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Whofe golden touch could foften steel and ftones,
Make tygers tame, and huge leviathans
Forfake unfounded deeps to dance on fands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,

Vifit by night your lady's chamber-window
With fome fweet concert: to their inftruments
Tune a deploring dump'; the night's dead filence
Will well become fuch fweet complaining grievance.
This, or elfe nothing, will inherit her ",

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Duke. This difcipline fhews thou haft been in love.
Thu. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice:
Therefore, fweet Protheus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently

To fort fome gentlemen well fkill'd in mufick :
I have a fonnet, that will ferve the turn,
To give the onset to thy good advice.

Duke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. We'll wait upon your grace, till after fupper; And afterwards determine our proceedings.

Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you. [Exeunt

lover, the quality given to his lute is unintelligible. But, confidered as a lawgiver, the thought is noble, and the imagery exquifitely beautiful. For by his lute is to be understood his fyftem of laws; and by the poet's finews, the power of numbers, which Orpheus actually employed in those laws to make them received by a fierce and barbarous people. WARBURTON.

5 Tune a deploring dump;] A dump was the ancient term for a mournful elegy. STEEVENS.

6

-will inherit ber.] To inherit, is, by our author, fometimes used, as in this inftance, for to obtain poffeffionof, without any idea of acquiring by inheritance. So in Titus Andronicus: "He that had wit would think that I had none, "To bury fo much gold under a tree, "And never after to inherit it." STEEVENS.

7 To fort] i e. to chufe out. So in K. Richard III: "Yet I will fort a pitchy hour for thee." STEEVENS. -I will pardon you.] I will excufe you from waiting.

8

JOHNSON.

ACT

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A foreft, leading towards Mantua.

Enter certain Out-laws.

1 Out. Fellows, ftand faft; I fee a paffenger.
2 Out. If there be ten, fhrink not, but down
with 'em.

Enter Valentine and Speed.

3 Out. Stand, fir, and throw us what you have about you;

"If not, we'll make you fit, and rifle you.

Speed. Sir, we are undone! these are the villains That all the travellers do fear so much.

Val. My friends,-

1 Out. That's not fo, fir; we are your enemies, 2 Out. Peace; we'll hear him.

3 Out. Ay, by my beard, will we;

For he's a proper man.

Val. Then know, that I have little wealth to lofe; A man I am, crofs'd with adversity :

My riches are thefe

poor habiliments,

Of which if you should here disfurnish me,

You take the fum and fubftance that I have. 2 Out. Whither travel you?

Val. To Verona.

1 Out. Whence came you ?

Val. From Milan.

3 Out. Have you long fojourn'd there?

If not, we'll make you fit, and rifle you.] The old copy reads as I have printed the paffage. Paltry as the oppofition between ftand and fit may be thought, it is Shakespeare's own. The editors read, we'll make you, fir, &c. STEEVENS.

Val. Some fixteen months; and longer might have

ftaid,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

1 Out. What, were you banish'd thence ?

Val. I was.

2 Out. For what offence?

Val. For that which now torments me to rehearfe : I kill'd a man, whofe death I much repent; But yet I flew him manfully in fight, Without falfe vantage, or bafe treachery.

1 Out..Why ne'er repent it, if it were done fo: But were you banish'd for so small a fault?

Val. I was, and held me glad of fuch a doom.
Out. Have you the tongues?

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy; Or elfe I often had been miferable.

3 Out. By the bare fcalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,

This fellow were a king for our wild faction. 1 Out. We'll have him: firs, a word. Speed. Mafter, be one of them;

It is a kind of honourable thievery.

Val. Peace, villain!

2 Out. Tell us this; Have you any thing to take to?

Val. Nothing, but my fortune.

3 Out. Know then, that fome of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth

Thruft

Robin Hood was captain of a band of robbers, and was much inclined to rob churchmen. JOHNSON.

So in A mery Gefte of Robyn Hoode, &c. bl. 1. no date :

"Thefe byshoppes and thefe archebyshoppes

"Ye fhall them beate and bynde, &c."

By Robin Hood's fat friar, I believe, Shakespeare means Friar Tuck, who was confeffor and companion to this noted outlaw. So in one of the old fongs of Robin Hood:

"And of brave little John,

"Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett,
"Stokefly and Maid Marian."

Thruft from the company of awful men;
Myself was from Verona banished,
For practifing to steal away a lady,

An heir, and niece ally'd unto the duke.
2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Whom, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.

1 Out. And I, for fuch like petty crimes as thefe. But to the purpofe,-(for we cite our faults, That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives) And, partly, feeing you are beautify'd With goodly fhape; and by your own report A linguift; and a man of fuch perfection, As we do in our quality + much want,

2 Out. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man, Therefore, above the reft, we parley to you;

Again, in the 26th fong of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"Of Tuck the merry friar which many a fermon made, "In praise of Robin Hoode, his outlawes, and his trade." See figure III, in the plate at the end of the first part of K, Henry IV. with Mr. Tollet's obfervations on it. STEEVENS, 2 awful men:] Reverend, worshipful, fuch as magiftrates, and other principal members of civil communities. JOHNSON. I think we should read lawful in oppofition to lawless men. In judicial proceedings the word has this fenfe. SIR J. HAWKINS. The author of The Revifal has proposed the fame emendation. STEEVENS.

Awful is ufed by Shakespeare, in another place, in the sense of lawful. Second part of Henry IV. act IV. fc. ii.

"We come within our awful banks again." TYRWHITT. 3 All the impreffions, from the first downwards, An heir and niece allied unto the duke. But our poet would never have expreffed himself fo ftupidly, as to tell us, this lady was the duke's niece, and allied to him: for her alliance was certainly fufficiently included in the firft term. Our author meant to fay, fhe was an beirefs, and near allied to the duke; an expreffion the most natu ral that can be for the purpose, and very frequently used by the ftage-poets. THEOBALD.

A niece or a nephew did not always fignify the daughter of a brother or fifter, but any remote defcendant. Of this use I have given inftances as to a nephew. See Othello, act I. STEEVENS. -in our quality] Quality is nature relatively confidered.

STEEVENS.

Are

Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of neceffity,

And live, as we do, in the wilderness ?

3 Out. What fay'ft thou? wilt thou be of our confort?

Say, ay, and be the captain of us all:

We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
Love thee as our commander, and our king.

1 Out. But if thou fcorn our courtesy, thou dy'st. 2 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.

5

Val. I take your offer, and will live with you;
Provided, that you do no outrages
On filly women, or poor paffengers.

3 Out. No, we deteft fuch vile base practices.
Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews,
And fhew thee all the treasure we have got;
Which, with ourselves, all reft at thy difpofe.

[Exeunt.

SCENE

II.

Under Silvia's apartment in Milan.

Enter Protheus.

Pro. Already have I been falfe to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjuft to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer ;
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I proteft true loyalty to her,

She twits me with my falfhood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think, how I have been forfworn

-no outrages

On filly women or poor passengers.] This was one of the rules of Robin Hood's government. STEEVENS.

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