Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it, which mounts my love so high;
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye ?3
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts, to those
That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose,
What hath been cannot be: Who ever strove
To show her merit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease-my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.

SCENE II.

[Exit.

Paris. A Room in the King's Palace. Flourish of Cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters; Lords and others attending.

King. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears;
Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
A braving war.

1 Lord. So 'tis reported, sir.

King. Nay, 'tis most credible; we here receive it
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution, that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial,

1 Lord. His love and wisdom, Approv'd so to your majesty, may plead For amplest credence.

King. He hath arm'd our answer,

And Florence is denied before he comes:
Yet, for our gentlemen, that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

2 Lord. It may well serve

A nursery to our gentry, who are sick

For breathing and exploit.

King. What's he comes here ?

[3] She means, by what influence is my love directed to a person so much above me! why am I made to discern excellence, and left to long after it, without the food of hope? JOHNSON,

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

1 Lord. It is the count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

King. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,

Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts
May'st thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

Bert. My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
King. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
As when thy father, and myself, in friendship
First try'd our soldiership! He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father: In his youth
He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.*
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them ; and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and, at this time,
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
He us'd as creatures of another place;

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility.

In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;

Which, follow'd well, would démonstrate them now
But goers backward.

[4] I believe honour is not dignity of birth or rank, but acquired reputation :-Your father, says the king, had the same airy flights of satirical wit with the young fords of the present time, but they do not what he did, hide their unnoted levity in honour, cover petty faults with great merit.-This is an excellent observation. Jocose follies, and slight offences are only allowed by mankind in him that over powers them by great qualities. JOHNSON.

[5] He was so like a courtier, that there was in his dignity of manner nothing contemptuous, and in his keenness of wit nothing bitter. If bitterness er contemptuousness ever appeared, they had been awakened by some injury, not of a man below him, but of his equal. This is the complete image of a wellbred man, and somewhat like this, Voltaire has exhibited his hero Lewis XIV. JOHNSON

[6] Giving them a better opinion of their own importance, by his condescending manner of behaving to them. M. MASON.

Ber. His good remembrance, sir,

Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb;
So in approof lives not his epitaph,

As in your royal speech.

King. 'Would, I were with him! He would always say, (Methinks, I hear him now; his plausive words He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,

To grow there, and to bear,)-Let me not live,—
Thus his good melancholy oft began,

On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,-let me not live, quoth he,
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff

Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions :-This he wish'd:
I, after him, do after him wish too,

Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
To give some labourers room.

Lord. You are lov'd, sir ;

They, that least lend it you, shall lack you first.
King. I fill a place, I know't.-How long is't, count,
Since the physician at your father's died?

He was much fam'd.

Ber. Some six months since, my lord.

King. If he were living, I would try him yet;
Lend me an arm ;-the rest have worn me out
With several applications :-nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
My son's no dearer.

Ber. Thank your majesty.

[Exeunt. Flourish.

SCENE III.

Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Countess, 8 Steward, and Clown.

Count. I will now hear what say you of this gentlewoman?

[7] Who have no other use of their faculties, than to invent new modes of dress. JOHNSON.

[8] A Clown in Shakespeare is commonly taken for a licensed jester, or domestic fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays since fools were at that time maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the house. In the picture of Sir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbien, the only servant represented is Patison the fool. This is a proof of the familiarity to VOL. IV.

2

Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: The complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my slowness, that I do not: for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.9

Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, sir.

Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well, that I am poor; though many of the rich are damned: But, if I may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

Clo. I do beg your good-will in this case.
Count. In what case?

Clo. In Isbel's case, and mine own. Service is no heritage and, I think, I shall never have the blessing of God, till I have issue of my body; for, they say, bearns are blessings.

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives. Count. Is this all your worship's reason?

Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, they are.

Count. May the world know them?

such as

Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent.

Count. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

Clo. I am out of friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake.

which they were admitted, not by the great only, but the wise. In some plays, a servant, or a rustic, of a remarkable petulance and freedom of speech, is likewise called a clown. JOHNSON.

[9] It appears to me that the accusative them refers to knaveries, and the natural sense of the passage seems to be this: "You have folly enough to desire to commit these knaveries, and ability enough to accomplish them." M. MASON.

[1] See St. Mark, x. 25; St. Luke, xviii, 25. GREY.

[2] This is a proverbial expression. Needs must when the devil drives, is auother. RITSON.

Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

Clo. You are shallow, madam; e'en great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a-weary of. He, that ears my land,3 spares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop: if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge: He, that comforts my wife, is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he, that cherishes my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife, is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poysam the papist, howsoe'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may joll horns together, like any deer i' th' herd. Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

Clo. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way.

For I the ballad will repeat,

Which men full true shall find;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind.

Count. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon. Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to speak.

Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman, I would speak with her; Helen I mean.

Clo. Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?

Fond done, done fond,

Was this king Priam's joy?
With that she sighed as she stood,
With that she sighed as she stood,
And gave this sentence then;
Among nine bad if one be good,

[3] To ear is to plough. STEEVENS.

[Singing.

See 1 Sam. viii. 12. Isaiah xxx. 24. Deut. xxi. 4. Gen. xlv. 6. Exod. xxxiv. 21. for the use of this verb. HENLEY.

[4] It is a superstition, which has run through all ages and people, that natural fools have something in them of divinity. On which account they were esteemed sacred: travellers tell us in what esteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they less honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word benet, for a natural fool. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rabelais, advised Panurge to go and consult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occasion to a satirical stroke upon the privy council of Francis the First,-"Par l'avis, conseil, prediction des fols, vos scavez quants princes, &c. ont este conserves," &c. WARBURTON.