Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,

Whose bear outbragged the web it seemed to wear;
Yet showed his visage by that cost more2 dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best 't were as it was, or best without.

“His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,

When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.
His rudeness so with his authorized youth

Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

"Well could he ride, and often men would say That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,

What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!

And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

"But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplished in himself, not in his case: 3
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Can for additions; yet their purposed trim
Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him.

1 Visage is the inverted nominative case to showed.

2 More. So the original: in all the modern editions we have

most.

3 Case, outward show.

4 Can is the original reading; but Malone changed it to came, and he justifies the change by a passage in Macbeth, Act 1. Sc.

"So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
for his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will;

"That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Consents bewitched, ere he desire, have granted;
And dialogued for him what he would say,
Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey.

"Many there were that did his picture get, To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind; Like fools that in the imagination set

The goodly objects which abroad they find

Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned;
And laboring in mo pleasures to bestow them,
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:1

"So many have, that never touched his hand, Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.

III., where he supposes the same mistake occurred. In that passage we did not receive the proposed correction; nor do we think it necessary to receive it here. Can is constantly used by the old writers, especially by Spenser, in the sense of began; and that sense, began for additions, is as intelligible as came for additions. For is used in the sense of as.

1 There is a similar sarcastic thought in Timon, where the mis. anthrope, addressing himself to the gold he had found, says,—

"Thou 'It go, strong thief,

When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand."

My wiful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part,)
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in this charméd power,
Reserved the stalk, and gave him all my flower.

“Yet did I not, as some my equals did, Demand of him, nor being desired yielded; Finding myself in honor so forbid,

With safest distance I mine honor shielded:
Experience for me and many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

"But ah! who ever shunned by precedent
The destined ill she must herself assay?
Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-passed perils in her way ?
Counsel may stop a while what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

"Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof,
To be forbid the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O, appetite, from judgment stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though reason weep, and cry, It is thy last.

For further I could say, This man's untrue, And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew, Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;

Thought' characters and words, merely but art,
And bastards of his foul adulterous heart.

"And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he 'gan besiege me: Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
And be not of my holy vows afraid :

That's to you sworn, to none was ever said;
For feasts of love I have been called unto,
Till now did ne'er invite, nor never vow.

"All my offences that abroad you see

2

Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;
Love made them not; with acture may they be,
Where neither party is nor true nor kind:

They sought their shame that so their shame did find
And so much less of shame in me remains,
By how much of me their reproach contains.

"Among the many that mine eyes have seen,

Not one whose flame my heart so much as warned, my affection put to the smallest teen,3

Or

Or any of my leisures ever charmed:

Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed,
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
And reigned, commanding in his monarchy.

1 Malone and he is followed in all modern editions - puts a comma after thought, and says, "It is here, I believe, a substantive." Surely thought is a verb. We have a regular sequence of verbs heard - saw - knew thought. How can thought be art? the art is in the expression of the thoughts by "characters and words." He who said "words were given us to conceal our thoughts" is a better commentator upon the passage than Malone. 2 Acture is explained as synonymous with action.

3 Teen, grief.

VOL. VIII.

29

"Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
Of paléd pearls, and rubies red as blood;
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood

In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood.
Effects of terror and dear modesty,

Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

"And lo! behold these talents' of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleached,2
I have received from many a several fair,
(Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched,)
With the annexions of fair gems enriched,
And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

"The diamond, why 't was beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invised 3 properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend ;
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold; each several stone,
With wit well blazoned, smiled or made some moan.

"Lo! all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,
Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender:
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

Talents is here used in the sense of something precious.
Impleached, interwoven.

3 Invised, invisible