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Val. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.

Speed. Oh! 'give ye good even: here's a million of

manners.

Sil. Sir Valentine and servant', to you two thousand. Speed. He should give her interest, and she gives it him. Val. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter Unto the secret nameless friend of your's; Which I was much unwilling to proceed in, But for my duty to your ladyship.

Sil. I thank you, gentle servant.

done.

[Giving a paper.

'Tis very clerkly

Val. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off; For, being ignorant to whom it goes,

I writ at random, very doubtfully.

Sil. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
Val. No, madam: so it stead you, I will write,
Please you command, a thousand times as much.
And yet,—

Sil. A pretty period. Well, I guess the sequel:
And yet I will not name it ;—and yet I care not;—
And yet take this again ;-and yet I thank you,
Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.

Speed. And yet you will; and yet, another yet 2.
Val. What means your ladyship? do you not like it ?
Sil. Yes, yes: the lines are very quaintly writ,
But since unwillingly, take them again.

Nay, take them.

Val. Madam, they are for you.

[Giving back the paper.

is here, of course, the proper word; but in the Rev. Mr. Dyce's edition of Marlowe's "Faustus" (Vol. ii. p. 57), “motion" in one place is any thing but the proper word, for there it ought to be mention. The Emperor wishes to see the spirit of Alexander the Great raised by the necromancer, and ought to say, "As when I hear but mention made of him,

It grieves my soul I never saw the man."

What he is made to say is very equivocal, for "motion" is allowed to remain in the text instead of mention; and though "to make a motion " may be very intelligible, it is not exactly what the Emperor here means.

1 Sir Valentine and SERVANT,] Ladies were accustomed, in Shakespeare's time, to call their admirers their servants: instances are innumerable.

2 and yet, another yet.] So the passage is punctuated in the old copies, as if Speed had said, "and yet," and then paused to see if Silvia would not add "another yet." We only mention this trifle because some modern editors have not attended to it. Of course these speeches by Speed are supposed to be uttered aside, and they are so marked in the corr. fo. 1632: the other stage-directions here, which are certainly necessary for the complete intelligibility of what passes, are from the same authority.

Sil. Ay, ay; you writ them, sir, at my request,
But I will none of them: they are for you.
I would have had them writ more movingly.

Val. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
Sil. And, when it's writ, for my sake read it over;
And, if it please you, so; if not, why, so.

Val. If it please me, madam; what then?

Sil. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour: And so good morrow, servant.

Speed. Oh jest! unseen, inscrutable, invisible,

As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple.
My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor,
He being her pupil, to become her tutor.

Oh excellent device! was there ever heard a better,

[Exit.

That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?

Val. How now, sir! what, are you reasoning with yourself?

Speed. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason. Val. To do what?

Speed. To be a spokesman from madam Silvia.

Val. To whom?

Speed. To yourself.

Val. What figure?

Why, she woos you by a figure.

Speed. By a letter, I should say.

Val. Why, she hath not writ to me?

Speed. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?

Val. No, believe me.

Speed. No believing you, indeed, sir: but did you perceive her earnest ?

Val. She gave me none, except an angry word.

Speed. Why, she hath given you a letter.

Val. That's the letter I writ to her friend.

Speed. And that letter hath, she deliver'd, and there an end.

Val. I would it were no worse! Speed. I'll warrant you, 'tis as well: For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty,

Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;

Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover, Her self hath taught her love himself to write unto her

lover.

All this I speak in print 3, for in print I found it.-
Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner time.

Val. I have dined.

--

Speed. Ay, but hearken, sir: though the cameleon love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would fain have meat. Oh! be not like your mistress : be moved, be moved. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Verona. A Room in JULIA'S House.

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA.

Pro. Have patience, gentle Julia.

Jul. I must, where is no remedy.

Pro. When possibly I can, I will return.

Jul. If you turn not, you will return the sooner. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.

Pro. Why then, we'll make exchange: here, take you this.

