Into a manly stride, and speak of frays

Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,

How honorable ladies sought my love,

Which I denying, they fell sick and died;

I could not do withal: then I'll repent,

70

And wish, for all that, that I had not kill'd them;

And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,

That men shall swear I have discontinued
school

About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
Which I will practice.

Ner.
Why, shall we turn to men?
Por. Fie, what a question's that,

80

If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device
When I am in my coach, which stays for us
At the park-gate; and therefore haste away,
For we must measure twenty miles to-day.
[Exeunt.

69. "quaint"; ingenious.-C. H. H.

72. "I could not do withal"; a phrase of the time, signifying I could not help it. So, in the Morte d' Arthur: "None of them will say well of you, nor none of them will doe battle for you, and that shall be great slaunder for you in this court. Alas! said the queen, I cannot doe withall." And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Little French Lawyer, Dinant, who is reproached by Clerimont for not silencing the music, which endangered his safety, replies: "I cannot do withal; I have spoke and spoke; I am betrayed and lost too." And in Palsgrave's Table of Verbes, quoted by Mr. Dyce: "I can not do withall, a thyng lyeth not in me, or I am not in faulte that a thyng is done."-H. N. H.

SCENE V

The same. A garden.

Enter Launcelot and Jessica.

Laun. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the
father are to be laid upon the children:
therefore, I promise ye, I fear you. I was
always plain with you, and so now I speak
my agitation of the matter: therefore be of
good cheer; for, truly, I think you are
damned. There is but one hope in it that
can do you any good: and that is but a kind
of bastard hope neither.
Jes. And what hope is that, I
pray thee?
Laun. Marry, you may partly hope that your
father got you not, that you are not the
Jew's daughter.

Jes. That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed:
so the sins of my mother should be visited
upon me.

Laun. Truly then I fear you are damned both by father and mother: thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are gone both ways.

10

3. "I fear you"; that is, fear for you, on your account. So, in Richard III, Act i. sc. 1:

"The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,

And his physicians fear him mightily."-H. N. H.

5. "agitation"; i. e. cogitation.-C. H. H.

Jes. I shall be saved by my husband; he hath

made me a Christian. Laun. Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians enow before; e'en as many as could well live, one by another. This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs: if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

Enter Lorenzo.

Jes. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you
say: here he comes.
Lor. I shall grow jealous of you shortly,
Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into

corners.

Jes. Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo:
Launcelot and I are out. He tells me
flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven,
because I am a Jew's daughter: and he says,
you are no good member of the common-
wealth; for, in converting Jews to Chris-
tians, you raise the price of pork.
Lor. I shall answer that better to the common-

wealth than you can the getting up of the
negro's belly: the Moor is with child by you,
Launcelot.

Laun. It is much that the Moor should be more
than reason: but if she be less than an hon-

22

31

41

25. "one by another"; side by side, i. e. where they compete for a livelihood.-C. H. H.

est woman, she is indeed more than I took her for. Lor. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence; and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner.

Laun. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.

Lor. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner.

Laun. That is done too, sir; only 'cover' is the word.

Lor. Will you cover, then, sir?

Laun. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty. Lor. Yet more quarreling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee, understand a plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows; bid them cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner. Laun. For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat, sir, it shall be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humors and conceits shall govern.

49

[Exit. Lor. O dear discretion, how his words are suited! The fool hath planted in his memory

73

50. "How every fool," etc.; a shrewd proof that the Poet rightly estimated the small wit, the puns and verbal tricks, in which he so often indulges. He did it to please others, not himself.-H. N. H.

73. "The fool hath planted," etc.; probably an allusion to the habit of wit-snapping, the constant straining to speak out of the common way, which then filled the highest places of learning and of

An army of good words; and I do know A many fools, that stand in better place, Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica? And now, good sweet, say thy opinion, How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife? Jes. Past all expressing. It is very meet

80

The Lord Bassanio live an upright life;
For, having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
And if on earth he do not mean it, then
In reason he should never come to heaven.
Why, if two gods should play some heavenly
match

And on the wager lay two earthly women,
And Portia one, there must be something else
Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world
Hath not her fellow.

Lor.

Even such a husband

Hast thou of me as she is for a wife. Jes. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that. Lor. I will anon: first, let us go to dinner.

90

the state. One could scarce come at the matter, it was so finely flourished in the speaking. But such an epidemic was easier to censure than to avoid. Launcelot is a good satire upon the practice, though the satire rebounds upon the Poet himself.-H. N. H.

84. "And if on earth he do not mean it, then In reason"; the second Quarto "it, it"; the Folios "it, it is.”—I. G.

Various emendations have been suggested for "mean," but no change is necessary-"mean"—"aim at." A kind correspondent, Mr. S. W. Orson, calls attention to Herbert's use of the word in The Church Porch (E. Stock's reprint of the first edition) "Shoots higher much than he than means a tree" (p. 12), and "Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky" (p. 163).—I. G.