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Val. How now, sir? what are you reasoning with your self?6

Speed. Nay, I was rhyming; 'tis you that have the

reason.

Val. To do what?

Speed. To be a spokesman from madam Silvia.
Val. To whom?

Speed. To yourself; why, she wooes you by a figure.
Val. What figure?

Speed. By a letter, I should say.

Val. Why, she hath not writ to me?

Speed. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest? Val. No, believe me.

Speed. No believing you indeed, sir: But did you perceive her earnest?

Val. She gave me none, except an angry word.
Speed. Why, she hath given you a letter.

Val. That's the letter I writ to her friend.

Speed. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end."

Val. I would it were no worse.

Speed. I'll warrant you, 'tis as well:

For often you have writ to her; and she, in modesty,
Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover,
Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover—
All this I speak in print; for in print I found it.—

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reasoning with yourself?] That is discoursing, talking. An Italianism. Johnson.

So, in the Merchant of Venice:

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"I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday." Steevens.

and there an end.] i. e. there's the conclusion of the matter. So, in Macbeth:

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"That when the brains were out, the man would die,
"And there an end.”.

Steevens.

8 All this I speak in print;] In print, means with exactness. So, in the comedy of All Fooles, 1605:

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"About his bulk, but it stands in print."

Again, in The Portraiture of Hypocrisie, bl. 1. 1589: “—others lash out to maintaine their porte, which must needes bee in print.”

Why muse you sir? 'tis dinner time.

Val. I have dined.

Speed. Ay, but hearken, sir: though the cameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one, that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat: O, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved.

SCENE II.

Verona. A room in Julia's House.

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA.

Pro. Have patience, gentle Julia.

Jul. I must, where is no remedy.

[Exeunt.

Pro. When possibly I can, I will return.
Jul. If you turn not, you will return the sooner:

Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.

[Giving a ring.

Pro. Why, then, we'll make exchange; here, take

you this.

Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
Pro. Here is my hand, for my true constancy;
And when that hour o'er-slips me in the day
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide is now: nay, not the tide of tears;

That tide will stay me longer than I should: [Exit JUL.
Julia, farewel.-What! gone without a word?

Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;

For truth hath better deeds, than words, to grace it.
Enter PANTHINO.

Pant. Sir Proteus, you are staid for.

Pro. Go: I come, I come :

Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb. [Exeunt.

Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 539: "- he must speake in print, walk in print, eat and drinke in print, and that, which is all in all, he must be mad in print." Steevens.

SCENE III.

The same. A Street.

Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog.

Laun. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault; I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with sir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think, Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it: This shoe is my father;-no, this left shoe is my father;-no, no, this left shoe is my mother;-nay, that cannot be so neither;—yes, it is so, it is so; it hath the worser sole; This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; A vengeance on 't! there 'tis: now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid; I am the dog:-no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog,'-O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to my father: Father, your blessing; now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on:-now come I to my mother, (O that she could speak now!) like a

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I am the dog, &c.] A similar thought occurs in a play printed earlier than the present. See A Christian turn'd Turk, 1612: - you shall stand for the lady, you for her dog, and I the page; you and the dog looking one upon another; the page presents himself." Steevens.

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I am the dog, &c.] This passage is much confused, and of confusion, the present reading makes no end. Sir T. Hanmer reads: I am the dog, no, the dog is himself, and I am me, the dog is the dog, and I am myself. This certainly is more reasonable; but I know not how much reason the author intended to bestow on Launce's soliloquy. Johnson.

wood woman;2—well, I kiss her;-why there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down: now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes: now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.

Enter PANTHINO.

Pant. Launce, away, away, aboard; thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? why weep'st thou, man? Away, ass; you will lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.

Laun. It is no matter if the ty'd were lost; for it is the unkindest ty'd that ever any man ty❜d.

Pant. What's the unkindest tide?

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like a wood woman; -] The first folios agree in would. woman: for which, because it was a mystery to Mr. Pope, he has unmeaningly substituted ould woman. But it must be writ, or at least understood, wood woman, i. e. crazy, frantic with grief; or distracted, from any other cause. The word is very frequently used in Chaucer; and sometimes writ wood, sometimes wode. Theobald.

Print thus: "Now come I to my mother, (O that she could speak now!) like a wood woman."

Perhaps the humour would be heightened by reading—O that the shoe could speak now!) Blackstone.

I have followed the punctuation recommended by sir W. Blackstone. The emendation proposed by him was made, I find, by Sir T. Hanmer. Malone.

O that she could speak now like a wood woman!] Launce is describing the melancholy parting between him and his family. In order to do this more methodically, he makes one of his shoes stand for his father, and the other for his mother. And when he has done taking leave of his father, he says, Now come I to my mother, turning to the shoe, that is supposed to personate her. And in order to render the representation more perfect, he expresses his wish, that it could speak like a woman, frantic with grief! There could be no doubt about the sense of the passage, had he said "O that it could speak like a wood woman!" But he uses the feminine pronoun, in speaking of the shoe, because it is supposed to represent a woman. M. Mason.

3 if the ty'd were lost;] This quibble, wretched as it is, might have been borrowed by Shakspeare from Lyly's Endymion, 1591. "Epi. You know it is said, the tide tarrieth for no man.Sam. True.-Epi. A monstrous lye: for I was ty'd two hours, and tarried for one to unloose me." The same play on words occurs in Chapman's Andromeda Liberata, 1614:

"And now came roaring to the tied the tide." Steevens.

Laun. Why, he that 's ty'd here; Crab, my dog.

Pant. Tut, man, I mean thou 'It lose the flood; and, in losing the flood, lose thy voyage: and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy master; and, in losing thy master, lose thy service; and, in losing thy service,-Why dost thou stop my mouth?

Laun. For fear thou should'st lose thy tongue?
Pant. Where should I lose my tongue?

Laun. In thy tale.

Pant. In thy tail?

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Laun. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service? The tide !5-Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

Pant. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee. Laun. Sir, call me what thou darest.

Pant. Wilt thou go?

Laun. Well, I will go.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Milan. An Apartment in the Duke's Palace.

Enter VALENTINE, SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED.

Sil. Servant

Val. Mistress!

Speed. Master, sir Thurio frowns on you.

Val. Ay, boy, it's for love.

Speed. Not of you.

Val. Of my mistress then.

Speed. 'Twere good, you knocked him down.

Sil. Servant, you are sad.

Val. Indeed, madam, I seem so.

Thu. Seem you that you are not?

Val. Haply, I do.

Thu. So do counterfeits.

Lose the tide,] Thus the old copy. Some of the modern editors read-the flood. Steevens.

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The tide!] The old copy reads-" and the tide." I once supposed these three words to have been repeated, through some error of the transcriber or printer; but, pointed as the passage now is, (with the omission of and) it seems to have sufficient meaning. Steevens,

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