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Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy

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Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for filence,
But never tax'd for fpeech. What heaven more will,
9 That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;

'Tis an unfeafon'd courtier, good my lord,
Advise him.

Laf. He cannot want the best,

That shall attend his love.

Count. Heaven blefs him! Farewell, Bertram.

[Exit Countess. Ber. [To Helena.] 'The best wishes that can beforg'd in your thoughts, be fervants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu. Hel. Oh, were that all I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more, Than those I fhed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's. I am undone; there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one, That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it, he is fo above me : In his bright radiance and collateral light Muft 1 be comforted, not in his sphere. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

9 That thee may furnish.] That may help thee with more and better qualifications. JOHNSON. The best wishes, &c.] That is, may you be-mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring them to effect. JOHNSON. 2 These great tears.] The tears which the king and countess fhed for him. JOHNSON. with him and a distance by JOHNSON. The

3 In his bright radiance, &c] I cannot be united move in the fame sphere, but must be comforted at the radiance that fhoots on all fides from him.

The hind, that would be mated by the lion,
Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague,
To see him every hour; to fit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table: heart, too capable
Of every line and + trick of his fweet favour!-
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Muft fanctify his relicks. Who comes here?
Enter Parolles.

One that goes with him: I love him for his fake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar;

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils fit fo fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind: full oft we fee
Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.

Hel. And you, monarch.

Par. No.

Hel. And, no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

6

Hel. Ay you have some stain of foldier in you;

let

Trick of his feet favour.] So in King John; be bath a trick of Coeur de Lion's face. Trick feems to be fome peculiarity of look or feature.

JOHNSON. Trick is an expreffion taken from drawing, and is fo explained in another place. The prefent inftance explains itself:

-to fit and draw

His arched brows, &c.

-and trick of bis fweet favour.

STEEVENS.

5 Cold wifdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.] Cold for naked; as fuperfluous for over-cloathed. This makes the propriety of the antithefis.

WARBURTON.

6 Stain of foldier.] Stain for colour. Parelles was in red, as appears from his being afterwards called red-tail'd humble-bee. WARBURTON.

It does not appear from either of thefe expreffions, that Parolles was entirely dreft in red. Shakespeare writes only fome fain of

foldier

let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virgi nity; how may we barricado it against him?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he affails; and our virginity, tho' valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us fome warlike refiftance.

Par. There is none: man fitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how vir gins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourfelves made, you lofe your city. It is not politick in the commonwealth of nature, to preferve virginity. Lofs of virginity is rational increafe; and there was never virgin got, 'till virginity was first loft. That you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever loft: 'tis too cold a companion: away with it.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be faid in't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the To fpeak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is moft infallible dif obedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: vir

ginity

foldier, meaning only he had red breeches on, which is fufficiently evident from calling him afterwards red-tailed humble-bre.

STEEVENS.

Stain rather for what we now fay tindure, fome qualities, at leaft fuperficial, of a foldier.

JOHNSON.

7 Lofs of virginity is rational increafe.] It is conjectured by the the author of the Obfervations and Conjectures, printed at Oxford 1766, that the poet wrote, national increase. Rational increafe may however mean the regular increase by which rational beings are propagated. STEEVENS.

He, that bangs himself, is a virgin: But why is he that hangs himself a virgin? Surely, not for the reafon that follows,

Virginity

ginity murders itself: and should be buried in highways, out of all fanctified limit, as a defperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; confumes itfelf to the very paring, and fo dies with feeding its own ftomach. Belides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of felf-love, which is the most inhibited fin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot chufe but lofe by't. Out with't; within ten years it will make itself two, which is a goodly increafe; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with't.

Hel. How might one do, Sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Par. Let me fee. Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lofe the glofs with lying. The longer kept, the lefs worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible. Anfwer the time of request.

Virginity murders itself. For tho' every virgin be a fuicide, yet every fuicide is not a virgin. A word or two are dropt, which introduced a comparison in this place; and Shakespeare wrote it thus,

As he, that hangs himself, so is a virgin.

And then it follows naturally, virginity murders itself. By this emendation, the Oxford editor was enabled to alter the text thus, He that hangs himself is like a virgin.

And this is his ufual way of becoming a critick at a cheap expence. WARBURTON. I believe moft readers will spare both the emendations, which I do not think much worth a claim or a conteft. The old reading is more fpritely and equally juft.

9-inbibited fin.-] i. e. forbidden. So in Othello

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JOHNSON.

So the first folio. Theobald and Johnson read prohibited.

STEEVENS.

1 Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes, &c.] Parolles, in anfwer to the question, bow one frall lofe virginity to her own liking? plays upon the word king, and fays, he must do ill, for virginity, to be fo loft, muft like him that likes not yirginity.

JOHNSON,

Virginity,

Virginity, like an old courtier wears her cap out of fashion richly fuited, but unsuitable; just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now: your date is better in your pye and your porridge, than in your cheek: and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears; it looks ill, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear: it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you any thing with it?

Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There shall your mafter have a thousand loves,

which wear not now.] Thus the old copy, Shakespeare often ufes the active for the paffive. editors read, "which we wear not now.'

A mo

and rightly.

The modern

T. T.

3 your date is better.] Here is a quibble on the word date, which means both age, and a particular kind of fruit much used in our author's timeRomeo and Juliet ;

They call for dates and quinces in the pastry. STERVENS. 4 For yet, as it stood before, Sir Thomas Hanmer reads yes.

JOHNSON.

5 Not my virginity yet.] This whole fpeech is abrupt, unconnected, and obfcure. Dr. Warburton thinks much of it fuppofititious. I would be glad to think fo of the whole, for a commentator naturally wishes to reject what he cannot understand. Something, which fhould connect Helena's words with those of Parolles, feems to be wanting. Hanmer has made a fair attempt by reading,

Not my virginity yet-You're for the court,
There hall your master, &c.

Some fuch claufe has, I think, dropped out, but ftill the first words want connection. Perhaps Parolles, going away after his harangue, faid, will you any thing with me? to which Helen may reply. I know not what to do with the paffage. JOHNSON.

I do not perceive fo great a want of connection as my predeceffors have apprehended, nor is that connection always to be fought for in fo careless a writer as ours, from the thought immediately preceding the reply of the speaker. Parolles has been laughing at the unprofitableness of virginity, efpecially when it grows ancient, and compares it to withered fruit. Helena, properly enough replies, that hers is not yet in that state, but that in

the

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