Enter JAQUES DE BOYS.

Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a word or two: I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,

That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
In his own conduct, purposely to take
His brother here and put him to the sword:
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
Where meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world;
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled. This to be true,
I do engage my life.

Duke S.
Welcome, young man;
Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
To one his lands withheld; and to the other
A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
First, in this forest let us do those ends
That here were well begun and well begot:
And after, every of this happy number,

That have endured shrewd days and nights with us,
Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
According to the measure of their states.
Meantime, forget this new-fallen dignity,

SCENE VIII. Pope.

Enter Jaques de Boys.] Rowe.
Enter Second Brother. Ff.

158 them] Rowe. him Ff.

159 be] prove So quoted by Abbott.

146

150

155

160

165

170

And fall into our rustic revelry.

Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.

Jaq. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly, The Duke hath put on a religious life

And thrown into neglect the pompous court?

Jaq. de B. He hath.

Jaq. To him will I: out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.

175

[To Duke S.] You to your former honour I bequeath ; 180 Your patience and your virtue well deserves it:

184

[To Orl.] You to a love, that your true faith doth merit: [To Oli.] You to your land, and love, and great allies: [To Sil.] You to a long and well-deserved bed: [To Touch.] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage Is but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures: I am for other than for dancing measures. Duke S. Stay, Jaques, stay.

Jaq. To see no pastime I: what you would have

I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.

[Exit. 190

Duke S. Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.

176 court?] Capell. court. Ff.

180, 182, 183, 184, 185 Stage directions

given by Rowe.

180 bequeath;] bequeath F1. 181 deserves] deserve Pope.

191 we will] FF3F4 wee'l F1.

[4 dance.

rites] Rowe. rights Ff.

192 As] And Reed.

trust they'll end, in] Pope. trust, they'l end in Ff.

[A dance.] Capell. Exit. F. om. F2F3F4

EPILOGUE.

Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue: yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women, as I perceive by your simpering, none of hates them, that between you you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. [Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.] Theobald (ed. 2). Seymour supposes what follows to be spurious.

6 then] tho' Kenrick conj.

7 cannot] can Pope.

12 please you] FF. pleases you F3F

pleases them Hanmer (Warburton). please them Steevens.

and I and so I Steevens (Farmer conj.).

14 hates] hate Pope.

them,-] them) to like as much as pleases them Hanmer (Warburton). 20 curtsy] my curtesy Keightley. [Exeunt.] FF3F4. Exit. F1.

NOTES.

NOTE I.

Le Beau is so called in F, on his first entrance, afterwards always 'Le Beu.'

The banished Duke is called Duke Senior in the stage directions. Rosalind is spelt indifferently thus and Rosaline.' In Rowe it is uniformly Rosalind.

Rowe, in his second edition, besides 'Touchstone' and 'William,' introduced among the Dramatis Personæ 'A clown in love with Audrey.' He was followed by Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton. Johnson struck it out.

NOTE II.

1. 1. 46. The correction revenues for reverence has been made in MS. by some unknown hand in Capell's copy of the third Folio. The writing somewhat resembles Warburton's.

NOTE III.

I. 2. 79. There can be no doubt that the words 'wise men' here printed as two, in obedience to modern usage, were frequently in Shakespeare's time written and pronounced as one word, with the accent on the first syllable, as 'madman' is still. See Sidney Walker's Criticisms, Vol. I. p. 139.

NOTE IV.

I. 2. 147, 149. It does not seem necessary to make any change in the text here. Perhaps Shakespeare wrote the prose parts of the play hastily, or it may be that Orlando, who is summoned by Celia, but whose thoughts are fixed upon Rosalind, is made to say 'them,' not 'her,' designedly.

VOL. II.

36

NOTE V.

I. 2. 187. Before we were aware of Mason's conjecture, it occurred to us that the sentence would run better thus: 'An you mean to mock me after, you should not have mocked me before.' 'And,' for 'an,' is a more probable reading than 'if,' as it may have been omitted by the printer, who mistook it for part of the stage direction—'Orl. and' for 'Orland.' We have since discovered that Theobald proposed 'An.'

NOTE VI.

I. 3. 92. See a discussion as to the proper punctuation and meaning of the words 'No, hath not?' in Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. Vol. VII. p. 520, and in Mr Singer's note on this passage. It may be doubted whether the passages quoted by Mr Grant White are apposite to this, where there is a double negative.

NOTE VII.

III. 2. 317. In the fourth Folio, and in Rowe's two editions, the word 'kindled' happens to be in two lines, and therefore divided by a hyphen. Pope, misled by this, printed it in his first edition as a compound, 'kind-led,' interpreting it probably with reference to the gregarious habits of the animal in question.

NOTE VIII.

III. 3. 82-85. Johnson proposes to arrange these lines as follows: Clo... Come, sweet Audrey; we must be married, or we must live in

bawdry.

Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

[they whisper.

III. 4. 39. As the word 'puisny' is here used not in the modern sense of 'diminutive,' but in the now obsolete sense of 'inferior, unskilled,' we think it better to retain the spelling of the Folios.