ACT III. SCENE I.

The Park; near the Palace:

Enter Armado and Moth (1).

ARMA.DO.

WARBLE, child; make passionate my sense of

Moth. Concolinel

[Singing. Arm. Sweet Air !-Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give inlargement to the fwain; bring him feftinately hither. I must imploy him in a letter to my love.

Moth. Mafter, will you win your love with a French brawl +?

Arm. How mean'ft thou, brawling in French?

Moth. No, my compleat mafter; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet (2), humour it with turning up your eyelids; figh a note and fing a note; fometimes through the throat, as if you fwallow'd love with finging love; fometimes through the nofe, as if you fnufft up love by fmelling love; with your hat penthouse like, o'er the fhop of your eyes; with your arms croft on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting; and keep. not too long in one tune, but a ship and away: these

(1) Enter Armado and Moth.] In the folios the direction is, enter Braggart and Moth, and at the beginning of every speech of Armad ftands Brag. both in this and the foregoing fcene between him and his boy. The other perfonages of this play are likewife noted by their characters as often as by their names. All this confusion has been well regulated by the later Editors.

Here is apparently a fong loft.

Moth. Mafter will you win your love with a French brawl ?]

Mafter, not in folio 1632. A brawl, a kind of dance.
(2) Canary was the name of a spritely aimble dance.

Dr. GRAY.

THEOBALD.

are

are compliments *, thefe are humours; these betray nice wenches that would be betray'd without these, and make the men of note (3): do you note men, that are most affected to thefe ?

Arm. How haft thou purchas'd this experience ?
Moth. By my pen of observation.

Arm. But O, but O

Moth. The hobby-horfe is forgot (4),

Arm. Call'st thou my love hobby-horse?

Math. No, mafter; the hobby-horfe is but a colt †, and you love, perhaps, a hackney: but have you forgot your love?

Arm. Almost I had.

Moth. Negligent ftudent, learn her by heart.

Arm. By heart, and in heart, boy.

Moth. And out of heart, master all thofe three I

* Dr. Warburton has here changed compliments to 'complishments for accomplishments, but unneceffarily.

(3) The former Editors:

thefe betray nice Wenches, that would be betray'd without thefe, and make them Men of Note.] But who will ever believe that the odd Attitudes and Affectations of Lovers, by which they betray young Wenches, should have power to make those young Wenches Men of Note? His Meaning is, that they not only inveigle the young Girls, but make the Men taken notice of too, who affect them. THEOBALD.

(4) Arm. But O, but

Moth. The Hobby horse is forgot.] In the celebration of Mayday, befides the fpo ts now used of hanging a pole with garlands, and dancing round it, formerly a boy was dreft up representing Maid Marian; another, like a Fryar; and another rode on a Hobby-borfe, with bells jingling, and painted ftreamers. After the reformation took place, and Precifians multiplied, these latter rites were look'd upon to favour of paganism; and then maid Marian, the fryar, and the poor Hobby-borfe, were turned out of the games. Some who were not fo wifely precife, but regretted the difufe of the Hobby-borfe, no doubt, fatiriz'd this fufpicion of idolatry, and archly wrote the epitaph above alluded to. Now Motb, hearing Armad groan ridiculously, and cry out, But ob! but ob! humourously pieces out his exclamation with the fequel of this epitaph. THEOBALD.

+ Colt is a hot mad brained unbroken young fellow, or sometimes an old fellow with youthful defires.

Motb.

Motb. A man, if I live: And this by, in, and out of, upon the inftant by heart you love her, becaufe your heart cannot come by her : in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.

Arm. I am all these three.

Moth. And three times as much more and yet nothing at all.

Arm. Fetch hither the fwain, he must carry me a letter.

Moth. A meffage well fympathis'd; a horse to be embaffador for an afs.

Arm. Ha, ha; what fay'ft thou?

Moth. Marry, Sir, you must fend the ass
horfe, for he is very flow-gated: but I go.
Arm. The way is but fhort; away.
Moth. As fwift as lead, Sir.

Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious?

Is not lead a metal heavy, dull and flow?

upon the

Moth. Minime, honeft master or rather, master, no. Arm. I fay, lead is flow.