[Exchanging rings.

Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
Pro. Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o'er-slips me in the day,
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness.
My father stays my coming; answer not.
The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;
That tide will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell.-What! gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds, than words, to grace it.

Enter PANTHINO.

Pant. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.

Go;

Pro.
Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

[Exit JULIA.

I come,

I come.

[Exeunt.

3 All this I speak in print,] i. e. With exactness: Speed adds, that he found it "in print," perhaps, in some book or ballad of that time, which has not survived to our's. He has rhymed before, and in the same style, just after Silvia made her exit: those lines could hardly have been, like these, a quotation.

SCENE III.

The Same. A Street.

Enter LAUNCE, leading a Dog.

Launce. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping: all the kind of the Launces have this very fault'. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with sir Proteus to the imperial's court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog; a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting: why, my grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father;-no, this left shoe is my father:no, no, this left shoe is my mother;-nay, that cannot be so, neither:—yes, it is so, it is so; it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on't! there 'tis: now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog';-no, the

4 all the KIND of the Launces have this very fault.] i. e. All the family, or kindred of the Launces. How strangely editors have been puzzled with this little word, "kind," in Marlowe and Nash's " Dido," 1594. A. v. The heroine there accuses her Nurse of having conspired with the Trojans for the escape of Ascanius, and calls her, as the text appears in the old impressions,

"Traitress to keend and cursed sorceress!"

What can keend be, but a misprint for "kind?" the Nurse was a traitress to her kind, or sex, in the opinion of Dido; but the Rev. Mr. Dyce (Marlowe's Works, ii. p. 435) has simply this note upon it: "I suppose kenned, known, manifest (the modern editors print 'keen ")." "Keen " was a much better conjecture than kenned: but neither "keen nor the unfortunate kenned can be right, for who will doubt that the true reading is,

"Traitress to kind, and cursed sorceress?"

5 I am the DOG, &c.] Launce is bimself puzzled with the characters of his own mono-polylogue; and perhaps Shakespeare did not mean him to get out of his confusion. Sir T. Hanmer proposed to read, I am the dog, no, the dog is himself, and I am me, the dog is the dog, and I am myself. Although this reading makes the text "more reasonable," (as Johnson remarks) the additions to it are unwarrantable.

dog is himself, and I am the dog,-Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself: ay, so, so. Now come I to my father; "Father, your blessing" now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother, (Oh, that she could speak now!) like a wood woman:-well, I kiss her; why there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes: now, the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word, but see how I lay the dust with my tears.

Enter PANTHINO.

Pant. Launce, away, away, aboard: thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? why weep'st thou, man? Away, ass, you'll lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.

Launce. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.

Pant. What's the unkindest tide?

Launce. Why, he that's tied here; Crab, my dog.

Pant. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood; and, in losing the flood, lose thy voyage; and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy master; and, in losing thy master, lose thy service; and, in losing thy service,-Why dost thou stop my mouth? Launce. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.

Pant. Where should I lose my tongue?

Launce. In thy tale.

Pant. In thy tail?

Launce. Lose the tied, and the voyage, and the master, and the service, and the tide. Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

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like a wood woman:] The folio, 1623, prints it thus,-" like a wouldwoman," with a hyphen, and the old corrector of the folio, 1632, alters would to wild; but the proper emendation seems to be "wood" for would,-"wood" signifying wild, frantic, mad, and so we print the text, "would-woman "having been preserved through all the four folios. It deserves remark that "she" is allowed to remain in the previous parenthesis (it is not a parenthesis in the early impressions), and not changed to shoe, as Blackstone proposed: if any alteration were adopted, it ought to be "Oh, that the shoe could speak!"

7- and the TIDE.] The first "tied" refers to the dog, and the last to the river, as we see from what follows,-" Why man, if the river were dry," &c. The joke which has occupied Launce and Panthino is, perhaps, more evident in the old copy, where the "tide" of the river, and the "tied" dog are spelt in the same way-tide.

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