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liness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; For tittles? titles; For thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.

Thine, in the dearest design of industry,
DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

Thus dost thou hear1 the Nemean lion roar

'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before,

And he from forage will incline to play:

But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?
Food for his rage, repasture for his den.

Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited this

letter?

What vane? what weather-cock? Did you ever hear better?

Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style. Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it2 erewhile. 3

Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;

4

A phantasm, a Monarcho,5 and one that makes sport

1 Thus dost thou hear &c.] These six lines appear to be a quotation from some ridiculous poem of that time. Warburton. Musgrave.

2 -going o'er it-] A pun upon the word stile. -erewhile.] Just now; a little while ago. So, Raleigh: "Here lies Hobbinol, our shepherd while e'er." Johnson.

3

4 A phantasm,] On the books of the Stationers' Company, Feb. 6, 1608, is entered: "a book called Phantasm, the Italian Taylor, and his Boy; made by Mr. Armin, servant to his majesty." It probably contains the history of Monarcho, of whom Dr. Farmer speaks in the following note, to which I have subjoined two additional instances. Steevens.

5 a Monarcho;] The allusion is to a fantastical character of the time:" Popular applause (says Meres) doth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other thing, but vaine praise and glorie,-as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and Monarcho that lived about the court." p. 178. Farmer.

In Nash's Have with you to Saffron-Walden, &c. 1595, I meet with the same allusion:-" but now he was an insulting monarch above Monarcho the Italian, that ware crownes in his shoes, and

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Prin. From which lord, to which lady?

Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline.

Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,

away.6

Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day. [Exeunt Prin. and Train.

quite renounced his natural English accents and gestures, and wrested himself wholly to the Italian puntilios," &c.

The succeeding quotations will afford some further intelligence concerning this fantastick being: "I could use an incident for this, which though it may seeme of small weight, yet may it have his misterie with this act, who, being of base condition, placed himself (without any perturbation of minde) in the royall seat of Alexander, which the Caldeans prognosticated to portend the death of Alexander.

"The actors were, that Bergamasco (for his phantastick humors) named Monarcho, and two of the Spanish embassadors retinue, who being about foure and twentie yeares past, in Paules Church in London, contended who was soveraigne of the world: the Monarcho maintained himself to be he, and named their king to be but his viceroy for Spain: the other two with great fury denying it. At which myself, and some of good account, now dead, wondred in respect of the subject they handled, and that want of judgement we looked not for in the Spaniards. Yet this, moreover, we noted, that notwithstanding the weight of their controversie they kept in their walk the Spanish turne: which is, that he which goeth at the right hand, shall at every end of the walke turne in the midst; the which place the Monarcho was loth to yeald (but as they compelled him, though they gave him sometimes that romthe) in respect of his supposed majestie; but I would this were the worst of their ceremonies; the same keeping some decorum concerning equalitie." A briefe Discourse of the Spanish State, with a Dialogue annexed, intituled Philobasilis, 4to. 1590, p. 39.

The reader will pardon one further notice:

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heere comes a souldier, for my life it is a captain Swag: tis even he indeede, I do knowe him by his plume and his scarffe; he looks like a Monarcho of a very cholericke complexion, and as teasty as a goose that hath young goslings," &c. B. Riche's Faults and nothing but Faults, p. 12. Reed.

Boyet. Who is the suitor?" who is the suitor?
Ros.

Shall I teach you to know?

Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.

Ros.

Finely put off!

Why, she that bears the bow.

6 ·Come, lords, away.] Perhaps the princess said rather: Come, ladies, away.

The rest of the scene deserves no care.

Johnson.

7 Who is the suitor?] The old copies read

"Who is the shooter?"

But it should be, Who is the suitor? and this occasions the quib. ble. Finely put on," &c. seem only marginal observations.

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Farmer.

It appears that suitor was anciently pronounced shooter. So, in The Puritan, 1605: the maid informs her mistress that some archers are come to wait on her. She supposes them to be fletchers, or arrow-smiths:

"Enter the suters, &c.

“Why do you not see them before you? are not these archers, what do you call them, shooters? Shooters and archers are all one, I hope?" Steevens.

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Wherever Shakspeare uses words equivocally, as in the present instance, he lays his editor under some embarrassment.When he told Ben Jonson he would stand Godfather to his child, ❝and give him a dozen latten spoons," if we write the word as we have now done, the conceit, such as it is, is lost, at least does not at once appear; if we write it Latin, it becomes absurd. So, in Much Ado about Nothing, Dogberry says, "if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance." If we write the word thus, the constable's equivoque, poor as it is, is lost, at least to the eye. If we write raisins, (between which word and reasons, there was, I believe, no difference at that time of pronunciation) we write nonsense. In the passage before us an equivoque was certainly intended; the words shooter and suitor being (as Mr. Steevens has observed) pronounced alike in Shakspeare's time. So, in Essays and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by G. M. 1618: "The king's guard are counted the strongest archers, but here are better suitors." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, edit. 1623, (owing probably to the transcriber's ear having deceived him)—

"a grief that suits

"My very heart at root-." instead of a grief that shoots.

In Ireland, where, I believe, much of the pronunciation of Queen Elizabeth's age is yet retained, the word suitor is at this day pronounced by the vulgar as if it were written shooter. However, I have followed the spelling of the old copy, as it is sufficiently intelligible. Malone,

Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on!

Ros. Well then, I am the shooter.

Boyet. And who is your deer?8 Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come near. Finely put on, indeed!

Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

Biron. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever9 of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,

Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

[Singing.

[Exeunt Ros. and KATH. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did

hit it.

Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady!

Let the mark have a prick in 't,1 to mete at, if it may be.

8 And who is your deer?] Our author has the same play on this word in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Again, in his Venus and Adonis:

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"I'll be thy park, and thou shalt be my deer."

Malone.

•queen Guinever―] This was King Arthur's queen, not over famous for fidelity to her husband. Mordred the Pickt is supposed to have been her paramour.-See the song of The Boy and the Mantle, in Dr. Percy's Collection.

In Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless addresses Abigail, the old incontinent waiting-woman, by this name. Steevens.

1 Let the mark have a prick in 't,] Thus, says the Princess Floripas in the ancient metrical romance of the Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 56:

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sir Gye my love so free,

"Thou kanste welle hit the pricke;

"He shall make no booste in his contre,
"God gyfe him sorowe thikke."

Mar. Wide o' the bow hand!2 I' faith your hand is

out.

Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he 'll ne'er hit the clout.3

Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in.

Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin.4 Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow

foul.

Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

good owl.

Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my [Exeunt BOYET and MAR. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan!”
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will
swear!_

2 Wide o' the bow hand!] i. e. a good deal to the left of the mark; a term still retained in modern archery. Douce.

3

the clout.] The clout was the white mark at which archers took their aim, The pin was the wooden nail that upheld it. Steevens.

-by cleaving the pin.] Honest Costard would have befriended Dean Milles, whose note on a song in the Pseudo-Rowley's ELLA has exposed him to so much ridicule. See his book, p. 213. The present application of the word pin, might have led the Dean to suspect the qualities of the basket. But what has mirth to do with archæology? Steevens.

5

--

Satire:

-you talk greasily,] i. e. grossly. So, in Marston's third

"when greasy Aretine,

"For his rank fico is sirnam'd divine." Steevens.

6 I fear too much rubbing;] To rub is one of the terms of the bowling green. Boyet's further meaning needs no comment. Malone.

7 to bear her fan!] See a note on Romeo and Juliet, Act II, sc. iv, where Nurse asks Peter for her fan. Steevens.

8

a' will swear!] A line following this seems to have been lost. Malone.

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