Duke S. What fool is this?

Jaq. O worthy fool !—One that hath been a cour

tier;

And says,

if ladies be but young, and fair,

They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,—
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit

After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms :-O, that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

Duke S. Thou shalt have one.

Jaq.
It is my only suit5;
Provided, that you weed your better judgments
Of all opinion that grows rank in them,
That I am wise. I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have:
And they that are most galled with my folly,
They most must laugh: And why, sir, must they so?
The why is plain as way to parish church:
He, that a fool doth very wisely hit,

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
7 Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,

So in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour:—
"And now and then breaks a dry biscuit jest,

Which, that it may more easily be chew'd,

He steeps in his own laughter."

My only suit, a quibble between petition and dress is here intended. So in Act v. "Not out of your apparel, but out of your suit." 6 In Henry V. we have:

"The wind, that charter'd libertine, is still."

7 The old copies read only, seem senseless, &c. not to were supplied by Theobald. I am not quite satisfied with this reading. The clashing of. not to at the beginning, and if not at the end of the line, rather makes against it. Mr. Whiter thought the old reading might stand, if thus pointed :

"He that a fool doth very wisely hit
Doth, very foolishly although he smart,
Seem senseless of the bob."

The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd

Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.
Invest me in my motley; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

Duke S. Fye on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

Jaq. What, for a counter?, would I do, but good? Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: For thou thyself hast been a libertine,

As sensual as the brutish sting 10 itself;

And all the embossed sores, and headed evils,
That thou with license of free foot hast caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party ?
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the wearer's very means do ebb11?
8 So in Macbeth :-

11

"Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff."

About the time when this play was written, the French counters, i. e. (pieces of false money used as a means of reckoning were brought into use in England. They are again mentioned in Troilus and Cressida, and in The Winter's Tale.

10 So in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. i. c. xii.—

"A herd of bulls whom kindly rage doth sting." Again, b. ii. c. xii.

"As if that hunger's point or Venus' sting
Had them enrag'd."

And in Othello:

"Our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts."
11 Till that the wearer's very means do ebb.

The old copies have:

"Till that the wearie verie meanes do ebbe." Pope altered it to "very very means do ebb;" a reading which though sufficiently flat has been pretty generally adopted. There can be no doubt that the compositor's eye caught the termination ie instead of er's from the succeeding word verie. The context relating to costly finery manifests that this was the poet's word. And this passage I trust will not be again obscured by the senseless weary or the substituted very of Pope.

What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, The city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in, and say, that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function,

That says, his bravery 12 is not on my cost,
(Thinking that I mean him), but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech?

There then 13, how then, what then? Let me see
wherein

My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man.- -But who comes here?

Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn.

Orl. Forbear, and eat no more.

Jaq.

Why, I have eat none yet.

Orl. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.

Jaq. Of what kind should this cock come of? Duke S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy dis

tress;

Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

Orl. You touch'd my vein at first; the thorny point
Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred, 14
And know some nurture: But forbear, I say;
He dies, that touches any of this fruit,

12 Bravery, e. finery.

13 I think with Malone that we should read, Where then, instead of There then. So in Othello:

"What then? How then? Where's satisfaction ?"

14 Inland here, and elsewhere in this play, is the opposite to outland or upland. Thus in Tales and Quicke Answeres, Tale xii. "An uplandysshe man, nourysshed in the woodes, came on a tyme to the citie." He is afterwards called "a rurall man," and " villayne." Orlando means to say that he had not been bred among

Till I and my

affairs are answered.

Jaq. An will not be answered with reason,

I must die.

you

Duke S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force,

More than your force move us to gentleness.

Orl. I almost die for food, and let me have it. Duke S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

Orl. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you : I thought, that all things had been savage here; And therefore put I on the countenance

Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are,
That in this desert inaccessible 15,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,

Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; have look'd on better days,

If ever you

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;

If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
In the which hope, I blush, and hide my sword.
Duke S. True is it that we have seen better days;
And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church :
And sat at good men's feasts; and wip'd our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd :
And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
And take upon command 16 what help we have,

clowns. Nurture is education, breeding, manners.
"It is a point
of nourtour or good manners to salute them that you meete." Ur-
banitas est salutare obvios." Baret's Alvearie, 1573. And again:
"She is a manerly maide and well nourtured." Ibid. in voce maner.

15 This desert inaccessible. So in The Adventures of Simonides, by Barnabe Riche, 1580: "and onely acquainted himselfe with this unaccessible desert."

16 And take upon command, i. e. at your command. Orlando had before said, " And therefore put I on the countenance of stern commandment."

That to your wanting may be ministered.

Orl. Then, but forbear your food a little while, Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,

And give it food 17.

There is an old poor man,

Who after me hath many a weary step

Limp'd in pure love: till he be first suffic'd,Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,I will not touch a bit.

Duke S.

Go find him out,

And we will nothing waste till

you return;

Orl. I thank ye; and be bless'd for your good com

fort! [Exit. Duke S. Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy : This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in 18.
Jag.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages 19. At first, the infant,

17 So in Venus and Adonis :

"Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake,
Hasting to feede her fawn."

18 Pleonasms of this kind were by no means uncommon in the writers of Shakespeare's age: "I was afearde to what end his talke would come to." Baret. In Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 1;"In what enormity is Marcius poor in.' And in Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Chorus:

"That fair for which love groan'd for."

19 In the old play of Damon and Pythias, we have-" Pythagoras said, that this world was like a stage whereon many play their parts." And in The Legend of Orpheus and Euridice, 1597: "Unhappy man

Whose life a sad continuall tragedie,

Himself the actor, in the world, the stage,

While as the acts are measured by his age."

In The Treasury of Ancient and Modern Times, 1613, is a division of the life of man into seven ages, said to be taken from Proclus and it appears from Brown's Vulgar Errors, that Hippocrates