Ros. O moft gentle Jupiter !-what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people!

CEL. How now! back friends;-Shepherd, go off a little-Go with him, firrah.

TOUCH. Come, fhepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with fcrip and fcrippage.

Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE.

CEL. Didft thou hear these verses?

Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for fome of them had in them more feet than the verfes would bear.

CEL. That's no matter; the feet might bear the yerfes.

Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verfe, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

CEL. But didft thou hear, without wondering

The paffage quoted by Mr. Malone from Marfton's Infatiate Countefs, has no reference to the ball of Atalanta, but to the golden apple which was adjudged to Venus by Paris, on Mount Ida.

After all, I believe, that " Atalanta's better part" means only the best part about her, fuch as was most commended. STEEVENS.

Sad-] Is grave, fober, not light. JOHNSON.

So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "She is never fad but when she fleeps." STEEVENS.

Σ

the touches-] The features; les traits.

So, in King Richard III:

JOHNSON.

"Madam, I have a touch of your condition."

STEEVENS.

how thy name should be hang'd and carved upon thefe trees?

Ros. I was feven of the nine days out of the wonder, before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never fo be-rhymed fince Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,3 which I can hardly remember.

CEL. Trow you, who hath done this?

Ros. Is it a man?

CEL. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour?

Ros. I pr'ythee, who?

CEL. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends

a palm-tree :] A palm-tree, in the forest of Arden, is as much out of its place, as the lioness in a fubfequent scene. STEEVENS.

3 -I was never fo be-rhymed fince Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,] Rofalind is a very learned lady. She alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine, which teaches that fouls tranfmigrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time he was an Irish rat, and by fome metrical charm was rhymed to death. The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his Satires, and Temple in his Treatifes. Dr. Grey has produced a fimilar paffage from Randolph :

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My poets

"Shall with a fatire, fteep'd in gall and vinegar,
Rhyme them to death as they do rats in Ireland.”

JOHNSON.

So, in an addrefs to the reader at the conclufion of Ben Jonfon's Poetafter :

"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats

"In drumming tunes."

STEEVENS.

So, in The Defence of Poefie, by our author's contemporary, Sir Philip Sidney: Though I will not with unto you to be driven by a poet's verfes, as Rubonax was, to hang yourself, nor to be rimed to death, as is faid to be done in Ireland.”

MALONE.

to meet;4 but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and fo encounter.5

Ros. Nay, but who is it?

CEL. Is it poffible?

Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

CEL. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping !6

4

Ros. Good my complexion!" doft thou think,

-friends to meet ;] Alluding ironically to the proverb: "Friends may meet, but mountains never greet." See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

S but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and fo encounter.] "Montes duo inter fe concurrerunt," &c. fays Pliny, Hift. Nat. Lib. II. c. lxxxiii. or in Holland's tranflation: "Two hills (removed by an earthquake) encountered together, charging as it were, and with violence affaulting one another, and retyring again with a most mighty noise.'

TOLLET.

out of all whooping!] i. e. out of all measure, or reckoning. So, in the old ballad of Yorke, Yorke for my Money, &c. 1584:

"And then was fhooting, out of cry,

"The skantling at a handful nie."

Again, in the old bl. 1. comedy called Common Conditions:

"I have beraed myself out of cry." STEEVENS.

This appears to have been a phrase of the fame import as another formerly in ufe," out of all cry." The latter seems to allude to the cuftom of giving notice by a crier of things to be fold. So, in A Chafte Maide of Cheapfide, a comedy, by T. Middleton, 1630: “I'll fell all at an outcry." MALONE. An outcry is ftill a provincial term for an auction.

STEEVENS.

Good my complexion!] This is a mode of expression, Mr. Theobald fays, which he cannot reconcile to common fenfe. Like enough and fo too the Oxford editor. But the meaning isHold good my complexion, i. e. let me not blufh.

VOL. VIII.

H

WARBURTON.

though I am caparifon'd like a man, I have a doublet and hofe in my difpofition? One inch of delay more is a South-fea-off discovery. I pr'ythee, tell

Good my complexion !] My native character, my female inquifitive difpofition, canft thou endure this!-For thus characterizing the most beautiful part of the creation, let our author anfwer. MALONE.

Good my complexion! is a little unmeaning exclamatory addrefs to her beauty; in the nature of a small oath. RITSON.

8 One inch of delay more is a South-fea-off discovery.] The old copy reads-is a South-fea of difcoverie. STEEVENS.

This is ftark nonfenfe; we muft read-off discovery, i. e. from difcovery. "If you delay me one inch of time longer, I fhall think this fecret as far from difcovery as the South-fea is." WARBURTON.

This fentence is rightly noted by the commentator as nonfense, but not so happily restored to fenfe. I read thus:

One inch of delay more is a South-fea. Discover, I pr'ythee; tell me who is it quickly!-When the tranfcriber had once made difcovery from difcover I, he eafily put an article after South-fea. But it may be read with ftill lefs change, and with equal probability-Every inch of delay more is a South-fea difcovery: Every delay, however fhort, is to me tedious and irkfome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South-fea. How much voyages to the South-fea on which the English had then firft ventured, engaged the conversation of that time, may be easily imagined. JOHNSON.

Of for off, is frequent in the elder writers. A South-fea of difcovery is a difcovery a South-fea off-as far as the South-fea. FARMER.

Warburton's fophiftication ought to have been reprobated, and the old, which is the only reading that can preferve the fenfe of Rofalind, reftored. A South-fea of difcovery, is not a difcovery, as FAR OFF, but as COMPREHENSIVE as the Southfea; which, being the largest in the world, affords the wideft fcope for exercifing curiofity. HENLEY,

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On a further confideration of this paffage I am strongly inclined to think, with Dr. Johnson, that we should read a Southfea difcovery. Delay, however fhort, is to me tedious and irkfome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South-Sea." The word of, which had occurred juft before, might have been inadvertently repeated by the compofitor.

MALONE.

me, who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst ftammer, that thou might'ft pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once, or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings.

CEL. So you may put a man in your belly.

Ros. Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?

CEL. Nay, he hath but a little beard.

Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me ftay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.

CEL. It is young Orlando; that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels, and your heart, both in an inftant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; speak fad brow, and true maid.9

CEL. I'faith, coz, 'tis he.

Ros. Orlando ?

CEL. Orlando.

Ros. Alas the day! what fhall I do with my doublet and hose ?-What did he, when thou faw'ft him? What faid he? How look'd he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou fee him again? Answer me in one word.

9 Speak fad brow, and true maid.] i. e. fpeak with a grave countenance, and as truly as thou art a virgin; speak seriously and honeftly. RITSON.

I

Wherein went he?] In what manner was he clothed? How did he go dreffed? HEATH.