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Enter Rofalind, with a paper.

Rof. From the east to western Inde,
No jewel is like Rofalind,

Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rofalind.
All the pictures, fairest limn'd,
Are but black to Rofalind.

Let no face be kept in mind,

But the face of Rosalind.

Clo. I'll rhime you fo, eight years together; dinners, and fuppers, and fleeping hours excepted: it is the right butter-woman's rate to market*.

Rof. Out, fool!
Clo. For a taste-

If a bart doth lack a bind,
Let him feek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So, be fure, will Rofalind.
Winter-garments must be lind,
So muft flender Rosalind.

They, that reap, must sheaf and bind;
Then to Cart with Rofalind.
Sweetest nut bath fowreft rind,
Such a nut is Rofalind.

He that fweeteft rose will find,

Muft find love's prick, and Rofalind.

This is the very falfe gallop of verfes; why do you infect yourself with them?

4 Rate to market. So Sir T. Hanmer. In the former Éditions rank to market.

Rof.

Rof. Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree. Clo. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

Rof. I'll graff it with you, and then I fhall graff it with a medler; then it will be the earliest fruit i'th' country; for you will be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medler.

Clo. You have faid, but whether wifely or no, let the Forest judge.

SCENE V.

Enter Celia, with a writing.

Rof. Peace, here comes my Sifter reading; ftand afide.

Cel. Why should this a Defert be,
For it is unpeopled? No;
Tongues I'll bang on every tree,
That fhall civil fayings show.
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage;
That the ftretching of a Span
Buckles in bis fum of age;
Some of violated vows,

'Twixt the fouls of friend and friend;

But upon the fairest boughs,

Or at every fentence' end,

Will I Rofalinda write;

Teaching all that read, to know,
This Quinteffence of every Sprite
Heaven would in little fhow.

That fhall civil fayings show.] Civil is here ufed in the fame fense as when we fay civil wifdom or civil life, in oppofition to a folitary state, or to the state

of nature. This defart shall not appear unpeopled, for every tree fhall teach the maxims or incidents of focial life.

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Therefore

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Therefore beaven nature charg'do,
That one body fhould be fill'd
With all graces wide enlarg'd;
Nature prefently diftill'd
Helen's cheeks, but not her heart,
Cleopatra's majefty;
Atalanta's better part7;

8 Sad Lucretia's modefty.
Thus Rofalind of many parts

By heav'nly fynod was devis'd;
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,

To have the Touches dearest priz❜d.
Heav'n would that she thefe gifts fhould have,
And I fhould live and die her flave.

Rof. O moft gentle Jupiter'!-what tedious homily of love have you wearied your Parishioners withall, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people!

6

Therefore beaven nature charg'd.] From the picture of Apelles, or the accomplishments of Pandora.

Πανδώρην, ὅτι πάνες ὀλύμπια δώματ ̓ ἔχουλες

Δῶρον ἐδώρησαν.
So before,

But thou

better part feems to have been her heels, and the worse part was fo bad that Rofalind would not thank her lover for the comparifon. There is a more obfcure Atalanta, a huntress and a Heroine; but of her nothing bad is recorded, and therefore I know not which was the better part.

So perfect, and so peerless art Shakespeare was no defpicable

counted

Of ev'ry creature's beft.

Tempeft. Perhaps from this paffage Swift had his hint of Biddy Floyd.

7 Atalanta's better part.] I know not well what could be the better part of Atalanta here afcribed to Rofalind. Of the Atalanta molt celebrated, and who therefore muft be intended here where he has no epithet of difcrimination, the

Mythologist, yet he seems here to have mistaken fome other character for that of Atalanta.

8 Sad, is grave, fober, not light. 9 The Touches.] The features; les traits.

O most gentle JUPITER!] We fhould read JUNIPER, as the following words fhew, alluding to the proverbial term of a Juni per lecture: A fharp or unpleafing one! Juniper being a rough prickly plant. WARBURTON.

Surely Jupiter may stand.

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Cel. How now? back-friends!-shepherd, go off a little- go with him, firrah.

Clo Come, fhepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; tho' not with bag and baggage, yet with fcrip and ferippage. Exeunt Corin and Clown.

SCENE VI.

Cel. Didft thou hear these verses?

Rof. O yes, I heard them all, and more too; for fome of them had in them more feet than the verses. would bear.

Cel. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.

Rof. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

Cel. But didft thou hear, without wondring, how thy name fhould be hang'd and carv'd upon these trees?

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Rof I was feven of the nine days out of wonder, before you came; for, look here, what I found on a palm-tree; I was never fo be-rhimed fince Pythagoras's time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.

Cel. Trow you, who hath done this?
Rof. Is it a man?

2 I was never fo be-rhymed fince Pythagoras's time, that I was an Irish rat.] Rojalind is a very learned Lady. She alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine, which teaches that fouls tranfmigrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time fhe was an Irish rat, and by fome metrical charm was rhymed to death.

The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his fatires, and Temple in his treatifes. Dr. Gray has produced a fimilar paffage from Randolph. My Poets

Shall with a faytire freeped in vinegar

Rhyme them to death, as they do rats in Ireland.

E 4

Cel.

Cel. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour?

Rf. I pr'ythee, who?

Cel. O Lord, Lord, it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be remov'd with earthquakes, and fo encounter.

Ref. Nay, but who is it?
Cel. Is it poffible?

Rof. Nay, I pr'ythee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping

3

Rof. Good my complexion! doft thou think, though I am caparifon'd like a man, I have a doublet and hofe in my difpofition? One inch of delay more is a South-fea of difcovery. I pr'ythee, tell me, who is it; quickly, and fpeak apace; I would thou couldst ftammer, that thou might'ft pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrowmouth'd bottle; either too much at once, or none at

3 Good my complexion!] This is a mode of expreffion, Mr. Theobald fays, which he cannot reconcile to common fenfe. Like enough; and fo too the Oxford Editor. But the meaning is, Hold good my complexion, i. e. let me not blush. WARBURTON. 4 One inch of delay more is a South fea of difcovery ] This is ftark nonfenfe; we must readoff discovery, i. e. from difcovery. "If you delay me one " inch of time longer, I fhall "think this fecret as far from difcovery as the South fea is." WARBURTON. This fentence is rightly noted by the Commentator as fenfe, but not fo happily re

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non

ftored to fenfe. I read thus:

One inch of delay more is a South fea. Discover, I pr'ythee: tell me who is it quickly!-When the tranfcriber had once made difcovery from difcover, I, he eafily put an article after SouthSea. But it may be read with fill lefs change, and with equal probability. Every Inch of delay more is a South fea discovery: Every delay, however short, is to me tedious and irkfome as the longeft voyages, as a voyage of difcovery on the South-fea. How much voyages to the South-fea, on which the English had then firft ventured, engaged the converfation of that time, may be eafily imagined.

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