1.

This article, my liege, your self must break;

For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French King's daughter with your self to speak,

A maid of grace and compleat majesty, About Surrender up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father :
Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes th' admired Princess hither.
King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite

forgot.
Biron. So Itudy evermore is overshot;
While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should:
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
'Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, fo loft.

King. We must of force dispense with this decree,
She must lye here on mere necessity.
Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn

Three thousand times within this three years space:
For every man with his affects is born:

Not by might master'd, but by special grace.
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
I am forsworn on meer necessity.
So to the laws at large I write my name,

And he, that breaks them in the least degree,
Stands in attainder of eternal shame.

Suggeftions are to others, as to me;
But, I believe, although I seem so loth,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quick recreation granted ?
King. Ay, that there is; our Court, you know, is

haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain,
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,

That hath a mint of phrases in his brain :
One, whom the musick of his own vain tongue

Doth ravish, like inchanting harmony:
A man of complements, whom right and wrong

Have chofe as umpire of their mutiny.

This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a Knight

From tawny Spain, loft in the world's debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, i proteft, I love to hear him lie;
And I will use him for my minstrelsie.

Biron. Armado is a moft'illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion's own Knight.

Long. Cofiard the swain, and he, shall be our sport; And, so to study, three years are but short.

Enter Dull, and Costard with a letter. Dull. Which is the King's own person? (5) Biron. This, fellow; what would'ft? i

Dull. I my self reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's Tharborough: but I would see his own perfon in Alesh and blood.

Biron. This is he. Dull. Signior Arme, Arme commends you. There's villany abroad; this letter will tell you more.

Coft. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me. King. A letter from the magnificent Armado.

Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

Long. A high hope for a low having ; God grant us patience! (6)

Biron.

(5) Dull. which is the Duke's own Person?) The King of Navarre is in several Passages, thro' all the Copies, call'd the Duke: but as this must have sprung rather from the Inadvertence of the Editors, than a Forgetfulness in the Poet, I have everywhere, to avoid Confusion, restor'd King to the Text.

(6) A high hope for a low heaven; ] A low beaver, sure, is a very intricate Matter to conceive. But our accurate Editors seem to observe the Rule of Horace, whenever a moot Point staggers them, dignus vindice nodus ; and where they cannot overcome a Difficulty, they bring in Heaven to untie the Knot. As God grant us Patience immediately preceded, they thought, Heaven of Consequence must follow. But, í dare warrant, I have retriev'd the Poet's true Reading ; and the Meaning is this. “ Tho' you hope for high Words, and should have “ chem, it will be but a low Acquisition at best.”. This our Poet

calls.

Biron. To hear, or forbear hearing?

Long. To hear meekly, Şir, to laugh moderately, or to forbear both.

Biron. Well, Sir, be it as the stile shall give us cause to climb in the merriness. Coft. The matter is to me, Sir, as concerning Ja

quenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

Biron. In what manner?

Cost. In manner and form, following, Sir ; all those three. I was seen with her in the Manor-house, Gitting with her upon the Form, and taken following her into the park ; which, put together, is, in manner and form following. Now Sir, for the manner: It is the manner of a man to speak to a woman; for the form, in some form.

Biron. For the following, Sir?

Cojt. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the right!

King. Will you hear the letter with attention?
Biron. As we would hear an oracle.

calls a low Having: and it is a Substantive, which he uses in several other Passages.

Merry Wives of Windsor.

Not by my Consent, I promise You : the Gentleman is of no Having, be kept Company with the wild Prince and Poinz. K. Henry VIII.

Our Content
Is our best Having.
And again afterwards ;

But pard my present Havings, to bestow

My Bounties upon you. Timon of Athens.

The greatest of your Having lacks a balf

To pay your presént debt. And in many other places. So, amongst the older Romans, they made a Substantive of Habentia, in the like Signification. Nonius Marcellus furnishes an Authority from Claudius Quadrigarius his Annals. Verebar enìm ne Animos eorum inflaret habentia. For I was afraid left their Havings (i. e. their Riches, large Circumstances) should elate their Minds. St. Auflin likewise, in the lower Age of Latinity, uses it in the fame Manner. And the Spaniards have from thence form'd their hazienda, which fignifies either Wealth, Poffeffions, Ability, or Business.

Coff,

Coft. Such is the fimplicity of man to hearken after the Aesh.

King

GR

Reat deputy, the welkin's vice-gerent; and fole reads. dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fojtring påtron Coft. Not a word of Costard yeti King. So it is

Coft. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.

King Peace
Coft. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!
King. No words.
Coft. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

King. So it is, Besieged with. fable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick of thy health-giving air; and as I am a gentleman, betook my self to walk : The time, when? about the fixth hour, when beasts most grazey birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is callcl supper : so much for the time, when. Now for the ground, which : which, I mean, I walkt upon ; it is ycleped, tby parki Then for the place, where ; whereg I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-colour'd ink, which here thou viewesi, beholdest, surveyesty or Seeft. But to the place, where; It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minow of thy mirth, (Cost. Me?), that unletter'd small-knowing Souls (Costa Me?) that mallow vassal, (Coft. Still me?) which, as I remember, hight Costard; ('Colt. O me!) Sorted and conforted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, with, with, O with, but with this I passion to say wherewith: Coft. With a wench.

King. With a child of our grandmother Eve, a female ; or for thy more understanding, a woman ; him, I (as my ever-esteem'd duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to recoive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Vol. II.

H

An

Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing and estimation.

Dull. Me, an't shall please you: I am Anthony Dull.

King. For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessel calld) which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep ber as a vasal of thy law's fury, and Mall at the least of thy sweet notice bring her to tryal. Thine in all complements of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,

Don Adriano de Armado.

Biron. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that ever I heard.

King. Ay; the best for the worst. But, firrah, what say you to this?

Coft. Sir, I confess the wench.
King. Did you hear the proclamation?

Coff. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.

King. It was proclaim'd a year's imprisonment to be taken with a wench.

Coft. I was taken with none, Sir, I was taken with a damosel.

King. Well, it was proclaimed damosel.

Coff. This was no damosel neither, Sir, she was a virgin.

King. It is so varied too, for it was proclaim’d virgin.

Coj. If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.

King. This maid will not serve your turn, Sir.
Coft. This maid will serve my turn, Sir.

King. Sir, I will pronounce sentence; you shall fast a week with bran and water.

Coft. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper. My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er, And go we, lords, to put in practice that,

Which each to other hath so strongly sworn. [Exe. Biron. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat,

Thefe oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn. Sirrah, come on.

Coft.