make foul the clearness of our defervings, when of our felves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? get you gone, firrah the complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my flowness that I do not, for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries yours.

Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, Madam, I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, Sir.

Clo. No, Madam; 'tis not fo well that I am poor, tho' many of the rich are damn'd; but if I have your ladyfhip's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

Clo. I do beg your good will in this cafe.
Count. In what cafe?

Clo. In Isbel's cafe, and mine own; fervice is no heritage, and, I think, I fhall never have the bleffing of God, 'till I have iffue o' my body; for they fay, bearns are bleffings.

Count. Tell me thy reafon why thou wilt marry.

Clo. My poor body, Madam, requires it. I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason?

Clo. Faith, Madam, I have other holy reafons, fuch as they are.

Count. May the world know them?

Clo. I have been, Madam, a wicked creature, as

The Worthiness of Praife diftains his Worth,

If He, that's prais'd, himself bring the Praife forth.

I won't pretend, that Shakespeare is here treading in the Steps of S chylus; but that Poet has fomething in his Agamemnon, which might very well be a Foundation to what our Author has advanced in both thele Paffages.

you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent.

Count. Thy marriage, fooner than thy wickedness.

Clo. I am out of friends, Madam, and I hope to have friends for my wife's fake.

Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

Clo. Y'are fhallow, Madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am weary of; he, that eares my land, fpares my team, and gives me leave to inne the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge; he, that comforts my wife, is the cherifher of my flesh and blood; he, that cherisheth my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend: ergo, he, that kiffes my wife, is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poyfam the papift, howfoe'er their hearts are fever'd in religion, their heads are both one; they may joul horns together, like any deer i'th' herd.

Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?

Clo. A prophet, I, Madam; and I speak the truth the next way;

"For I the ballad will repeat, which men full true "fhall find;

"Your marriage comes by deftiny, your cuckow fings "by kind.

Count. Get you gone, Sir, I'll talk with you more

anon.

Stew. May it please you, Madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to speak.

Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her, Helen I mean.

Clo.

Was this fair face the caufe, quoth fhe, (6)

(6) Was this fair Face the Caufe, quoth She, Why the Grecians facked Troy?

[Singing.

& Why

Was this King Priam's Joy?] As the Stanza, that follows, is

"Why the Grecians facked Troy?

"Fond done, fond done; -for Paris he

"Was this King Priam's joy.

"With that the fighed as the stood, (7)
"And gave this fentence then;
"Among nine bad if one be good,

"There's yet one good in ten.

Count.

in alternate Rhyme, and as a Rhyme is here wanting to She in the ft Verfe; 'tis evident, the 3d Line is wanting. The Old Folio's give Us a Part of it; but how to fupply the loft Part, was the Question. Mr. Rowe has given us the Fragment honestly, as he found it: but Mr. Pope, rather than to feem founder'd, has funk it upon Us. I communicated to my ingenious Friend Mr. Warburton how I found the Paffage in the old Books,

s¢

[Fond done, done, fond,

Was this King Priam's Joy?]

And from Him I received that Supplement, which I have given to the Text, and the following Juftification of it." I will first proceed to "juftify my Senfe and Emendation, and then account for the Corruption. "In the first place, 'tis plain, the last Line fhould not have been read "with an Interrogation: For was Helen King Priam's Joy? No, furely, fhe was not. Who then? Why, the Hiftorians tell us it was Paris, "who was his Favourite Son, And how natural was it, when this She (whoever She was,) had faid, Was this the Face that ruin'd Troy? to “fall into a moral Reflection, and fay, What a fond Deed was this! Priam's Mifery proceeded from him, that was his only Joy. This is exactly agreeable to the Simplicity of thofe antient Songs: as the Phrafe, For Paris be is to their Mode of Locution. So far we have "the Genius of the Ballad, Hiftory, and the Context, to make it pro"bable. An Obfervation upon the enfuing Stanza may make it clear 66 to Demonftration."

I will only fubjoin, in Confirmation of my Friend's ingenious Conjecture, that, in The Maid in the Mill by Beaumont and Fletcher, I find a fcrap of another old Ballad upon the fame Subject, most nearly correfponding with ours.

