foolery, that wise men have, makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.

Enter LE BEAU.

Ros. With his mouth full of news.

CEL. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

Ros. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.

CEL. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: What's

the news?

LE BEAU. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

CEL. Sport? Of what colour?

LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?

Ros. As wit and fortune will.

TOUCH. Or as the destinies decree.

CEL. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel."
TOUCH. Nay, if I keep not my rank,-
Ros. Thou losest thy old smell.

• laid on with a trowel.] I suppose the meaning is, that there is too heavy a mass of big words laid upon a slight subject. JOHNSON.

This is a proverbial expression, which is generally used to signify a glaring falshood. See Ray's Proverbs. STEEVENS.

It means a good round hit, thrown in without judgment or design. RITSON.

To lay on with a trowel, is, to do any thing strongly, and without delicacy. If a man flatters grossly, it is a common expression to say, that he lays it on with a trowel. M. MASON.

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LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which lost the sight of.

you have Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

CEL. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.

LE BEAU. There comes an old man, and his three sons,

CEL. I could match this beginning with an old tale.

LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence; ;

Ros. With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by these presents,'

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• You amaze me, ladies :] To amaze, here, is not to astonish or strike with wonder, but to perplex; to confuse, so as to put out of the intended narrative. JOHNSON.

So, in Cymbeline, Act IV. sc. iii.

"I am amazed with matter."

STEEVENS.

• With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by these presents,] The ladies and the fool, according to the mode of wit at that time, are at a kind of cross purposes. Where the words of one speaker are wrested by another, in a repartee, to a different meaning. As where the Clown says just beforeNay, if I keep not my rank. Rosalind replies-Thou losest thy old smell. So here when Rosalind had said-With bills on their necks, the Clown, to be quits with her, puts in-Know all men by these presents. She spoke of an instrument of war, and he turns it to an instrument of law of the same name, beginning with these words: So that they must be given to him.

WARBURTON. This conjecture is ingenious. Where meaning is so very thin,

LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he served

as in this vein of jocularity, it is hard to catch, and therefore I know not well what to determine; but I cannot see why Rosalind should suppose, that the competitors in a wrestling match carried bills on their shoulders, and I believe the whole conceit is in the poor resemblance of presence and presents. JOHNSON.

With bills on their necks, should be the conclusion of Le Beau's speech. Mr. Edwards ridicules Dr. Warburton, "As if people carried such instruments of war, as bills and guns on their necks, not on their shoulders!" But unluckily the ridicule falls upon himself. Lassels, in his Voyage of Italy, says of tutors, "Some persuade their pupils, that it is fine carrying a gun upon their necks." But what is still more, the expression is taken immediately from Lodge, who furnished our author with his plot. "Ganimede on a day sitting with Aliena, (the assumed names, as in the play,) cast up her eye, and saw where Rosader came pacing towards them with his forest-bill on his necke.”

FARMER.

The quibble may be countenanced by the following passage in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612:

"Good-morrow, taylor, I abhor bills in a morning"But thou may'st watch at night with bill in hand."

Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book I:

66 with a sword by his side, a forest-bille on his
necke," &c.

Again, in Rowley's When you see me you know me, 1621:
"Enter King, and Compton, with bills on his back.”

Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

Again:

"And each of you a good bat on his neck.”

66 are you not big enough to bear
"Your bats upon your necks?"

STEEVENS.

I don't think that by bill is meant either an instrument of war, or one of law, but merely a label or advertisement-as we say a play-bill, a hand-bill; unless Farmer's ingenious amendment be admitted, and these words become part of Le Beau's speech; in which case the word bill would be used by him to denote a weapon, and by Rosalind perverted to mean a label. M. MASON.

the second, and so the third: Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them, that all the beholders take his part with weeping.

Ros. Alas!

TOUCH. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost?

LE BEAU. Why, this that I speak of.

TOUCH. Thus men may grow wiser every day! it is the first time that ever I heard, breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.

CEL. Or I, I promise thee.

Ros. But is there any else longs to see this broken musick in his sides? is there yet another dotes

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is there any else longs to see this broken musick in his sides?] A stupid error in the copies. They are talking here of some who had their ribs broke in wrestling: and the pleasantry of Rosalind's repartee must consist in the allusion she makes to composing in musick. It necessarily follows, therefore, that the poet wrote-SET this broken musick in his sides.

WARBURTON.

If any change were necessary, I should write, feel this broken musick, for see. But see is the colloquial term for perception or experiment. So we say every day; see if the water be hot; I will see which is the best time; she has tried, and sees that she cannot lift it. In this sense see may be here used. The sufferer can, with no propriety, be said to set the musick; neither is the allusion to the act of tuning an instrument, or pricking a tune, one of which must be meant by setting musick. Rosalind hints at a whimsical similitude between the series of ribs gradually shortening, and some musical instruments, and therefore calls broken ribs, broken musick. JOHNSON.

This probably alludes to the pipe of Pan, which consisting of reeds of unequal length, and gradually lessening, bore some resemblance to the ribs of a man. M. MASON.

Broken musick either means the noise which the breaking of ribs would occasion, or the hollow sound which proceeds from a person's receiving a violent fall. DOUCE.

upon rib-breaking?-Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

LE BEAU. You must, if you stay here: for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.

CEL. Yonder, sure, they are coming: Let us now stay and see it.

Flourish.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants.

DUKE F. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness.

Ros. Is yonder the man?

LE BEAU. Even he, madam.

CEL. Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully.

DUKE F. How now, daughter, and cousin? are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

Ros. Ay, my liege? so please you give us leave.

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DUKE F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds in the men: In pity of the challenger's youth, I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated: Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him.

CEL. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.

I can offer no legitimate explanation of this passage, but may observe that another, somewhat parallel, occurs in K. Henry V "Come, your answer in broken musick; for thy voice is musick, and thy English broken." STEevens.

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odds in the men:] Sir T. Hanmer. In the old editions, the man. JOHNSON.