tion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house 11 on the top of the mountain?

11

Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :-For what is inward 12 between us, let it pass : -I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy 13;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head;-and among other importunate and most serious designs,—and of great import indeed, too;—but let that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement 14,

11 Free-school.

12 Confidential.

The

13 By remember thy courtesy, Armado probably means 'remember that all this time thou art standing with thy hat off.' putting off the hat at table is a kind of courtesie or ceremonie rather to be avoided than otherwise.'-Florio's Second Frutes, 1591.

14 The beard is called valour's excrement in the Merchant of Venice.

with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,—the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies.

Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabeus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass 15 Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry: well done, Hercules! now

15 i. e. shall march, or walk in the procession for Pompey.

thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious 16; though few have the grace to do it.

Arm. For the rest of the worthies ?—
Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice worthy gentleman!
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?
Hol. We attend.

17

Arm. We will have, if this fadge 17 not, an antick. I beseech you, follow.

Hol. Via 18, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.

Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay.

Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away.

[Exeunt. SCENE II. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings thus come plentifully in:

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!

Look you, what I have from the loving king.
Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in
rhyme,

16 That is, convert our offence against yourselves into a dramatic propriety.

17 i. e. suit not, go not.

18 An Italian exclamation signifying Courage! Come on! See Vol. i. p 221.

As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,
Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax1:

For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd your sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died: had she been light, like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,

She might have been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.
Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this
light word?

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.

Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Kath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff3; Therefore, I'll darkly end the argument.

Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i̇' the dark.

Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench. Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light. Kath. You weigh me not,—O, that's you care not

for me.

Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.

But Rosaline, you have a favour too:

Who sent it? and what is it?

1 Grow.

2 This was a term of endearment formerly. So in Hamlet : 'Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse.'

3 Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the snuff of a candle. See King Henry IV. Act.i. Sc. 3.

4 A set is a term at tennis for a game.

I would,

you

knew:

Ros.
And if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great: be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón:
The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
Prin. Any thing like?

Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise.
Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

Ros. 'Ware pencils 5! How! let me not die
debtor,

My red dominical, my golden letter:

that your face were not so full of O's!

your

Kath. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all

shrows!

Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Du

main?

Kath. Madam, this glove.

Prin.

Did he not send you twain.

Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover,

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover:

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile.

5 She advises Katharine to beware of drawing likenesses, lest she should retaliate.

6 Theobald is scandalized at this language from a princess. But Dr. Farmer observes there need no alarm-the small-pox only is alluded to; with which it seems Katharine was pitted; or as it is quaintly expressed "her face was full of O's." Davison has a canzonet "on his lady's sicknesse of the poxe;" and Dr. Donne writes to his sister, "At my return from Kent, I found Pegge had the poxe." Such a plague was the small-pox formerly, that its name might well be used as an imprecation.