Duke. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone; How shall I best convey the ladder thither?

Val. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it Under a cloak, that is of any length.

Duke. A cloak, as long as thine, will serve the turn? Val. Ay, my good lord.

Duke. Then let me see thy cloak;

I'll get me one of such another length.

Val. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord. Duke. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.What letter is this same? What's here?- -To Silvia? And here an engine fit for my proceeding! I'll be so bold to break the seal for once. My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly; And slaves they are to me, that send them flying : O, could their master come and go, as lightly,

[Reads.

Himself would lodge, where senseless they are lying. My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them;

While I, their king, that thither them impórtune, Do curse the grace that with such grace hath bless'd them, Because myself do want my servants' fortune:

I curse myself, for they are sent by me,1

That they should harbour, where their lord should be.
What's here?

Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee:

'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.―
Why, Phaeton, (for thou art Merops' son)2
Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
And with thy daring folly burn the world?

1 for they are sent by me,] For is the same as for that, since. Johnson.

2 Merops' son)] Thou art Phaeton in thy rashness, but without his pretensions; thou art not the son of a divinity, but a terræ filius, a low-born wretch! Merops is thy true father, with whom Phaëton was falsely reproached. Johnson.

This scrap of mythology Shakspeare might have found in the spurious play of K. John, 1591:

66

as sometime Phaeton

Mistrusting silly Merops for his sire.” Or, in Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso, 1594:

Why, foolish, hardy, daring, simple groom, "Follower of fond conceited Phaeton," &c.

Steevens

Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee?
Go, base intruder! over-weening slave!
Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;
And think, my patience, more than thy desert,
Is privilege for thy departure hence:

Thank me for this, more than for all the favours,
Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.
But if thou linger in my territories,

Longer than swiftest expedition

Will give thee time to leave our royal court,
By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love,
I ever bore my daughter, or thyself.

Begone; I will not hear thy vain excuse;

But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.
[Exit DUKE.
Val. And why not death, rather than living torment?
To die, is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her,
Is self from self; a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no musick in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon:
She is my essence; and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.
I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:4
Tarry I here, I but attend on death;
But, fly I hence, I fly away from life.

Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE.
Pro.. Run, boy; run, run, and seek him out.

3 And feed upon the shadow of perfection.]

"Animum picturâ pascit inani." Virg. Henley.

4 I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:] To fly his doom, used for by flying, or in flying, is a Gallicism. The sense is, by avoiding the execution of his sentence I shall not escape death. If I stay here, I suffer myself to be destroyed; if I go away, I destroy myself. Johnson.

Laun. So-ho! so-ho!

Pro. What seest thou?

Laun. Him we go to find: there 's not a hair' on 's head, but 'tis a Valentine.

Pro. Valentine?

Val. No.

Pro. Who then? his spirit?

Val. Neither.

Pro. What then?

Val. Nothing.

Laun. Can nothing speak? master, shall I strike?
Pro. Whom6 would'st thou strike?

Laun. Nothing.

Pro. Villain, forbear.

Laun. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing: I pray youPro. Sirrah, I say, forbear: Friend Valentine, a word. Val. My ears are stopp'd, and cannot hear good news, So much of bad already hath possess'd them.

Pro. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine, For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.

Val. Is Silvia dead?

Pro. No, Valentine.

Val. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia !— Hath she forsworn me?

Pro. No, Valentine.

Val. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me!— What is your news?

Laun. Sir, there's a proclamation that you are vanish'd.
Pro. That thou art banished; Oh! that 's the news;
From hence, from Silvia, and from me, thy friend.
Val. Oh, I have fed upon this woe already,

And now excess of it will make me surfeit.
Doth Silvia know that I am banished?

Pro. Ay, ay; and she hath offer'd to the doom
(Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force)
A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears:
Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;

5

- there's not a hair-] Launce is still quibbling. He is now running down the hare that he started when he entered. Malone.

• Whom -] Old copy-Who. Corrected in the second folio. Malone.

With them, upon her knees, her humble self; Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them, As if but now they waxed pale for woe:

But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,

Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,
Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire;
But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.
Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,
When she for thy repeal was suppliant,
That to close prison he commanded her,
With many bitter threats of 'biding there.

Val. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,

As ending anthem of my endless dolour.

Pro. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st. Time is the nurse and breeder of all good. Here if thou stay, thou canst not see thy love; Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life. Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that, And manage it against despairing thoughts. Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence; Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love."

7 Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.] So, in Hamlet: "These to her excellent white bosom," &c.

Again, in Gascoigne's Adventures of Master F. I. first edit. p. 206: " at deliuerie thereof, [i. e. of a letter] she understode not for what cause he thrust the same into her bosome."

Trifling as the remark may appear, before the meaning of this address of letters to the bosom of a mistress can be understood, it should be known, that women anciently had a pocket in the fore part of their stays, in which they not only carried love-letters and love tokens, but even their money and materials for needle work. Thus Chaucer, in his Marchantes Tale:

"This purse hath she in hire bosome hid.”

In many parts of England the rustic damsels still observe the same practice; and a very old lady informs me, that she remembers, when it was the fashion to wear prominent stays, it was no less the custom, for stratagem and gallantry, to drop its literary favours within the front of them. Steevens.

See Lord Surrey's Sonnets, 1557.

"My song, thou shalt attain to find the pleasant place,
"Where she doth live, by whom I live; may chance to have

the grace,

The time now serves not to expostulate:
Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;
And, ere I part with thee, confer at large
Of all that may concern thy love-affairs:
As thou lov❜st Silvia, though not for thyself,
Regard thy danger, and along with me.

Val. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy, Bid him make haste, and meet me at the north-gate. Pro. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine. Val. O my dear Silvia! hapless Valentine.

[Exeunt VAL. and PRO.

Laun. I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to think, my master is a kind of knave: but that's all one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now, that

"When she hath read, and seen the grief wherein I serve,
"Between her brests she shall thee put, there shall she thee re-
serve." Malone.

8 Laun. I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to think, my master is a kind of knave: but that's all one, if he be but one KNAVE.] Where is the sense, or, if you won't allow the speaker that, where is the humour, of this speech? Nothing had given the fool occasion to suspect that his master was become double, like Antipholis in The Comedy of Errors. The last word is corrupt. We should read:

if he be but one KIND.

He thought his master was a kind of knave; however, he keeps himself in countenance with this reflection, that if he was a knave but of one kind, he might pass well enough amongst his neighbours. This is truly humorous. Warburton.

This alteration is acute and specious, yet I know not whether, in Shakspeare's language, one knave may not signify a knave on only one occasion, a single knave. We still use a double villain for a villain beyond the common rate of guilt. Johnson.

This passage has been altered, with little difference, by Dr. Warburton and Sir T. Hanmer.-Mr. Edwards explains it,"if he only be a knave, if I myself be not found to be another." I agree with Dr. Johnson, and will support the old reading and his interpretation with indisputable authority. In the old play of Damon and Pythias, Aristippus declares of Carisophus : "You lose money by him if you sell him for one knave, for he serves for twayne."

This phraseology is often met with: Arragon says, in The Merchant of Venice:

"With one fool's head I came to woo,
"But I go away with two."

Donne begins one of his sonnets:

"I am two fools, I know,

"For loving, and for saying so." &c.