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Speed. Why didst not tell me sooner? 'pox of your love-letters! [Exit.

Laun. Now will he be swinged for reading my letter: An unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets!-I'll after, to rejoice in the boy's correction. [Exit.

SCENE II.

The same. A room in the Duke's Palace.

Enter Duke and THURIO; PROTEUS behind.

Duke. Sir Thurio, fear not, but that she will love you,
Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.

Thu. Since his exíle she hath despis'd me most,
Forsworn my company, and rail'd at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.

Duke. This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice; which, with an hour's heat,
Dissolves to water, and doth lose its form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.-
How now, sir Proteus? Is your countryman,
According to our proclamation, gone?

Pro. Gone, my good lord.

Duke. My daughter takes his going grievously.
Pro. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
Duke. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.-

Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee,
(For thou hast shown some sign of good desert) Sure
Makes me the better to confer with thee.

Pro. Longer than I prove loyal to your grace,
Let me not live to look upon your grace.
Duke. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
The match between sir Thurio and my daughter.
Pro. I do, my lord.

Duke. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant

How she opposes her against my will.

Pro. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
Duke. Ay, and perversely she persévers so.

• Trenched in ice;] Cut, carved in ice. Trancher, to cut, French. Johnson.

So in Arden of Feversham. 1592:

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at might we do, to make the girl forget - love of Valentine, and love sir Thurio? ro. The best way is to slander Valentine ch falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent ; ee things, that women highly hold in hate. Duke. Ay, but she 'll think that it is spoke in hate. Pro. Ay, if his enemy deliver it:

erefore it must, with circumstance, be spoken
one, whom she esteemeth, as his friend.

Duke. Then you must undertake to slander him.
Pro. And that, my lord, I shall be loth to do:
s an ill office for a gentleman ;

Decially, against his very friend.

Duke. Where your good word cannot advantage him, ur slander never can endamage him:

merefore the office is indifferent,

ing entreated to it by your friend.

Pro. You have prevail'd, my lord: if I can do it,

aught that I can speak in his dispraise,

e shall not long continue love to him.

7 - with circumstance,] With the addition of such incidental articulars, as may induce belief. Johnson.

his very friend.] Very is immediate. So, in Macbeth: "And the very ports they blow." Steevens.

as you unwind her love -] As you wind off her love from im, make me the bottom on which you wind it. The housewife's erm for a ball of thread, wound upon a central body, is a bottom f thread. Johnson.

So, in Grange's Garden, 1557: "in answer to a letter written into him by a Curtyzan:"

"A bottome for your silke it seems

"My letters are become,

"Which oft with winding off and on

Are wasted whole and some "

Steevens

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lime,] That is, birdlime. Johnson.

- such integrity:] Such integrity may mean such ardour and sincerity, as would be manifested by practising the directions, given in the four preceding lines. Steevens.

I suspect that a line, following this, has been lost; the import of which perhaps was

"As her obdurate heart may penetrate." Malone.

4 For Orpheus lute was strung with poets' sinews;] This shews Shakspeare's knowledge of antiquity. He here assigns Orpheus his true character of legislator. For, under that of a poet only, or lover, the quality given to his lute is unintelligible. But, considered as a lawgiver, the thought is noble, and the imagery exquisitely beautiful. For, by his lute, is to be understood his system of laws; and by the poets' sinews, the power of numbers, which Orpheus actually employed in those laws, to make them received by a fierce and barbarous people. Warburton.

Proteus is describing to Thurio the powers of poetry; and gives no quality to the lute of Orpheus, but those usually and vulgarly ascribed to it. It would be strange indeed, if, in order to prevail upon the ignorant and stupid Thurio to write a sonnet en Lin mistress be should enlarge upon the legislative powers of

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ose golden touch could soften steel and stones, ke tigers tame, and huge leviathans -sake unsounded deeps, to dance on sands. er your dire lamenting elegies, sit by night your lady's chamber-window, ith some sweet concert:5 to their instruments ne a deploring dump; the night's dead silence

pheus, which were nothing to the purpose. Warburton's obvations frequently tend to prove Shakspeare more profound 1 learned than the occasion required, and to make the Poet of ture the most unnatural that ever wrote. M. Mason.

5

with some sweet concert:] The old copy has consort, mich I once thought might have meant, in our author's time, a nd or company of musicians. So, in Romeo and Juliet : "Tyb. Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo.

"Mer. Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels?” The subsequent words, "To their instruments -," seem to faur this interpretation; but other instances, that I have since Let with, in books of our author's age, have convinced me, that nsort was only the old spelling of concert, and I have accordingly rinted the latter word in the text. The epithet sweet, annexed

it, seems better adapted to the musick itself than to the band. Fonsort, when accented on the first syllable (as here), had, I beLeve, the former meaning; when on the second, it signified a ompany. So, in the next scene :

"What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?" Malone. 6 Tune a deploring dump;] A dump was the ancient term for a nournful elegy.

A DOMPE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

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