And here fair Paris comes,

The hopeful Youth of Troy;
Queen Hecuba's darling Son,

King Priam's only Joy.

(7) With That he fighed, as fhe flood,

And gave this Sentence then;
Among Nine bad if One be good,
There's yet One good in Ten.]

This ad Stanza is a Joke turn'd upon the Women: a Confeffion that there was One good in Ten. Upon which the Countefs fays, "What! "One good in ten! You corrupt the Song, Sirrah". This shews, that the Sense of the Song was, one bad only in ten; or, nine good in ten:

B b 2

and

Count. What, one good in ten? You corrupt the fong, firrah.

Clo. One good woman in ten, Madam, which is a purifying o'th' fong: would, God would ferve the world fo all the year! we'd find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the Parfon; one in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman born but every blazing ftar, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one.

Count. You'll be gone, Sir knave, and do as I command you.

Clo. That man that fhould be at a woman's command, and yet no hurt done! tho' honefty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the furplis of humility over the black gown of a big heart: I am going, forfooth, the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit.

Count. Well, now.

Stew. I know, Madam, you love your gentlewoman intirely.

Count. Faith, I do; her father bequeath'd her to me; and the herself, without other advantages, may lawfully make title to as much love as fhe finds; there is more owing her, than is paid; and more shall be paid her, than fhe'll demand."

and this clears up the Mystery. The zd Stanza was certainly thus in the Old Ballad.

With that She fighed as She flood,
And gave this Sentence then;
If one be bad amongst nine good,

There's but one bad in ten.

A vifible Continuation of the Thought, as amended, in the latter Part of the first Stanza: and it relates to the ten Sons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well except this Paris. But why Priam's ten Sons, may it not be ask'd, when univerfal Tradition has given him fifty? To This I reply, that, at the time of this unfortunate Part of his Reign, he had but ten. To thefe this Songfter alludes. They were, Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, Hector, Helenus, Hippothaus, Pammon, Paris and Polites. It seems particularly humourous in the Clown, (and fuiting with the Licence of his Character, as a Fefter ;) all at once to deprave the Text of the Ballad, and turn it to a Sarcafm upon the Women. Mr. Warburton.

Stew.

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her, than, I think, the wish'd me; alone fhe was, and did communicate to her felf her own words to her own ears; the thought, I dare vow for her, they touch'd not any stranger sense. Her matter was, the lov'd your fon; Fortune, the faid, was no Goddefs, (8) that had put fuch difference betwixt their two eftates; Love, no God, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Diana no queen of virgins, that would fuffer her poor Knight to be furpriz'd without rescue in the firft affault, or ransom afterward. This fhe deliver'd in the most bitter touch of forrow, that e'er I heard a virgin exclaim in; which I held it my duty fpeedily to acquaint you withal; fithence, in the lofs that may happen, it concerns you fomething to know it.

Count. You have discharg'd this honeftly, keep it to your felf; many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung fo tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe nor mifdoubt; pray you, leave me; ftall this in your bofom, and I thank you for your honest care; I will fpeak with you further anon. [Exit Steward.

(8) Fortune, fhe faid, was no Goddess, &c. Love, no God, &c. complain'd against the Queen of Virgins, &c.] This Paffage stands thus in the old Copies.

Love, no God, that would not extend his Might only where Qualities were level, Queen of Virgins, that would fuffer her poor Knight, &c. 'Tis evident to every fenfible Reader that fomething must have flip'd out here, by which the Meaning of the Context is render'd defective. There are no Traces for the Words, [complain'd against the] which I take to have been firft conjecturally fupply'd by Mr. Rowe. But the Form of the Sentence is intirely alter'd by their Infertion; and they, at best, make but a Botch. The Steward is fpeaking in the very Words he overheard of the Young Lady; Fortune was no Goddess, she said, for one reafon; Love no God, for another;- what could She then more naturally fubjoin, than as I have amended in the Text?

Diana no Queen of Virgins, that would fuffer her poor Knight to be furpriz'd without Rescue, &c.

For in poetical Hiftory Diana was as well known to prefide over Chaftity, as Cupid over Love, or Fortune over the Change or Regulation of our Circumftances.