Nay then, quoth Adon, you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled theme;

The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,

And all in vain you strive against the stream;

For by this black-faced night, desire's foul nurse, Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues, And every tongue more moving than your own, Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs, Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown ; For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear, And will not let a false sound enter there;

Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast;

And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.

No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

What have you urg'd, that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger
I hate not love, but your device in love,
That lends embracements unto every stranger.
You do it for increase, O strange excuse!
When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse 6.

Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name';

S - that leadeth ON TO danger;] So the original edition, 1593, and that of 1596; for which in the edition of 1600, and the modern copies, we have "leadeth unto danger." MALONE. 6 When REASON is the BAWD to lust's abuse.] So, in Hamlet: "And reason panders will." STEEVENS.

LOVE to HEAVEN is fled,

Since sweating LUST on EARTH usurp'd his NAME ;] This

Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;

Which the hot tyrant stains, and soon bereaves,
As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain,
But lust's effect is tempest after sun;

Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.
Love surfeits not; lust like a glutton dies:
Love is all truth; lust full of forged lies.

More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The text is old, the orator too green.
Therefore in sadness, now I will away;
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen ':
Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended,
Do burn themselves' for having so offended.

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,

information is of as much consequence as that given us by Homer about one of his celebrated rivers, which, he says, was

"Xanthus by name to those of heavenly birth,

"But call'd Scamander by the sons of earth." STEEVENS. 8 Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,

Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.] So, again, in The Rape of Lucrece :

"Orash false heat, wrapt in repentant cold!

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Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne'er grows old."

MALONE.

9 My face is full of shame, my heart of TEEN:] Teen is sorrow. The word is often used by Shakspeare and Spenser. MALONE.

I MINE EARS, that to your wanton talk ATTENDED,

Do burn, &c.] So, in Cymbeline :

And homeward through the dark lawnd runs apace; Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress'd.

Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky", So glides he in the night from Venus' eye;

Which after him she darts, as one on shore
Gazing upon a late-embarked friend*,

5

Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend: So did the merciless and pitchy night

2

Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

the dark lawnd-] So the original copy of 1593, and the edition of 1596. Lawnd and lawn were in old language synonymous. The 16mo. of 1600 has-lawnes, which in the modern editions became lanes. MALONE.

3 Look, how a bright STAR SHOOTETH from the sky,]

King Richard II. :

"I see thy glory like a shooting star-."

Again, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,

"To hear the sea-maid's musick."

Again, in Troilus and Cressida :

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MALONE.

STEEVENS.

and fly like chidden Mercury,

"Or like a star dis-orb'd."

So, in

Gazing upon a late-embarked friend,] Perhaps Otway had this passage in his thoughts when he wrote the following lines: "Methinks I stand upon a naked beach,

Sighing to winds, and to the seas complaining; "While afar off the vessel sails away,

"Where all the treasure of my soul's embark'd."

MALONE.

See the scene in Cymbeline where Imogen tells Pisanio how he ought to have gazed after the vessel in which Posthumus was embarked. STEEvens.

5 Till the wild WAVES

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Whose RIDGES -] So, in King Lear:

"Horns welk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea."

the wild waves

-

STEEVENS.

"Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend." So, in Othello:

Whereat amaz'd, as one that unaware
Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood,
Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are,
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;
Even so confounded in the dark she lay,
Having lost the fair discovery of her way".

And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans, That all the neighbour-caves, as seeming troubled, Make verbal repetition of her moans;

Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:

Ah me! she cries, and twenty times, woe, woe! And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

She marking them, begins a wailing note,
And sings extemp'rally a woeful ditty;

How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote;
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:

Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
And still the choir of echoes answer so 8.

"The chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds;

"The wind-shak'd surge with high and monstrous main "Seems to cast water on the burning bear,

"And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole." Again, ibidem:

"And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas,

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Olympus high." MALONE.

"Or 'STONISH'D as NIGHT-WANDERERS often are,] So, in King

Lear:

7

"Gallow the very wanderers of the dark." STEEVENS. the fair discovery of her way.] I would read-discoverer,

i. e. Adonis. STEEVENS.

The old reading appears to me to afford the same meaning, and is surely more poetical. Our author uses a similar phraseology in Coriolanus:

"Lest you should chance to whip your information,

[i. e. your informer.]

"And beat the messenger who bids beware

"Of what is to be dreaded." MALONE.

And still the choir of echoes ANSWER SO.] Our author ought

Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,
For lovers' hours are long, though seeming short":
If pleas'd themselves, others, they think, delight
In such like circumstance, with such like sport:
Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,

End without audience, and are never done.

For who hath she to spend the night withal,
But idle sounds resembling parasites;
Like shrill-tongu'd tapsters answering every call,
Soothing the humour of fantastick wits 1?
She says, 'tis so: they answer all, 'tis so;
And would say after her, if she said no.

to have written-answers; but the error into which he has fallen is often committed by hasty writers, who are deceived by the noun immediately preceding the verb being in the plural number.

MALONE.

9 For lovers' hours are long, though seeming short:] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"I must hear from thee every day 'i the hour,

"For in a minute there are many days." MALOne. 'Like shrill-tongu'd tapsters answering every call,

Soothing the humour of fantastick WITS?] But the exercise of this fantastick humour is not so properly the character of wits, as of persons of a wild and jocular extravagance of temper. To suit this idea, as well as to close the rhyme more fully, I am persuaded the poet wrote:

"Soothing the humour of fantastick wights." THEOBALD. "Like shrill-tongu'd tapsters answering every call,

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Soothing the humour of fantastick wits?" See the scene of "Anon, anon, Sir," in King Henry IV. Part I.-Had Mr. Theobald been as familiar with ancient pamphlets as he pretended to have been, he would have known that the epithet fantastick is applied with singular propriety to the wits of Shakspeare's age. The rhyme, like many others in the same piece, may be weak, but the old reading is certainly the true one. STEEVENS.

The weakness of our poet's rhymes is a favourite topick with Mr. Steevens in these poems. But the charge is here wholly unfounded; for in the original copy 1593, as well as in that of 1596, the word corresponding with wits is written parasits; which shews that he intended the in the third syllable to be pronounced short; and thus pronounced, the word affords a full and perfect rhyme to wits. MALONE.