King. Now, fair one, does your business follow us? Hel. Ay, my good Lord.

Gerard de Narbon was my father,

In what he did profefs, well found.
King. I knew him.

Hel. The rather will I fpare my praife toward him; Knowing him, is enough: on's bed of death

Many receipts he gave me, chiefly one,
Which as the deareft iffue of his practice,
And of his old experience th' only darling,
He bade me ftore up, as a triple eye,

Safer than mine own two: more dear I have fo;
And hearing your high Majefty is touch'd
With that malignant caufe, wherein the honour
Of my dear father's gift ftands chief in
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

power,

King. We thank you, maiden;
But may not be fo credulous of cure,
When our most learned doctors leave us; and
The congregated college have concluded,
That labouring art can never ransom nature
From her unaidable eftate: we must not
So ftain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady

To empirics; or to diffever fo

Our great felf and our credit, to esteem

A fenfeless help, when help paft sense we deem.
Hel. My duty then shall pay me for my pains;
I will no more inforce mine office on you;
Humbly intreating from your royal thoughts
A modeft one to bear me back again.

King, I cannot give thee lefs, to be call'd grateful;
Thou thought'it to help me, and fuch thanks I give,
As one near death to thofe that with him live;
But what at full I know, thou know'ft no part
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try, Since you fet up your reft 'gainst remedy.

He

He that of greateft works is finisher,

Oft does them by the weakest minifter:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

When judges have been babes; great floods have flown
From fimple fources; and great feas have dry'd,
When mir'cles have by th' greatest been deny'd.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promifes! and oft it hits
Where hope is coldeft, and despair most fits.

King. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind
Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid: [maid;
Proffers not took, reap thanks for their reward.
Hel. Infpired merit fo by breath is barr'd
It is not fo with him that all things knows,
As 'tis with us, that square our guess by fhows:
But most it is presumption in us, when
The help of Heav'n we count the act of men.
Dear Sir, to my endeavours give confent,
Of Heav'n, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impoftor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;

But know I think, and think I know moft sure,
My art is not past power, nor you past cure.

King. Art thou fo confident? within what space Hop'st thou my cure?

Hel. The greatest grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horses of the fun fhall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moift Hefperus hath quench'd his fleepy lamp;
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
Hath told the thievifh minutes how thy pafs;
What is infirm from your found parts fhall fly,
Health fhall live free, and fickness freely die.
King. Upon thy certainty and confidence,
What dar'ft thou venture?

Hel. Tax of impudence,

A ftrumpet's boldnefs, a divulged shame,
Traduce'd by odious ballads: my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwife, no worse of worst extended;
With vileft torture let my life be ended.
t

King. Methinks, in thee fome bleffed fpirit doth speak:
His power full founds within an organ weak;
And what impoffibility would flay

In common fenfe, fenfe faves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate;
Youth, beauty, wifdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call;
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practifer, thy phyfic I will try;
That ministers thine own death, if I die.

Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property

Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,

And well deferv'd! Not helping, death's my fee;
But if I help, what do you promise me?

King. Make thy demand.

Hel. But will you make it even?

King. Ay, by my fceptre, and my hopes of heaven. Hel. Then fhalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand, What husband in thy power I will command. Exempted be from me the arrogance

To chufe from forth the Royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or impage of thy ftate:
But fuch a one thy vaffal, whom I know
Is free for me to afk, thee to bestow.

King. Here is my hand, the premiffes obferv'd,
Thy will by my performance fhall be ferv'd:
So, make the choice of thine own time; for I,
Thy refolv'd patient, on thee ftill rely.

More fhould I question thee, and more I muft;
(Though more to know, could not be more to trust):
From whence thou cam't, how tended on,—but rest
Unqueftion'd welcome, and undoubted blest.
Give me fome help here, hoa! if thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Exeunt.

SCENE

SCENE IV. Changes to Roufillon.

Enter Countess and Clown.

Count. Come on, Sir; I fhall now put you to the height of your breeding.

Clo. I will fhew myself highly fed, and lowly taught; I know my business is but to the court.

Count. But to the court? why, what place make you fpecial, when you put off that with fuch contempt;

but to the court!

Clo. Truly, Madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kifs his hand, and fay nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed fuch a fellow, to fay precisely, were not for the court: but for me, I have an answer will ferve all men. Count. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

Clo. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

Count. Will your answer serve fit to all queftions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffaty punk, as Tib's ruth for Tom's fore-finger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a moris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.

Count. Have you, I fay, an answer of fuch fitness for all questions?

Clo. From below your Duke, to beneath your conftable, it will fit any queftion.

Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous fize, that must fit all demands.

Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned fnould speak truth of it; here it is, and all that belongs to't. Afk me, if I am a courtier ::------ -it fhall do

you no harm to learn.

Count. To be young again, if we could: I will be a

fool

fool in a question, hoping to be the wifer by your anfwer. I pray you, Sir, are you a courtier ?

Clo. O Lord, Sir *.there's a fimple putting off: more, more, a hundred of them,

Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of your's, that loves you.

Clo. O Lord, Sir, thick, thick, fpare not me. Count. I think, Sir, you can eat none of this homely

meat.

Clo, O Lord, Sir,

you.

-nay, put me to't, I warrant

Count. You were lately whipp'd, Sir, as I think. fpare not me.

Clo. O Lord, Sir,

Count. Do you cry,

Lord, Sir, at your whipping, and Spare not me? Indeed, your O Lord, Sir, is very fequent to your whipping, you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were bound to't.

Clo. I ne'er had worfe luck in my life, in my

Lord, Sir; I fee, things may serve long, but not ferve ever.

Count. I play the noble hufwife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.

Clo. O Lord, Sir,-why there't ferves again. Count. An end, Sir; to your business: give Helen this, And urge her to a present anfwer back.

Commend me to my kinfmen, and my fon:
This is not much.

Clo. Not much commendation to them?

Count. Not much employment for you; you underftand me?

Clo. Moft fruitfully, I am there before my legs.
Count. Hafte you again.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Changes to the court of France.

Enter Bertram, Lafeu, and Parolles.

Laf. They fay miracles are past; and we have our philofophical perfons to make modern, and familiar, things fupernatural and causeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors; enfconfing ourselves into

* A ridicule on that foolish expletive of fpeech then in vogue at

court.

feeming