Have left me issueless; and your father's bless'd,
(As he from heaven merits it,) with you,
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
Such goodly things as you?

Enter a Lord.

LORD. Most noble sir, That, which I shall report, will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself, by me: Desires you to attach his son; who has (His dignity and duty both cast off,) Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd's daughter.

LEON.

Where's Bohemia? speak.

LORD. Here in the city; I now came from him: I speak amazedly; and it becomes My marvel, and my message. Το your court Whiles he was hast'ning, (in the chase, it seems, Of this fair couple,) meets he on the way The father of this seeming lady, and

Her brother, having both their country quitted With this young prince.

FLO.

Camillo has betray'd me; Whose honour, and whose honesty, till now, Endur'd all weathers.

LORD. Lay't so, to his charge; He's with the king your father.

LEON.

Who? Camillo ? LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now

Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;
Forswear themselves as often as they speak:
Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
With divers deaths in death.

PER.

O, my poor father!— The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated.

LEON.

You are married?

FLO. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be; The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first: The odds for high and low's alike.'

LEON.

Is this the daughter of a king?

FLO.

She is,

When once she is my wife.

LEON. That once, I see, by your good father's speed,

Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
Where you were tied in duty: and as sorry,
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,2

My lord,

9

in question] i. e. conversation. So, in As you like it: "I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him." STEEVENS.

1 The odds for high and low's alike.] A quibble upon the false dice so called. See note in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Vol. V. p. 45, n. 9. DOUCE.

• Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,] Worth signi fies any kind of worthiness, and among others that of high descent. The King means that he is sorry the Prince's choice is not in other respects as worthy of him as in beauty. JOHNSON.

Our author often uses worth for wealth; which may also, together with high birth, be here in contemplation. MALONE.

So, in Twelfth-Night:

"But were my worth as is my conscience firm," &c.

STEEVENS.

That you might well enjoy her.

Dear, look up:

FLO. Though fortune, visible an enemy, Should chase us, with my father; power no jot Hath she, to change our loves.-'Beseech you, sir, Remember since you ow'd no more to time 3 Than I do now: with thought of such affections, Step forth mine advocate; at your request, My father will grant precious things, as trifles. LEON. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,

Which he counts but a trifle.

PAUL

Sir, my liege,

Your eye hath too much youth in't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now.

LEON.
I thought of her,
Even in these looks I made.-But your petition
[TO FLORIZEL.

Is yet unanswer'd: I will to your father;
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
I am a friend to them, and you: upon which errand
I now go toward him; therefore, follow me,
And mark what way I make: Come, good my lord.

[Exeunt.

VOL. IX.

3 Remember since you ow'd no more to time &c.] Recollect the period when you were of my age. MALONE.

D D

SCENE II.

The same. Before the Palace.

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.

AUT. 'Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

1 GENT. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this, methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

AUT. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 1 GENT. I make a broken delivery of the business;-But the changes I perceived in the king, and Camillo, were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they łooked, as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: A notable passion of wonder appeared in them: but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say, if the importance were joy, or sorrow: but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.

Enter another Gentleman.

Here comes a gentleman, that, happily, knows more: The news, Rogero?

if the importance were joy, or sorrow;] Importance here means, the thing imported. M. MASON.

2 GENT. Nothing but bonfires: The oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour, that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.

Enter a third Gentleman.

Here comes the lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more.-How -How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: Has the king found his heir?

3 GENT. Most true; if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that, which you hear, you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of queen Hermione:-her jewel about the neck of it-the letters of Antigonus, found with it, which they know to be his character:-the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother; -the affection of nobleness," which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences, proclaim her, with all certainty, to be the king's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

5

the affection of nobleness,] Affection here perhaps means disposition or quality. The word seems to be used nearly in the same sense in the following title: "The first set of Italian Madrigalls Englished, not to the sense of the original ditty, but to the affection of the noate," &c. By Thomas Watson, quarto, 1590. Affection is used in Hamlet for affectation, but that can hardly be the meaning here.

Perhaps both here and in King Henry IV. affection is used for propensity:

66

in speech, in gait,

"In diet, in affections of delight,

"In military exercises, humours of blood,

"He was the mark and glass," &c. MALONE.