your followers; for it appears by their bare liveries, that they live by your bare words.

SIL. No more, gentlemen, no more; here comes my father.

Enter DUKE.

DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset. Sir Valentine, your father's in good health: What say you to a letter from your friends Of much good news?

VAL.

My lord, I will be thankful To any happy messenger from thence.

DUKE. Know you Don Antonio, your countryman ?9

VAL. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman To be of worth, and worthy estimation, And not without desert' so well reputed.

DUKE. Hath he not a son?

VAL. Ay, my good lord; a son, that well deserves The honour and regard of such a father.

DUKE. You know him well?

VAL. I knew him, as myself; for from our infancy We have convers'd, and spent our hours together: And though myself have been an idle truant, Omitting the sweet benefit of time,

To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection;

9 Know you Don Antonio, your countryman?] The word Don should be omitted; as besides the injury it does to the metre, the characters are Italians, not Spaniards. Had the measure admitted it, Shakspeare would have written Signor. And yet, after making this remark, I noticed Don Alphonso in a preceding But for all that, the remark may be just. RITSON. not without desert-] And not dignified with so much reputation without proportionate merit. JOHNSON.

scene.

1

Yet hath sir Proteus, for that's his name,
Made use and fair advantage of his days:
His years but young, but his experience old;
His head unmellow'd, but his judgement ripe;
And, in a word, (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow,)
He is complete in feature, and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but, if he make this good,
He is as worthy for an empress' love,
As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
Well, sir; this gentleman is come to me,
With commendation from great potentates;
And here he means to spend his time a-while :
I think, 'tis no unwelcome news to you.

VAL. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he. DUKE. Welcome him then according to his worth; Silvia, I speak to you; and you, sir Thurio:For Valentine, I need not 'cite him to it: 2 I'll send him hither to you presently. [Exit DUKE. VAL. This is the gentleman, I told your ladyship, Had come along with me, but that his mistress Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.

SIL. Belike, that now she hath enfranchis'd them Upon some other pawn for fealty.

VAL. Nay, sure, I think, she holds them prisoners still.

SIL. Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind,

How could he see his way to seek out you?

VAL. Why, lady, love hath twenty pair of eyes. THU. They say, that love hath not an eye at all.

? I need not 'cite him to it :] i. e. incite him to it. MALONE.

VAL. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself; Upon a homely object love can wink.

Enter PROTEUS.

SIL. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.

VAL. Welcome, dear Proteus!-Mistress, I beseech you,

Confirm his welcome with some special favour.

SIL. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither, If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from. VAL. Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.

SIL. Too low a mistress for so high a servant PRO. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant To have a look of such a worthy mistress.

VAL. Leave off discourse of disability :Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant. PRO. My duty will I boast of, nothing else. SIL. And duty never yet did want his meed; Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress. PRO. I'll die on him that says so, but yourself. SIL. That you are welcome?

PRO.

No;

that

you are worthless.3

No; that you are worthless.] I have inserted the particle no, to fill up the measure. JOHNSON.

Perhaps the particle supplied is unnecessary. Worthless was, I believe, used as a trisyllable. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, p. 203. MALONE.

Is worthless a trisyllable in the preceding speech of Silvia? Is there any instance of the licence recommended, respecting the adjective worthless, to be found in Shakspeare, or any other writer? STEEVENS,

Enter Servant.

4

SER. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.

SIL. I'll wait upon his pleasure. [Exit Servant.
Come, Sir Thurio,

Go with me:-Once more, new servant, welcome:
I'll leave you to confer of home-affairs;
When you have done, we look to hear from you.
PRO. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.

[Exeunt SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED. VAL. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?

PRO. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.

VAL. And how do yours?

PRO.

I left them all in health.

VAL. How does your lady? and how thrives your love?

PRO. My tales of love were wont to weary you; I know, you joy not in a love-discourse.

VAL. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now: I have done penance for contemning love; Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me

Ser. Madam, my lord your father-] This speech in all the editions is assigned improperly to Thurio; but he has been all along upon the stage, and could not know that the duke wanted his daughter. Besides, the first line and half of Silvia's answer is evidently addressed to two persons. A servant, therefore, must come in and deliver the message; and then Silvia goes out with Thurio. THEOBALD.

• Whose high imperious-] For whose I read those. I have contemned love and am punished. Those high thoughts, by which

With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;
For, in revenge of my contempt of love,

Love hath chac'd sleep from my enthralled eyes,

And made them watchers of mine own heart's

sorrow.

O, gentle Proteus, love's a mighty lord;
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,

There is no woe to his correction,

6

Nor, to his service, no such joy on earth!
Now, no discourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.

PRO. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye: Was this the idol that you worship so?

VAL. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint? PRO. No; but she is an earthly paragon.

VAL. Call her divine.

PRO.

I will not flatter her.

VAL. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.

I exalted myself above the human passions or frailties, have brought upon me fasts and groans. JOHNSON.

I believe the old copy is right. Imperious is an epithet very frequently applied to love by Shakspeare and his contemporaries. So, in The Famous Historie of George Lord Faukonbridge, 4to. 1616, p. 15: "Such an imperious God is love, and so commanding." A few lines lower Valentine observes, that—" love's a mighty lord." MALONE.

6

no woe to his correction,] No misery that can be com pared to the punishment inflicted by love. Herbert called for the prayers of the liturgy a little before his death, saying, None to them, none to them. JOHNSON.

The same idiom occurs in an old ballad quoted in Cupid's Whirligig, 1616:

"There is no comfort in the world

"To women that are kind." MALONE.