Please you to interpose, fair madam; kneel,
And pray your mother's blessing.-Turn, good

lady;
Our Perdita is found.

[Presenting Perdita, who kneels to Hermione. Her.

You gods, look down, And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head!—Tell me, mine own, Where hast thou been preserv’d? where liv'd? how

found Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear, that I,Knowing by Paulina, that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being,-have preserv'd my

self, To see the issue. Paul,

There's time enough for that;
Lest they desire, upon this push, to trouble
Your joys with like relation.—Go together,
You precious winners all 70; your exultation
Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some wither'd bough; and there
My mate, that's never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.
Leon.

O peace, Paulina;
Thou should'st a husband take by my consent,
As I by thine, a wife: this is a match,
And made between's by vows.

Thou hast found
mine;
But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her,
As I thought, dead: and have, in vain, said many

A prayer upon her grave: I'll not seek far
(For him, I partly know his mind,) to find thee
An honourable husband:-Come, Camillo,
And take her by the hand: whose worth, and ho.

nesty,
Is richly noted; and here justify'd
By us, a pair of kings.—Let's from this place.-
What?-Look upon my brother:—both your par-

dons, That e'er I put between your holy looks My ill suspicion,-This your son-in-law, And son unto the king, (whom heavens directing,) Is troth-plight to your daughter.-Good Paulina, Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely Each one demand, and answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first We were dissever'd: Hastily lead away. [Exeunt.

ANNOTATIONS

UPON

THE WINTER'S TALE.

4

" Wherein our entertainment, &c.] Though we cannot give you equal entertainment, yet the consciousness of our good will shall justify us.

JOHNSON 2-royally attornied,] Nobly supplied by substitution of embassies, &c.

JOHNSON. 3 That may blow no sneaping winds.] That may blow is a Gallicism, for May there blow.

-behind the gest.] In the time of royal progresses the king's stages, as we may see by the journals of them in the heralds office, were called his GESTS;

from the old French word giste, diversorium.

s th' imposition clear'd,

Hereditary ours.] i. e, setting aside original sin; bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence to heaven.

WARBURTON. • With spur we heat an acre.]

We heat an acre, is as if he said run an acre. In horse-racing the

WARBURTON.

term is in constant use. A heat of four miles, is a race of four miles, and to run a heat, is to run a

race.

? And clap thyself my love;] Mr. Steevens has adopted clap from some old copy, but I prefer the ordinary reading of clepe, that is, call or denominate thyself my love.

: We must be neat;] Leontes, seeing his son's nose smutched, cries, we must be neat, then recollecting that neat is the term for horned cattle, he says, not neat, but cleanly.

JOHNSON 9-Still virginalling-] Still playing with her fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals.

JOHNSON. A virginal, as I am informed, is a very small kind of spinnet. Queen Elizabeth's virginal book is yet in being, and many of the lessons in it have proved so difficult, as to baffle our most expert players on the harpsichord.

STEEYBNS. 10 As o'er-dy'd blacks,-] Sir T. Hanmer understands, blacks dyed too much, and therefore rotten.

JOHNSON It is common with tradesmen to dye their faded or damaged stuffs, black. O'er-dy'd blacks may mean those which have received a dye over their former colour.

11 Welkin-eye,] i. e. blue-eye.

12 Will you take eggs for money ?] The meaning of this is, will you put up affronts? The French have a proverbial saying, A qui vendez vous coquilles?