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CEL. I would sing my song without a burden: thou bring'st me out of tune.

Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.

Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES.

CEL. You bring me out:-Soft! comes he not here?

Ros. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him.

[CELIA and ROSALIND retire. JAQ. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

ORL. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.

JAQ. God be with you; let's meet as little as

we can.

ORL. I do desire we may be better strangers. JAQ. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

JAQ. Rosalind is your love's name?

ORL. Yes, just.

JAQ. I do not like her name.

ORL. There was no thought of pleasing you, when she was christen'd.

JAQ. What stature is she of?

intended between heart and hart. In our author's time the latter word was often written instead of heart, as it is in the present instance, in the old copy of this play. MALONE.

ORL. Just as high as my heart.

JAQ. You are full of pretty answers: Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings?

ORL. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions.

but I answer you right painted cloth,] This alludes to the fashion in old tapestry hangings, of mottos and moral sentences from the mouths of the figures worked or painted in them. The poet again hints at this custom, in his poem, called, Tarquin aud Lucrece :

"Who fears a sentence, or an old man's saw,

"Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe." THEOBALD. So, in Barnaby Riche's Soldier's Wishe to Britons Welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, &c. 1604, p. 1: "It is enough for him that can but robbe a painted cloth of a historie, a booke of a discourse, a fool of a fashion, &c.

The same allusion is common to many of our old plays. So, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599: "Now will I see if my memory will serve for some proverbs. O, a painted cloth were as well worth a shilling, as a thief is worth a halter."

Again, in A Match at Midnight, 1633:

"There's a witty posy for you.

66 -No, no; I'll have one shall savour of a saw.
"Why then 'twill smell of the painted cloth."

Again, in The Muses' Looking Glass, by Randolph, 1638:
I have seen in Mother Redcap's hall

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"In painted cloth, the story of the prodigal." From this last quotation we may suppose that the rooms in publick houses were usually hung with what Falstaff calls water-work. On these hangings, perhaps, moral sentences were depicted as issuing from the mouths of the different characters represented.

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Again, in Sir Thomas More's English Works, printed by Rastell, 1557: "Mayster Thomas More in hys youth devysed in hys father's house in London, a goodly hangyng of fyne paynted clothe, with nine pageauntes, and verses over every of those pageauntes; which verses expressed and declared what the ymages in those pageauntes represented: and also in those

JAQ. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery.

pageauntes were paynted the thynges that the verses over them dyd (in effecte) declare."

Of the present phraseology there is an instance in King John:

"He speaks plain cannon-fire, and bounce, and smoke." STEEVENS.

I answer you right painted cloth, may mean, I give you a true painted cloth answer; as we say, she talks right Billingsgate that is, exactly such language as is used at Billingsgate. JOHNSON.

:

This singular phrase may be justified by another of the same kind in King Henry V :

"I speak to thee plain soldier."

Again, in Twelfth-Night:

"He speaks nothing but madman."

There is no need of Sir T. Hanmer's alteration: " I answer you right in the style of painted cloth." We had before in this play, "It is the right butter-woman's rate to market." So, in Golding's translation of Ovid, 1567:

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the look of it was right a maiden's look." I suppose Orlando means to say, that Jaques's questions have no more of novelty or shrewdness in them than the trite maxims of the painted cloth. The following lines, which are found in a book with this fantastick title,-No whipping nor tripping, but a kind of friendly snipping, octavo, 1601, may serve as a specimen of painted cloth language:

Read what is written on the painted cloth:

"Do no man wrong; be good unto the poor;
"Beware the mouse, the maggot and the moth,
"And ever have an eye unto the door;
"Trust not a fool, a villain, nor a whore;

"Go neat, not gay, and spend but as you spare ; "And turn the colt to pasture with the mare;" &c. That moral sentences were wrought in these painted cloths, is ascertained by the following passage in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pitifull, &c. by Dr. Willyam Bulleyne, 1564, (sign. H 5.) which has been already quoted: "This is a comelie parlour, and faire clothes, with pleasaunte borders aboute the same, with many wise sayings painted upon them.”

MALONE,

ORL. I will chide no breather in the world," but myself; against whom I know most faults.

JAQ. The worst fault you have, is to be in love. ORL. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

JAQ. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool, when I found you.

ORL. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him.

JAQ. There shall I see mine own figure.

ORL. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cypher.

JAQ. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good signior love.

ORL. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monsieur melancholy.

[Exit JAQUES.-CELIA and ROSALIND come forward.

Ros. I will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.-Do you hear, forester?

ORL. Very well; What would you?

Ros. I pray you, what is't a clock?

ORL. You should ask me, what time o'day; there's no clock in the forest.

Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour,

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—no breather in the world,] So, in our author's 81st Sonnet:

"When all the breathers of this world are dead." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"She shows a body, rather than a life;

"A statue, than a breather." MALONE.

would detect the lazy foot of time, as well as a clock.

ORL. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.

ORL. I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal?

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage,' and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight, time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years.

ORL. Who ambles time withal?

Ros. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one sleeps easily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain: the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning; the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury: These time ambles withal.

ORL. Who doth he gallop withal?

Ros. With a thief to the gallows: for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

ORL. Who stays it still withal?

Ros. With lawyers in the vacation: for they sleep

Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract &c.] And yet, in Much Ado about Nothing, our author tells us, "Time goes on crutches, till love hath all his rites.” In both passages, however, the interim is equally represented as tedious. MALONE.

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