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all.

Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stored with

Sic. Especially, in pride.

Bru. And topping all others in boasting.

Men. This is strange now: Do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right hand file? Do you?

Both Trib. Why, how are we censured? Men. Because you talk of pride now,-Will not be angry?

Both Trib. Well, well, sir, well.

you

Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience: give your disposition the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you, in being so. You blame Marcius for being proud!

Bru. We do it not alone, sir.

Men. I know you can do very little alone: for your helps are many; or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infantlike, for doing much alone. You talk of pride : O, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks3, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O, that you could!

Bru. What then, sir?

Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates (alias fools), as any in Rome.

Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a

3 With allusion to the fable, which says, that every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour's faults; and another behind him, in which he stows his own.

drop of allaying1 Tyber in't; said to be something imperfect, in favouring the first complaint: hasty, and tinder-like, upon too trivial motion: one that converses more with the buttock of the night, than with the forehead of the morning 5. What I think, I utter; and spend my malice in my breath: Meeting two such weals-men as you are (I cannot call you Lycurguses), if the drink you give me, touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say, your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men; yet they lie deadly, that tell, you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it, that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson7 conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good wholesome fore4 Lovelace, in his Verses to Althea, from Prison, has borrowed this expression:

When flowing cups run swiftly round,

With no allaying Thames, &c.

5 Rather a late lier down than an early riser. So in Love's Labour's Lost:-'In the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.' Again in King Henry IV. Part

II. :

Thou art a summer bird,

Which even in the haunch of Winter sings
The lifting up of day.'

6 So in King Lear:

'Strives in this little world of men.'

Microcosm is the title of a poem by John Davies of Hereford.

7 Bisson is blind. Thus in Hamlet :

:

'Ran barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames
With bisson rheum.'

That is, for their obeisance showed by bowing to you.

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noon, in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three-pence to a second day of audience 9. -When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colick, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience 10; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause, is, calling both the parties knaves: You are a pair of strange ones.

Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table, than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

Men. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are11. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave, as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors, since Deucalion; though peradventure, some of the best of them were hereditary hangmen. Good e'en to your worships; more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians 12: I will be bold to take my leave of you.

[BRU. and SIC. retire to the back of the Scene.

9 It appears from this whole speech that Shakspeare mistook the office of præfectus urbis for the tribune's office,

10 That is, declare war against patience. Johnson justly observes, that there is not wit enough in this satire to recompense its grossness.'

Courtesy itself must

So in Much Ado About Nothing: convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.' 12 As kings are called ποίμενες λάων,

Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA, &c. How now, my as fair as noble ladies (and the moon, were she earthly, no nobler), whither do you follow your eyes so fast?

Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let's go. Men. Ha! Marcius coming home?

Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation.

Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee 13 : -Hoo! Marcius coming home?

Two Ladies. Nay, 'tis true.

Vol. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another, his wife another: and, I think, there's one at home for

you.

Men. I will make my very house reel to-night: -A letter for me?

Vir. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw it.

Men. A letter for me? It gives me an estate of seven years' health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen 14 is but empiricutick, and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

Vir. O, no, no, no.

Vol. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for't.

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13 Shakspeare so often mentions throwing up caps in this play, that Menenius may well enough be supposed to throw up his cap in thanks to Jupiter.'--Johnson.

14 In this mention of Galen there is an anachronism of near 650 years. Menenius flourished about 492 years before the birth of our Lord, Galen about 160 years after it. The word empiricutick (empirickqutique in the old copy) is evidently formed by the poet from empirick, a quack.

Men. So do I too, if it be not too much :-Brings 'a victory in his pocket?-The wounds become him.

Vol. On's brows, Menenius: he comes the third time home with the oaken garland 15.

Men. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? Vol. Titus Lartius writes,-they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

Men. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that: an he had staid by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed 16 of this?

Vol. Good ladies, let's go:-Yes, yes, yes: the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly.

Val. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.

Men. Wondrous? ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.

Vir. The gods grant them true!

Vol. True? pow, wow.

Men. True? I'll be sworn they are true :—Where is he wounded? God save your good worships! [To the Tribunes, who come forward.] Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud.→ Where is he wounded?

15 Volumnia answers Menenius without taking notice of his last words-The wounds become him.' Menenius had asked, Brings 'a victory in his pocket?' He brings it, says Volumnia, on his brows; for he comes the third time home brow-bound with the oaken garland, the emblem of victory. So afterwards :"He prov'd best man o' the field, and for his meed Was brow-bound with the oak.'

16 Possessed is fully informed.

'I have possess'd your grace of what I purpose.'

Merchant of Venice.

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