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the heart of that French knave Bastian, who he alledged had done it out of despight that the queen made more of them than of the Frenchmen." REED.

The following copy of an illumination in a fine MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, preserved in the British Museum, will serve to illustrate Dr. Johnson's note, and to convey some idea, not only of the manner in which these hairy men were habited, but also of the rude simplicity of an ancient Ball-room and Masquerade. See the story at large in Froissart, B. IV. chap. lii. edit. 1559. DOUCE.

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selves saltiers:3 and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o'the mind, (if it be not too rough for some, that know little but bowling,) it will please plentifully.

SHEP. Away! we'll none on't; here has been too much humble foolery already :-I know, sir, we weary you.

POL. You weary those that refresh us: Pray, let's see these four threes of herdsmen.

SERV. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three, but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squire."

SHEP. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now,

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3 they call themselves saltiers:] He means Satyrs. Their dress was perhaps made of goat's skin. Cervantes mentions in the preface to his plays that in the time of an early Spanish writer, Lopè de Rueda, "All the furniture and utensils of the actors consisted of four shepherds' jerkins, made of the skins of sheep with the wool on, and adorned with gilt leather trimming: four beards and periwigs, and four pastoral crooks;--little more or less." Probably a similar shepherd's jerkin was used in our author's theatre. MALONE.

gallimaufry-] Cockeram, in his Dictionarie of hard Words, 12mo. 1622, says, a gallimaufry is "a confused heape of things together." STEEVENS.

-bowling,] Bowling, I believe, is here a term for a dance of smooth motion, without great exertion of agility. JOHNSON.

The allusion is not to a smooth dance, as Johnson supposes, but to the smoothness of a bowling green. M. MASON.

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by the squire.] i. e. by the foot-rule: Esquierre, Fr. See Love's Labour's Lost, Vol. VII. p. 177, n. 2. MALONE.

SERV. Why, they stay at door, sir.

[Exit.

Re-enter Servant, with Twelve Rusticks habited like Satyrs. They dance, and then exeunt.

POL. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.

Is it not too far gone?-'Tis time to part them.He's simple, and tells much. [Aside.]-How now, fair shepherd?

Your heart is full of something, that does take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young,
And handed love, as you do, I was wont

To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd
The pedler's silken treasury, and have pour'd it
To her acceptance; you have let him go,
And nothing marted with him: If your lass
Interpretation should abuse; and call this,
Your lack of love, or bounty; you were straited
For a reply, at least, if you make a care
Of happy holding her.

FLO.

Old sir, I know

Pol. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.] This is replied by the King in answer to the Shepherd's saying, since these good men are pleased. WArburton.

The dance which has intervened would take up too much time to preserve any connection between the two speeches. The line spoken by the King seems to be in reply to some unexpressed question from the old Shepherd. RITSON.

This is an answer to something which the Shepherd is supposed to have said to Polixenes during the dance. M. MASON.

— straited—] i. e. put to difficulties.

STEEVENS.

She prizes not such trifles as these are:

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The gifts, she looks from me, are pack'd and lock'd
Up in my heart; which I have given already,
But not deliver'd.-O, hear me breathe my life
Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,
Hath sometime lov'd: I take thy hand; this hand,
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it;
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow,'
That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er.
POL. What follows this?—

How prettily the young swain seems to wash
The hand, was fair before!-I have put you out:→
But, to your protestation; let me hear

What you profess.

FLO.

Do, and be witness to't.

POL. And this my neighbour too?

FLO. And he, and more Than he, and men; the earth, the heavens, and all: That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve; had force, and know

ledge,

More than was ever man's,-I would not prize them, Without her love for her, employ them all;

9who, it should seem,] Old copy-whom. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

Dream:

or the fann'd snow,] So, in A Midsummer-Night's

"That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,
"Fann'd by the eastern wind, turns to a crow,
"When thou hold'st up thy hand." STEEVENs.

or the fann'd snow,

That's bolted &c.] The fine sieve used by millers to separate flour from bran is called a bolting cloth. HARRIS.

Commend them, and condemn them, to her service, Or to their own perdition.

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So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better: By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out The purity of his.

SHEP.

Take hands, a bargain ;And, friends unknown you shall bear witness to't: I give my daughter to him, and will make Her portion equal his.

O, that must be

FLO. I'the virtue of your daughter: one being dead, I shall have more than you can dream of yet; Enough then for your wonder: But, come on, Contract us 'fore these witnesses.

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POL. Methinks, a father

Is, at the nuptial of his son, a guest

That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more;

Is not your father grown incapable

Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid

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