial warmth in it for Celia :-besides, why should her father be called old Frederick? It appears from the last scene of this play that this was the name of the younger brother. MALONE.

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Mr. Malone's remark may be just; and yet I think the speech which is still left in the mouth of Celia, exhibits as much tenderness for the fool, as respect for her own father. She stops Touchstone, who might otherwise have proceeded to say what she could not hear without inflicting punishment on the speaker. Old is an unmeaning term of familiarity. It is still in use, and has no reference to age. The Duke in Measure for Measure is called by Lucio "the old fantastical Duke," &c. STEEVENS.

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- you'll be whip'd for taxation,] This was the discipline usually inflicted upon fools. Brantome informs us that Legar, fool to Elizabeth of France, having offended her with some indelicate speech, "fut bien föuetté à la cuisine pour ces paroles." A representation of this ceremony may be seen in a cut prefixed to B. II. ch. c. of the German Petrarch already mentioned in Vol. IV. p. 359. DOUCE.

Taxation is censure, or satire. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "Niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you." Again, in the play before us :

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my taxing like a wildgoose flies-."

MALONE.

since the little wit, that fools have, was silenced,] Shakspeare probably alludes to the use of fools or jesters, who for some ages had been allowed in all courts an unbridled liberty of censure and mockery, and about this time began to be less tolerated. JOHNSON.

foolery, that wise men have, makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.

Enter LE BEAU.

Ros. With his mouth full of news.

CEL. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

Ros. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.

CEL. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: What's the news?

LE BEAU. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

CEL. Sport? Of what colour?

LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you

Ros. As wit and fortune will.

TOUCH. Or as the destinies decree.

CEL. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.*
TOUCH. Nay, if I keep not my rank,
Ros. Thou losest thy old smell.

- laid on with a trowel.] I suppose the meaning is, that there is too heavy a mass of big words laid upon a slight subject.. JOHNSON.

This is a proverbial expression, which is generally used to signify a glaring falshood. See Ray's Proverbs. STEEVENS.

It means a good round hit, thrown in without judgment or design. RITSON.

To lay on with a trowel, is, to do any thing strongly, and without delicacy. If a man flatters grossly, it is a common expression to say, that he lays it on with a trowel. M. MASON.

LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies: have told you of good wrestling, which lost the sight of.

I would

you have

Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

CEL. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.

LE BEAU. There comes an old man, and his three sons,

CEL. I could match this beginning with an old tale.

LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence;

Ros. With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by these presents,"

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5 You amaze me, ladies :] To amaze, here, is not to astonish or strike with wonder, but to perplex; to confuse, so as to put out of the intended narrative. JOHNSON.

So, in Cymbeline, Act IV. sc. iii.

"I am amazed with matter."

STEEVENS.

• With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by these presents,] The ladies and the fool, according to the mode of wit at that time, are at a kind of cross purposes. Where the words of one speaker are wrested by another, in a repartee, to a different meaning. As where the Clown says just beforeNay, if I keep not my rank. Rosalind replies-Thou losest thy old smell. So here when Rosalind had said-With bills on their necks, the Clown, to be quits with her, puts in-Know all men by these presents: She spoke of an instrument of war, and he turns it to an instrument of law of the same name, beginning with these words: So that they must be given to him.

WARBURTON. This conjecture is ingenious. Where meaning is so very thin,

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