Moth. You are too fwift, Sir, to fay so (5).

Is that lead flow, Sir, which is fir'd from a gun ?
Arm. Sweet fmoak of rhetorick!

He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he:

I fhoot thee at the swain.

Moth. Thump then, and I fly.

[Exit. Arm. A moft acute Juvenile, voluble and free of

grace;

(6) By thy favour, fweet welkin, I must figh in thy face, Moft rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. My herald is return'd..

(5) You are too fwift, Sir, to say fo.] How is he too fwift for faying that lead is flow?

the rhyme as the fenfe,

fancy we should read, as well to fupply

You are too fwift, Sir, to fay fo, fo foon.

Is that lead flow, Sir, which is fir'd from a gun?

(6) By thy favour, fweet welkin,] Welkin is the sky, to which Armado, with the falle dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for fighing in its face.

SCENE

Re-enter Moth and Coftard.

Moth. A wonder, mafter, here's a Coftard broken in a fhin.

Arm. Some enigma, fome riddle; come,-thy Penvoy-begin.

Coft. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no falve in the male, Sir (7). O Sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no lenvoy, or falve, Sir, but plantain.

Arm. By virtue, thou enforceft laughter; thy filly thought, my fpleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous fmiling: O pardon me, my ftars! Doth the inconfiderate take falve for l'envoy, and the word l'envoy for a falve?

Moth. Doth the wife think them other? is not l'envoy a falve?

Arm. No, page, it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain

Some obfcure precedence that hath tofore been fain. I will example it. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.

The fox, the ape, and the humble bee,

Were ftill at odds, being but three.

There's the moral, now the l'envoy.

Moth. I will add the l'envoy; fay the moral again.
Arm. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,

Were ftill at odds, being but three,

Math. Until the goofe came out of door,

And stay'd the odds by adding four.

A good l'envoy, ending in the goofe; would you defire

more ?

(7) No falve in the male, Sir.] The old folio reads, no falwe in thee male, Sir, which in another folio, is no falve in the male, Sir. What it can mean is not eafily discovered: if mail for a packet or bag was a word then in ufe, no fabve in the mail may mean no falve in the mountebank's budget. Or fhall we read, no egma, no riddle, no l'envoy in the vale, Sir- O, Sir, plantain. The matter is not great, but one would wish for fome meaning or other.

Caff.

Coft. The boy hath fold him a bargain; a goose that's flat;

Sir, your penny-worth is good, an' your goose be fat, To fell a bargain well is as cunning as faft and loose. Let me fee a fat l'envoy; that's a fat goose.

Arm. Come hither, come hither;

How did this argument begin?

Moth. By faying, that a Costard was broken in a fhin. Then call'd you for a l'envoy.

Coft. True, and I for a plantain ;

Thus came the argument in;

Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought,, And he ended the market.

Arm. But tell me; how was there a * Coftard broken in a fhin?

Moth. I will tell you fenfibly.

Coft. Thou haft no feeling of it, Moth. I will fpeak that l'envoy.

Coftard running out, that was fafely within,, Fell over the threshold, and broke my fhin.

Arm. We will talk no more of this matter.. Coft. "Till there be more matter in the fhin.. Arm. Sirrah, Coftard, I will infranchise thee. Coft. O, marry me to one Francis;, I fmell fome l'envoy, fome goose in this.

Arm. By my fweet foul, I mean, fetting thee at li berty; enfreedoming thy perfon; thou wert immur'd, reftrained, captivated, bound.

Coft. True, true, and now you will be my purga-tion, and let me loofe.

Arm. I give thee thy liberty, fet thee from durance,. and, in lieu thereof, impofe on thee nothing but this bear this fignificant to the country-maid Jaquenetta; there is remuneration; [Giving him fomething.] for the best ward of mine honours is rewarding my dependants. Moth, follow.

[Exit.

Math. Like the fequel, I (8). Signior Coftard, adieu.

*Coffard is the name of a species of apple.

[Exit..

(8) Like the fequel, I.] Sequele, in French, fignifies a great The joke is that a fingle page was all his train.

man's train.

WARBURTON.

Coft.