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 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. You are fhallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a weary of. He, that eares my land, fpares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop : if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge. He, that comforts my wife, is the cherisher 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 papist, howfoe'er their hearts are fever'd in religion, their heads are both one; they may joul horns together, like any deer i' the herd.

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

Clo. A prophet, I, madam; I fpeak the truth the next way:

"For

4Clo. You are shallow, madam, IN great friends, for the knaves com to do that for me which I am weary of.] This last speech, I think, fhould be read thus,

You are shallow, madam; MY great friends ;

Obfervations and Conjectures printed at Oxford, 1766. The meaning feems to be, you are not deeply fkilled in the character of offices of great friends.

JOHNSON.

A prophet, I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way. It is a fuperftition, which has run through all ages and people, that

C4

natural

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

"Your marriage comes by destiny, your cuckoo fings by kind.

Count. Get you gone, fir; 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,

"Why the Grecians facked Troy?

[Singing.

natural fools have fomething in them of divinity. On which account they were esteemed facred: travellers tell us in what etleem the Turks now hold them; nor had they lefs honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word benet, for a natural frol. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rablais, advised Panurge to go and confult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occafion to a fatirical stroke upon the privy council of Francis the firft-Par l'avis, confil, prediction dis fils vos fçavez quants princes, &c. ont ellé confervez, &c.--The phrase-speak the truth the next way, means directly; as they do who are only the inftruments or canals of others; fuch as infpired perfons were fuppofed to be. WARBURTON.

Was this fair face the caufe, quoth fhe,

Why the Grecians facked Troy?

Fond done, fond done;

Was this king Priam's joy.]

This is a ftanza of an old ballad, out of which a word or two are dropt, equally neceffary to make the fenfe and the alternate rhime. For it was not Helen, who was king Priam's joy, but Paris. The third line therefore fhould he read thus,

Fond done, fond done, FOR PARIS, HE.

WARB.

If this be a ftanza taken from any antient ballad, it will probably in time be found entire, and then the reftoration may be made

with authority.

STEEVENS.

1

"Fond

"Fond done, done fond 7;

"Was this king Priam's joy.
"With that fhe fighed as fhe ftood,
"With that she fighed as she stood3,
"And gave this fentence then ;
Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad if one be good,
"There's yet one good in ten9.

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

Clo. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the fong: 'Would, God would ferve the world fo all the year! we'd find no fault with the tythe-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

7.

Venice

-fond done is foolishly done. So in the Merchant of

Jailor, why art thou fo fond

To let this man abroad.

STEEVENS.

8 At the end of the line of which this is a repetition, we find added in Italic characters the word bis, which, I fuppofe, denoted the neceffity of its being repeated. The corresponding line was printed over again, as I have inferted it, from the ancient and only authentic copy. STEEVENS.

9 Among nine bad if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.]

This fecond ftanza of the ballad is turned to a joke upon the women: a confeffion, that there was one good in ten. Whereon the Countess obferved, that he corrupted the fong, which shews the fong faid, Nine good in ten.

If one be bad amongst nine good,
There's but one bad in ten.

This relates to the ten fons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well but Paris. For, though he once had fifty, yet at this unfortunate period of his reign he had but ten; Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, He&tor, Helenus, Hippothous, Pamnon, Paris, and Polites.

WARBURTON,

mend

mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one.

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

Clo. That man fhould be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!-Tho' honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the furplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart I am going, forfooth. The bufinefs is for Helen to come hither. [Exit.

Count. Well, now.

'Clo. That man, &c.] The clown's anfwer is obfcure. His lady bids him do as he is commanded. He anfwers with the licentious petulance of his character, that if a man does as a woman commands, it is likely he will do amifs; that he does not amifs, being at the command of a woman, he makes the effect, not of his lady's goodness, but of his own bonefty, which, though not very nice or puritanical, will do no burt; and will not only do no hurt, but, unlike the puritans, will comply with the injunctions of fuperiors, and wear the furplice of bumility over the black gown of a big beart; will obey commands, though not much pleafed with a fate of fubjection.

Here is an allufion, violently enough forced in, to fatirize the obftinacy with which the puritans refused the use of the ecclefiaftical habits, which was, at that time, one principal cause of the breach of union, and, perhaps, to infinuate, that the modeft purity of the furplice was fometimes a cover for pride. JOHNSON. The averfion of the puritans to a furplice is alluded to in many of the old comedies. So in the following inftances:

She loves to act in as clean linen as any gentlewoman "of her function, about the town; and truly that's the reafon "that your fincere puritans cannot abide a furplice, because they fay 'tis made of the fame thing that your villainous fin is com"mitted in, of your prophane holland."

Cupid's Whirligig by E. S. 1616. So in the Match at Midnight 1633, by W. R.

He has turn'd my ftomach for all the world like a puritan's at the fight of a furplice."

Again in The Hollander 1635.

"a puritan, who becaufe he faw a furplice in the church, would needs hang himfelf in the bell-ropes."

STEEVENS.

Stew.

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

Count. Faith, I do: her father bequeath'd her to me; and fhe herself, without other advantage, 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.

2

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her, than, I think, she wish'd me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touch'd not any stranger fenfe. Her matter was, the lov'd your fon: Fortune, fhe faid, was no goddefs, 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 vir gins, that would fuffer her poor knight to be furprized without refcue 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 speedily to acquaint you withal; fithence, in the lofs that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

2 Fortune, she said, was no goddess, &c. Love no gcd, &c. complained against the queen of virgins, &c.] This paffage ftands 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 flipt out here, by which the meaning of the context is rendered defective. The ftewar is fpeaking in the very words he overheard of the young lady; fortune was no goddess, the faid, for one reafon; love, no god, for another;-what could the 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 furprized without refcue, &c.

For in poetical hiftory Diana was well known to prefide over chastity, as Cupid over love, or Fortune over the change or regulation of our circumftances.

THEOBALD.

Count