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Hel. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid, I found you wond'rous kind. There is your ring, And, look you, here's your letter; This it says, When from my finger you can get this ring, And are by me with child, &c.-This is done : Will you be mine, now you are doubly won ?

Ber. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,

I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

Hel. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce step between me and you!—
O, my dear mother, do I see you living?

Laf. Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon: -Good Tom Drum, [To Parolles.] lend me a handkerchief: So, I thank thee; wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee: Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.

King. Let us from point to point this story know, To make the even truth in pleasure flow::

If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,

[To Diana.

Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess, that, by thy honest aid,

Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.—.
Of that, and all the progress, more and less,

Resolvedly more leisure shall express:

All yet seems well; and, if it end so meet,

The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet. [Flourish.

Advancing.

The king's a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to pleuse you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts,

[Exeunt,

UPON

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

1-in ward,] UNDER his particular care, as my guardian, till I come to age. It is now almost forgotten in England, that the heirs of great fortunes were the King's wards. Whether the same practice prevailed in France, it is of no great use to enquire, for Shakspeare gives to all nations the manners of England.

JOHNSON.

2-where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, &c.] Virtues in an unclean mind are virtues and traitors Estimable and useful qualities, joined with an evil disposition, give that evil disposition power over others, who, by admiring the virtue, are betrayed to the malevolence. The Tatler, mentioning the sharpers of his time, observes, that some of them are men of such elegance and knowledge, that a young man who falls into their way, is betrayed as much by his judgement as his passions.

3

JOHNSON.

If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.] Lafeu says, excessive grief is the enemy

of the living: the countess replies, If the living be an enemy to grief, the excess soon makes it mortal: that is, If the living do not indulge grief, grief destroys itself by its own excess. By the word mortal I understand that which dies; and Dr. Warburton [who reads-be not enemy-] that which destroys. I think that my interpretation gives a sentence more acute and more refined. Let the reader judge.

JOHNSON.

✦ —these great tears grace his remembrance more, Than those I shed for him.] The tears which the King and Countess shed for him.

JOHNSON.

5 In his bright radiance, &c.] I cannot be united with him and move in the same sphere, but must be comforted at a distance by the radiance that shoots on all sides from him.

JOHNSON.

6-trick of his sweet favour:] So, in King John: "he hath a trick of Cœur de Lion's face." Trick seems to be some peculiarity or feature. JOHNSON. 7-stain of soldier-] We use the same sort of expression in our own days; " he has a smack of the soldier about him," or "he is tinctured with such and such a quality."

8 Your date is better in your pye, &c.] Here is a quibble on the word date, which means both age, and a candied fruit much used in our author's time. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

They call for dates and quinces in the pastry."

STEEVENS.

Aphanix, &c.] The eight lines following friend,

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