Duke. This discipline shews, thou hast been in love. hu. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice: refore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,

us into the city presently,

sort some gentlemen, well skill'd in musick: ave a sonnet, that will serve the turn,

give the onset to thy good advice.

Juke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. We'll wait upon your grace till after supper:

d afterward determine our proceedings.

Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you.9

1 Out. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.

2 Out. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

3 Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;

not, we 'll make you sit, and rifle you.1 Speed. Sir, we are undone! these are the villains, That all the travellers do fear so much.

This sense of the word was not wholly disused in the time of Milton, who in his Comus has-"disinherit Chaos," meaning nly, dispossess it. Steevens.

8 To sort-] i. e. to choose out. So, in K. Richard III: "Yet I will sort a pitchy hour for thee." Steevens. 9- I will pardon you.] I will excuse you from waiting.

1 If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.] The old copy reads as I have printed the passage. Paltry as the opposition between stand and sit may be thought, it is Shakspeare's own. My predecessors read" we 'll make you, sir," &c. Steevens.

She is the communt seeding of thing

2 Out. Peace; we'll hear him.

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

For he 's a proper man.2

Val. Then know, that I have little wealth to lose;

A man I am, cross'd with adversity:

My riches are these poor habiliments,

Of which if you should here disfurnish me,

You take the sum and substance that I have.

2 Out. Whither travel you?

Val. To Verona.

1 Out. Whence came you?

Val. From Milan.

3 Out. Have you long sojourn'd there?

Val. Some sixteen months; and longer might have

staid,

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 rehearse:

I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully, in fight,

Without false vantage, or base treachery.

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

Val. I was; and held me glad of such a doom. 1 Out. Have you the tongues?

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy;

Or else, I often had been miserable.

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

la

"With goodly shape -." Malone.

"And partly, seeing you are beautified

S

S

Johnson.

t C

fellow were a king for our wild faction.

Out. We'll have him: sirs, a word.

need.

an honourable kind of thievery.

al. Peace, villain!

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

al. Nothing, but my fortune.

Out. Know then, that some of us are gentlemen,

h as the fury of ungovern'd youth

must from the company of awful men:4 lawful m.p.

er Tuck, who was confessor and companion to this noted outSo, in one of the old songs of Robin Hood: "And of brave little John,

"Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett,

"Stokesly and Maid Marian."

ain, in the 26th song of Drayton's Polyolbion :

"Of Tuck the merry friar, which many a sermon made,
"In praise of Robin Hoode, his out-lawes, and his trade."

ain, in Skelton's Play of Magnificence, f. 5, 6:
"Another bade shave halfe my berde,
"And boys to the pylery gan me plucke,
"And wolde have made me freer Tucke
"To preche oute of the pylery hole."

See figure III. in the plate at the end of the first part of King nry IV. with Mr. Tollet's observations on it. Steevens.

Dr. Johnson seems to have misunderstood this passage. The eaker does not swear by the scalp of some churchman, who had en plundered, but by the shaven crown of Robin Hood's chapn.-" We will live and die together, (says a personage in eele's Edward I. 1593) like Robin Hood, little John, friar acke, and Maide Marian." Malone.

4

awful men:] Reverend, worshipful, such as magistrates, d other principal members of civil communities. Johnson. Awful is used by Shakspeare, in another place, in the sense of wful. Second part of K. Henry IV. Act IV. sc, ii:

"We come within our awful banks again." Tyrwhitt. o, in King Henry V. 1600:

Awful men means men well governed, observant of law and authoity; full of, or subject to, awe. In the same kind of sense as we ase fearful. Ritson.

Myself was from Verona banished,
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.5

2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, Whom, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.6

I Out. And I, for such like petty crimes as these.
But to the purpose,-(for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives,)
And, partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape; and by your own report
A linguist; and a man of such perfection,
As we do in our quality much want;-

2 Out. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity,
And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

5 An heir, and near allied unto the duke.] All the impressions, from the first downwards, read-An heir and niece, allied unto the duke. But our poet would never have expressed himself so stupidly, as to tell us, this lady was the duke's niece, and allied to him: for her alliance was certainly sufficiently included in the first term. Our author meant to say, she was an heiress, and near allied to the duke; an expression the most natural that can Theobald. be for the purpose, and very frequently used by the stage-poets.

A niece, or a nephew, did not always signify the daughter of a brother or sister, but any remote descendant. Of this use I have given instances, as to a nephew. See Othello, Act I. I have not, however, disturbed Theobald's emendation. Steevens.

Heir in our author's time (as it sometimes is now) was applied to females, as well as males. The old copy reads-And heir. The correction was made in the third folio, Malone.

6 Whom, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.] Thus, Dryden:
"Madness laughing in his ireful mood."

Again, Gray:

"Moody madness, laughing, wild." Henley.

Mood is anger or resentment. Malone.

in our quality - Our quality means our profession, calling, or condition of life. Thus, in Massinger's Roman Actor, Are, tinus says to Paris the tragedian:

"In thee, as being chief of thy profession,

" I do accuse the quality of treason :"

that is, the whole profession or fraternity.

Hamlet, speaking of the young players, says,

30

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Out. What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consórt? ay, and be the captain of us all:

'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,

e thee, as our commander, and our king.

Out. But, if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest. Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.

Fal. I take your offer, and will live with you; vided that you do no outrages

silly women, or poor passengers.

• Out. No, we detest such vile base practices. me, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews, cave d shew thee all the treasure we have got;

hich, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose. [Exeunt.

Pro. Already have I been false to Valentine, nd now I must be as unjust to Thurio. nder the colour of commending him, have access, my own love to prefer; ut Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy, To be corrupted with my worthless gifts. Vhen I protest true loyalty to her, he twits me with my falshood to my friend; When to her beauty I commend my vows, She bids me think, how I have been forsworn, n breaking faith with Julia, whom I lov'd: And, notwithstanding all her sudden quips,8 The least whereof would quell a lover's hope, Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love, The more it grows, and fawneth on her still. But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window, And give some evening musick to her ear.