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Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus !-0 thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts;

And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be

(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he."

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a

fool,

So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:

But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,
Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.

Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam was no

more;

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to five score. The allusion holds in the exchange.9

Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange.

[6] In a play called The Return from Parnassus, 1666, I find the following account of the different appellations of deer at their different ages:

Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is, the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrel; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a compleat buck. Likewise your hart is the first year a calfe; the second year, a brocket; the third year, a spade; the fourth year, a stag; the sixth year, a hart. A roe-buck is the first year, a kid: the second year, a gird; the third year, a hemuse; and these are your special beasts for chase." STEEVENS.

[7] The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The Moralities afford scenes of the like measure. JOHNSON.

[8] The meaning is, to be in a school would ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. JOHNSON.

[9] i. e. the riddle is as good when I use the name of Adam, as when you use the name of Cain. WARBURTON.

Dull. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket. Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket;

Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with

shooting.

The dogs did yell; put I to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket, Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hooting. If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; O sore L!3 Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L. Nath. A rare talent!

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Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.7

Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable,R I

[5] We should read,-of sore L-alluding to L being the numeral for fifty. WARBURTON. [6] In our author's time the talon of a bird was frequently written talent. Hence the quibble here, and in Twelfth Night, "let them use their talents."

MALONE.

[7] Honest Dull quibbles. One of the senses of to claw, is to flatter. STEE [8] Of this double entendre, despicable as it is, Mr. Pope and his coadjutors availed themselves in their unsuccessful comedy called Three Hours After Marriage. STEEV -Capable is used equivocally. One of its senses was reasonable; endowed with a ready capacity to learn. The other wants no explanation.

MALONE!

ACT IV.

will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us

Enter JAQUENETTA and Costard.

Jaq. God give you good-morrow, master person.
Hol. Master person,-quasi pers-on.

should be pierced, which is the one?

And if one

Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho I beseech you, read it.

Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub

umbrâ.

Ruminat,—and so forth.' Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice :

-Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.-Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses?

Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, domine.

Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

[9] So in Holinshed, p. 953, "Garrard was person of Houie-lane." I believe, however, we should write the word-pers-one. The same play on the word -The words one and on were, pierce is put into the mouth of Falstaff. STEEV.

I believe, pronounced nearly alike, at least in some counties, in our author's time; the quibble, therefore, that Mr. Steevens has noted, may have been intended as the text now stands. In the same style afterwards Moth says: "Offer'd by a child MALONE. to an old man, which is wit-old." Person, as Sir W. Blackstone observes in his Commentaries, is the original and proper term; Persona ecclesiæ.

[1] Though all the editions concur to give this speech to sir Nathaniel, yet, as Dr Thirlby ingeniously observed to me, it is evident it must belong to Holofernes. The curate is employed in reading the letter to himself; and while he is dour. 50, that the stage may not stand still, Holofernes either pulls out a book, or, repeating Some verse by heart from Mantuanus, comments upon the character of that poet. THEO. Baptista Spagnolus, sirnamed Mantuanus from the place of his birth, was a writer I of poems, who flourished towards the latter end of the 15th century. Vol. III

13

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes; Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend :

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend:

All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;) Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, oh pardon, this wrong,

That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention ? Imitari, is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider.-But damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.'

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snowwhite hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto :

Your ladyship's in all desired employment, Biron. -Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.-Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.

Jag. Good Costard, go with me.-Sir, God save your life! Cost. Have with thee, my girl. [Exe. COST. and JAQ.

[2] Shakespeare forgot himself in this passage. Jaquenetta knew nothing of Bion, and had said, just before, that the letter had been sent to her from Doa Armatho, and given to her by Costard. M. MASON.

Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please you, sir Nathaniel?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. -Sir, [To Dull.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt.

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SCENE III.

Another part of the same. Enter BIRON, with a paper. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch; pitch that defiles; defile! a foul word. Well, Set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep Well proved again on my side! I will not love if I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye, by this light, but for her 'eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a tree.

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JOHNSON.

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[3] That is, sperious, or fair seeming appearances [4] Alluding to lady Rosaline's complexion, who is through the whole play represented as a black beauty. JOHNSON.

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