Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewife is.
Then, when ourselves we fee in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewife fee our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forfworn our books;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other flow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil :
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious feeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest found,
When the fufpicious head of theft is stopp'd;
Love's feeling is more foft, and fenfible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled fnails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus grofs in taste:
For valour, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?

Subtle as sphinx; as fweet, and musical,

As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair;
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Never durft poet touch a pen to write,

4

Until his ink were temper'd with love's fighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That fhow, contain, and nourish all the world;
Elfe, none at all in aught proves excellent :
Then fools you were, these women to forfwear;
Or, keeping what is fworn, you will prove fools.
For wifdom's fake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's fake, a word that loves all men ;
Or for men's fake, the authors of these women;
Or women's fake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion, to be thus forfworn :

For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can fever love from charity?

KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, foldiers, to the field! BIRON. Advance your ftandards, and upon them,

lords;

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,

In conflict that you get the fun of them.

LONG. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we refolve to woo thefe girls of France?

KING. And win them too: therefore let us devise

Some entertainment for them in their tents.

BIRON. First, from the park let us conduct them thither; Then, homeward, every man attach the hand

Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

We will with fome strange paftime folace them,

Such as the shortnefs of the time can fhape;

For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair Love, ftrewing her way with flowers. .
KING. Away, away! no time fhall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.

BIRON. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn; And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forfworn ; If fo, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt,

ACT V.

SCENE I. Another part of the fame.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL.

HOL. Satis quod fufficit.

fir: your

reafons at din

NATH. I praise God for you, ner have been sharp and fententious; pleasant without fcurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without herefy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

HOL. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrafonical. He is too picked, too fpruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

NATH. A most fingular and choice epithet.

[Takes out his table-book. HOL. He draweth out the thread of his verbofity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor fuch fanatical phantafms, fuch infociable and point-devife companions; fuch rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when

he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it infinuateth me of infanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick.

NATH. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

HOL. Bone ?-bone, for benè: Prifcian a little scratch'd; ''twill ferve.

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.

NATH. Videfne quis venit ?

HOL. Video & gaudeo.

ARM. Chirra !

HOL. Quare Chirra, not firrah?

[TO MOTH

ARM. Men of peace, well encounter'd.

HOL. Most military fir, falutation.

MOTH. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD afide. COST. O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy mafter hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not fo long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon.

MOTH. Peace; the peal begins.

ARM. Monfieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd?

MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches the boys the hornbook:What is a, b, fpelt backward with a horn on his head ? HOL. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Morн. Ba, most filly sheep, with a horn :-You hear his learning.

HOL. Quis, quis, thou confonant?

Morн. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

HOL. I will repeat them, a, e, i.

MOTH. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u. ARM. Now, by the falt wave of the Mediterraneum, a fweet touch, a quick venew of wit: fnip, fnap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

MоTн. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

HOL. What is the figure? what is the figure ?
MOTH. Horns.

HOL. Thou disputest like an infant go, whip thy gig. MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

COST. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purfe of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou haft it ad dungbill, at the finger's ends, as they say. HOL. O, I fmell falfe Latin; dunghill for unguem. ARM. Arts-man, præambula; we will be fingled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the chargehoufe on the top of the mountain!

HOL. Or, mons, the hill.

ARM. At your sweet pleasure,.for the mountain.
Hoz. I do, fans question.

ARM. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the pofteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon.

HOL. The posterior of the day, moft generous fir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the