O, if in black my lady's brow be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and ufurping hair Should ravish doters with a false afpect;

And therefore is fhe born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now: And therefere red that would avoid difpraise,

Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-fweepers black.

Long. And fince her time, are colliers counted bright.

King. And Ethiops of their fweet complexion

crack.

Dum. Dark needs no candle now, for dark is

light.

Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colours fhould be wash'd away. King. 'Twere good, yours did for, Sir, to tell you plain,

I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to day.

Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-day

here.

King. No devil will fright thee then fo much as

fhe.

Dum. I never knew man hold vile ftuff fo dear. Long. Look, here's thy love; my foot and her face

fee.

[Showing his fhoe.

knowing nothing of the other fignification of crete from creta, critically altered it to the English way of fpelling, crefte. WARBURTON.

This emendation cannot be received till its authour can prove that crete is an English word. Befides, creft is here properly oppofed to badge. Black, fays the King, is the badge of bell, but that which graces the heaven is the creft of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. JOHNSON.

Biron. O, if the streets were paved with thine

eyes,

Her feet were too much dainty for fuch tread! Dum. O vile! then as he goes, what upward lies The street should fee as fhe walk'd over head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biren. Nothing fo fure, and thereby all forfworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron,

now prove,

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum. Ay, marry, there ;-fome flattery for this

evil.

Long. O, fome authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, fome quillets, how to cheat the devil. 7 Dum. Some falve for perjury.

Biron. O, 'tis more than need!

Have at you then, affection's men at arms:
Confider, what you firft did swear unto ;-
To fast, to ftudy, and to fee no woman;
Flat treafon 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abftinence ingenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you had forfworn his book.
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of ftudy's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?

7 Some tricks, fome quillets, bow to cheat the devil.] Quillet is the peculiar word applied to law-chicane. I imagine the original to be this, in the French pleadings, every feveral allegation in the plaintiff's charge, and every diftinct plea in the defendant's anfwer, began with the words qu'il eft ;-from whence was formed the word quilt, to fignify a falfe charge or an evafive answer. WARBURTON. -affection's men at arms :] A man at arms, is a foldier armed at all points both offenfively and defenfively. It is no more than, Y Joldiers of affection. JOHNSON.

VOL. II.

Ee

From

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive; They are the ground, the book, the academes, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire i Why, univerfal plodding prifons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries;

2

As motion, and long-during action, tires
The finewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forfworn the ufe of eyes;
And study too, the caufer of your vow.
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye;
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.
Then, when ourselves we fee in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewife fee our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forfworn our books:
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
3 In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes

Of

From women's eyes, &c.]This and the two following lines are omitted, I fuppofe, by mere overfight in Dr. Warburton's edition. JOHNSON. 'The nimble fpirits in the arteries ;] In the old fyftem of phyfic they gave the fame office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves; as appears from the name which is derived from sagt. WARBURTON. 2 Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye ?] i. e. a lady's eyes give 2 fuller notion of beauty than any authour. JOHNSON.

In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers- -]

Alluding to the discoveries in modern aftronomy; at that time greatly improving, in which the ladies' eyes are compared, as ufual, to fars. He calls them numbers, alluding to the Pythagorean principles of aftronomy, which were founded on the laws of harmony. The Oxford editor, who was at a lofs for the conceit, changes numbers to notions, and fo lofes both the fenfe and the gal

lantry

Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other flow arts entirely keep the brain
And therefore finding barren practifers,
Scarce fhew a harvest of their heavy toil.
But love, firft learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious feeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the loweft found,
When the fufpicious head of theft is flopt.4
Love's feeling is more foft and fenfible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled fnails.
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus grofs in tafte:
For valour is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?

Subtle

lantry of the allufion. He has better luck in the following line, and has rightly changed beauty's to beauteous. WARBURTON.

Numbers are, in this paffage, nothing more than poetical meas fures. Could you, fays Biron, by folitary contemplation, have attained fuch poetical fire, fuch fpritely numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty? The aftronomer, by looking too much aloft, falls into a ditch. JOHNSON.

-the fufpicious head of theft is flopp'd.] i. e. a lover in purfuit of his millrefs has his fenfe of hearing quicker than a thief (who fufpects every found he hears) in purfuit of his prey. But Mr. Theobald fays, there is no contraft between a lover and a thief: and therefore alters it to thrift, between which and love, he fays, there is a remarkable antithefis. What he means by contraft and antithefis, I confefs, I don't understand. But 'tis no matter: the common reading is fenfe; and that is better than either one or the other. WARBURTON.

5 For valour is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?]

The poet is here obferving how all the fenfes are refined by love. But what has the poor fenfe of Smelling done, not to keep its place among its brethren? Then Hercules's valour was not in climbing

E e 2

be

Subtle as fphinx; as sweet and mufical

As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair:
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the Gods *
Makes heaven drowfy with the harmony.

Never

the trees, but in attacking the dragon gardant. I rather think, that for valour we should read favour, and the poet meant, that Hercules was allured by the odour and fragrancy of the golden apples. THEOBALD.

As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair :] This expreffion. like that other in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, of

Orpheus' harp was ftrung with poet's finews,

is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the fun, is represented with golden hair; fo that a lute ftrung with his hair, means no more than ftrung with gilded wire.

WARBURTON.

How much more fublime is the imagination of our poet, which represents that inftrument as ftrung with the fun-beams, which in poetry are called Apollo's hair. REVISAL.

And when love speaks the voice of all the Gods
Makes beaven drowly with the barmony!]

This nonsense we should read and point thus,

And when love speaks the voice of all the Gods,
Mark, heaven drowft with the harmony.

i. e. in the voice of love alone is included the voice of all the
Gods. Alluding to that ancient Theogony, that Love was the
Hence, as Suidas tells us,
parent and fupport of all the Gods.
Palæphatus wrote a poem called, "Aqgodine "Egxi parù ý hó30.
The voice and Speech of Venus and Love, which appears to have been
a kind of cofmogony, the harmony of which is fo great, that it
calms and allays all kinds of diforders; alluding again to the
antient use of mufic, which was to compose monarchs, when, by
reafon of the cares of empire, they used to pass whole nights in
reftlefs inquietude. WARBURTON.

The ancient reading is,

Make heaven

JOHNSON.

I cannot find any reafon for this emendation, nor do I believe the poet to have been at all acquainted with that ancient theogony mentioned by the critic. The former reading, with the flight addition of a fingle letter, was, perhaps, the true one. When LOVE peaks, (fays Biron) the affembled Gods reduce the element of the sky to a calm, by their barmonious applaufes of this favoured orator.